Draft JEB! Movement Takes Off (I Told You So!)

I hate to say it (nah, not really), but I told you so.

The reinstallation of the Bush Dynasty has been the sole reason for the clown circus, featuring the truly unqualified Rethugs. Calling all newts, hermanators, im-palins, mittens, and other known fools (even the truly ignorant who are still running TV commercials after their elimination from any type of consideration) to trot back into the shadows and receive your payoffs and Koch-funded professorships.

[Please accept my heartfelt thanks for the support you've given to my blog this year (or any other). It's been a particularly difficult economic time in my life, and I want to thank my friends for any and all contributions you may have made to me personally and/or the well being of this political blogspout. From my heart, I send you my sincere gratitude and joyous wishes for a much better new year.]

Draft Jeb!

By Charles P. Pierce

He was the golden child, if there can be said to be a golden child in a brood that included one son who was an S&L swindler who later went on to a career of being surprised when Thai hookers showed up unannounced at his hotel room door, another who was the worst president in the history of this or any other Republic (banana-style included), and a largely invisible baby sister. He was supposed to be the savvy one, the presidential one, not that dolt of a brother who ducked his National Guard duty, ran several businesses into the dust of west Texas, got drunk and challenged the Auld Fella to a fistfight, and kept driving his car into the bushes. But the dolt got Daddy's money and Daddy's lawyers behind him and got installed as president, where he did his utmost to lodge the family brand somewhere between those enjoyed by Corvair and leprosy. Meanwhile, the golden child got to be governor of Florida for a while longer.

And now, in the widening gyre, slouching toward Manchester to be born, our moment of... Jeb (!)

Make no mistake. You don't write an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal at this point in the Republican primary process unless somebody, somewhere wants to make people think you're an legitimate option. You certainly don't write one as stuffed full of free-market banana-oil as this one unless somebody, somewhere wants to raise enough money to make the world think you're a legitimate option. There was enough Jeb (!) buzz over the weekend that it's becoming plain that some very important someone's have looked over the current Republican field and decided that, by god, it's just bad enough that there's room in there to bring back the most discredited surname in American politics. The slogan writes itself:

"Jeb! This time, let's try the smart one."

(Can we pause for a moment here and point out that the interpersonal dynamics of the Bush family likely would make Euripides read like a Judy Blume novel? Thank you. We continue.)

The op-ed is appalling on its face, and that's not even to mention Jeb (!)'s affection for zombie-eyed granny starver Paul Ryan. Jeb! shows himself to be brave enough to assert that predatory capitalism is not merely an unalloyed good for the country, but also something of an inalienable right in and of itself. Not so? Then what does this mean?

That is what economic freedom looks like. Freedom to succeed as well as to fail, freedom to do something or nothing. People understand this. Freedom of speech, for example, means that we put up with a lot of verbal and visual garbage in order to make sure that individuals have the right to say what needs to be said, even when it is inconvenient or unpopular. We forgive the sacrifices of free speech because we value its blessings.

But when it comes to economic freedom, we are less forgiving of the cycles of growth and loss, of trial and error, and of failure and success that are part of the realities of the marketplace and life itself. 

In 1944, when FDR announced his Second Bill Of Rights, he asked for, in order:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation; the right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation; the right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living; the right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad; the right of every family to a decent home; the right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health; the right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment; the right to a good education.

Now here comes Jeb (!), declaring that wealthy individuals are being "punished with ruinous taxation." Name three. And also:

Congressman Paul Ryan recently coined a smart phrase to describe the core concept of economic freedom: "The right to rise." Think about it. We talk about the right to free speech, the right to bear arms, the right to assembly. The right to rise doesn't seem like something we should have to protect.But we do. We have to make it easier for people to do the things that allow them to rise. We have to let them compete. We need to let people fight for business. We need to let people take risks. We need to let people fail. We need to let people suffer the consequences of bad decisions.

I've thought about it, Jeb (!). Paul Ryan is a fake, selling snake oil to the rubes while simultaneously running the ball for people who have gotten rich by stifling the right to rise and by making sure that the right to rise never rises again. And, you may have missed it, but the current economic state of the country is not because we failed to let people "suffer the consequences of bad decisions." The current economic state of the country is the result of how the rest of us have had to "suffer the consequences" of "bad decisions"(and outright crimes) committed by the very people whom you'd like to free from even the minimal regulations that have been placed on them as a result of their having damned near blown up the world.

And he's the smart one. Remember that. 

But the part that's truly hilarious, especially if you remember Governor Jeb (!), is this part,

As Florida's governor for eight years, I was asked to "do something" almost every day. Many times I resisted through vetoes but many times I succumbed.

I remember one time you "succumbed," foof. Two words.

Terri Schiavo.

Jeb (!) played right along when wingnut fanatics took a personal family issue and turned it into an international media circus. He brought unconscionable pressure down on people at a hospice who'd never done anything to him. He put an unforgivable amount of pressure on a great, brave woman named Annie Santa Maria, whom I would like to lock in a room with him one day and see who comes out alive. (My money's on Annie, by the way.)

He came dangerously close to initiating hostilities between the local authorities in Pinellas Park and the Florida state patrol. On October 21, 2003, he issued an order for Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, which had been disconnected by order of a court six days earlier. He did this by ramming an ad hoc bill through his pet legislature that allowed him to "overrule" a court's decision in this regard. (And people think Newt Gingrich is the only authoriarian yahoo in the race. He may yet have some competition there.) He made life a living hell for Michael Schiavo, and for the judges who ultimately had to deal with this mess. He allied himself with the worst elements of the lunatic Right, some of whom were threatening Michael and some of whom were threatening the judges.

And when the cruel hash he helped make out of events finally came to an end, and when an autopsy showed that Terri Schiavo had been every bit as actually dead as her husband had been saying all along, Jeb (!) still wasn't satisfied. He demanded — and got — a state investigation into possible "crimes" committed in the case of this poor woman — including, most foully, whether or not Michael had been responsible for her condition in the first place — and that didn't end until the Florida attorney general finally told him to shut up about it.

That's our Jeb (!) Bankers should be free to steal your pension, but husbands should not be free to decide end-of-life care for their wives.

By all means, roll him out there with the rest of the clowns. He'll fit right in.

(Photo Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty)

Always room for more clowns!

Bring Them ON!!!