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Yep, JEB is FKD
Yep, JEB is FKD
By Josh Marshall
Published May 12, 2015, 11:52 AM EDT
We've now seen Jeb Bush make what many saw as an eye-popping statement yesterday and now seen a former top advisor saying he now claims that he misunderstood the question which prompted that statement. There are some details to work through. Ana Navarro does not currently work for Gov. Bush (at least that's my understanding), so we don't know for certain yet whether she is speaking for him in this case or providing the campaign's position. (This isn't to doubt her. We just need to hear this from an official representative.) But the upshot is that Jeb Bush's campaign is looked pretty screwed at the moment. And here's why.
It's bad enough that Jeb took a position which when stated out loud will be very difficult to sustain with the current US electorate. (See the chart below which is from NBC's write-up on this topic and their poll on this question.) It's what this day two turnabout will now necessarily bring in its wake.
Before getting to that though, let's be honest. Of course he understood the question!
As I noted yesterday if you watch the exchange Jeb actually goes out of his way to shift the question back from 'what we know now' to 'what we knew then'. So not only did he understand the question, he understood how difficult it was for him to answer and did everything he could in real time to avoid answering it.
By now switching gears and saying he misunderstood the question he appears to be committing himself to some version of "Yep, that was a mistake." That in turn all but guarantees a major sit-down interview dedicated entirely to the issue of Iraq (awesome for the campaign!) in which Jeb will try to finesse saying that Iraq was actually a mistake and that his brother, George W. Bush, who he says advises him on Middle East policy, is responsible for what by sheer dint of its magnitude alone must be considered one of the biggest foreign policy blunders in American history.
So far so good?
It gets better!
more...
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/yep-jeb-is-fkd
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