What Jeb Bush Really Said

salon.com — Tax-ayatollah Grover Norquist called it “foolish” and “bizarre,” but former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush made a bid for party leadership with his calculated remarks praising Ronald Reagan and criticizing his party’s no-compromise leadership. What got less attention was Bush’s implicit disrespect to his party’s nominee, Mitt Romney – as well as his apparent lack of confidence in Romney’s ability to defeat President Obama in November. “Back to my dad’s time or Ronald Reagan’s time, they got a lot of stuff done with a lot of bipartisan support that right now would be difficult to imagine happening,” Bush famously said, declaring Reagan and George H.W. Bush “would have had a hard time [in the GOP] if you define the Republican Party — and I don’t — as having an orthodoxy that doesn’t allow for disagreement.” Bush is attacking a point of view that Romney has essentially embraced.

more »