recently wrote<\/a> in The Times, Poppy and Bush retainers like John Sununu are bewildered by a conservative electorate that rejects Republican primogeniture, prefers snark to substance and embraces an extremely weird brain surgeon and an extravagantly wild reality show star.<\/p>\nWhen the Bushes had to stick a shiv in the ribs of their foes, they behaved like gentlemen and outsourced it to henchmen. They can\u2019t fathom a world where that vulgarian Trump is doing his own dirty work.<\/p>\n
Trump has gotten into Jeb\u2019s head, making Jeb so petulant he declared he had \u201ca lot of really cool things\u201d he could be doing instead, when we all know he doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
For Bushworld, this was the election where the Cain and Abel drama of W. and Jeb would finally have a happy ending.<\/p>\n
I covered the Jeb and Junior sibling smashdown from the start. In 1993, I went on the road to watch Jeb run for governor in Florida and W. run for governor in Texas.<\/p>\n
Barbara had blurted out to W. that he shouldn\u2019t run because he couldn\u2019t win. And when I talked to Jeb, he seemed annoyed that his older brother had jumped into the race in Texas because it turned it into \u201ca People magazine story.\u201d<\/p>\n
But W. had spent his rowdy 20s and 30s living with the unpleasant fact that even though he was the oldest, his parents assumed Jeb had the bright political future. At 47, with his drinking days behind him and Laura beside him, he was ready to cash in on the family name and money and make his move.<\/p>\n
It was soon clear to me that the Good Son was not as scintillating a campaigner as the Prodigal Son. W. didn\u2019t know the issues and he had a spiteful side, but he was the one with the crackle.<\/p>\n
When Jeb came up with a line on the trail in Florida that worked, W. just swiped it. When Jeb said, \u201cI am running for governor not because I am George and Barbara Bush\u2019s son; I am running because I am George P. and Noelle and Jeb\u2019s father,\u201d W. began saying: \u201cI am not running for governor because I am George Bush\u2019s son. I am running because I am Jenna and Barbara\u2019s father.\u201d Karl Rove laughed about the shoplifting.<\/p>\n
Jeb was the image of his mother, especially when he smiled, but his pragmatic political temperament was more like his father\u2019s, even though he never had his dad\u2019s manic \u201cants on a hot pan\u201d energy. W. looked like his father but got his acerbic streak from his mother.<\/p>\n
On election night, W. was steamed that his father seemed more upset by Jeb\u2019s loss than excited by his oldest son\u2019s win. Not only did W. shock his family by making it to the Oval Office before Jeb. In the tie election, Jeb had to be prodded into helping his brother snatch Florida away from Al Gore.<\/p>\n
This was going to be the year that settled sibling scores. Jeb would get what his parents considered his birthright.<\/p>\n
Even though the brothers are not particularly close, and W.\u2019s tragic overinvolvement in the Middle East and tragic underinvolvement in Katrina did not make him a campaign asset, somehow Jeb kept wrapping himself around W.\u2019s axle \u2014 and his Axis of Evil.<\/p>\n
When Jeb was first asked if it had been a good idea to invade Iraq, he gave four different answers. Then he said he wouldn\u2019t rule out torture and thought getting rid of Saddam was \u201ca pretty good deal.\u201d And he couldn\u2019t stop bragging about how his brother kept America safe, even though Trump correctly noted that W. was not on the ball leading up to 9\/11. And, of course, W.\u2019s two misbegotten wars have been recruiting boons for terrorist fiends.<\/p>\n
Jeb explained away his shambling, shrinking campaign by saying he was a doer, not a performer. But the main thing he was doing was helping to rehabilitate his brother\u2019s pockmarked reputation.<\/p>\n
W. headlined a fund-raiser at a Georgetown home Thursday night. When he came out, a TMZ camera captured him jovially signing autographs for people waiting on the street and calling out as he drove away, \u201cDon\u2019t put that on eBay.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Friday morning, the chatterers were comparing the stiff Jeb to the loosey-goosey W., gushing with the mistaken clich\u00e9 that W. is comfortable in his own skin. It was the ultimate vindication for W. His parents had been wrong all along. Jeb wasn\u2019t the Natural on the trail. He was.<\/p>\n
Some Jeb! campaign officials think he should \u201ckiss off Iowa,\u201d as one put it, where he\u2019s flatlining, and put the emphasis on New Hampshire, setting the stage for South Carolina. \u201cThat\u2019s what 41 did when Bob Dole was winning Iowa,\u201d said one family friend. The Bushworld veterans think that someone gave Jeb bad advice about trying to put his prot\u00e9g\u00e9 Marco Rubio in his place at the debate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looked out of character for him,\u201d one said. \u201cHe looked like he was a little lost when Marco came back at him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jeb\u2019s loyalists are urging reporters to point out, as one asserted, that Trump would be \u201ca catastrophe for the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
They also think Jeb has to be more self-deprecating, because he has no choice, and stress his Latino support.<\/p>\n
Before the debate debacle, the joyless candidate had been doubling down on his promise to be joyful, proclaiming on NewsmaxTV, \u201cI\u2019m having a blast\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m in phenomenal shape for an old 62-year-old guy. In fact, I think we ought to have five-hour debates.\u201d<\/p>\n
But this campaign has been defined by Trump parachuting in, like an Elvis impersonator in Vegas, and disrupting the royal coronation. Jeb had been out of politics for eight years and he strolled back, mistakenly assuming that the vassals were waiting eagerly to hail him.<\/p>\n
With Trump belittling him for being low energy and running to Mommy and Daddy for help, Jeb realized he was in a new world.<\/p>\n
His brother\u2019s muscle-bound presidency led to Barack Obama and the diffident Obama led to a new brand of furious, Tea Party-infused Republicans.<\/p>\n
While Jeb was offstage, the whole party and political environment had passed him by. He came back looking very \u201990s. He\u2019s talking about pragmatic government at a time when the drivers in his party are talking about tearing it down.<\/p>\n
Jeb is trapped in a nightmarish d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu. Once he was cast as the wonky one while his brother, the sparky one, slipped ahead. Now Jeb is cast as the wonky one while Marco, the sparky one, slips ahead.<\/p>\n
Jeb got confused. He thought he was still in an era when people had to pay their dues.<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/11\/01\/opinion\/sunday\/fall-of-the-house-of-bush.html?_r=1<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}