Saturday, December 04, 2010

News from the Ruby, Red and Rosy World of Jeb Bush ... by gimleteye

In an exclusive interview with conservative newsfeed, Newsmax, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush shows again-- no surprise--an arid world. Since leaving the Governor's Office in Florida, Jeb has been cosseted by corporate board memberships that don't require much except mastery of talking points aimed straight down the GOP fairway. For Newsmax, Jeb takes a driver to outgoing Gov. Charlie Crist (if Crist runs for office again, "he will be crushed".) He takes a sand wedge to the reputation of his brother, the former president, lifting it above Obama's-- or at least trying to.

One of his favorites is a parental gesture: his advice to President Obama is to "just chill". That's what Jebster suggests President Obama do. The interview also discloses Jeb is a great proponent of re-cycling. His best ideas are old polymers from the toxic, chemical soup of "free market" radicalism that led Florida and the nation into the worst housing bust in history and the economy into a virtual free fall.

“The second thing would be to create a pro-growth agenda for the country. If the country grew at 3.5 percent instead of 1.5 percent over a 10-year period, in the 10th year that variation of 2 percent, say, would create the economy of Germany." OK, the Bush GOP drove the economy into the ground with its last "pro-growth" agenda. Remember, The Ownership Society? Crafted by the Latin Builders Association and the National Association of Homebuilders: mortgages to anyone who could fog a mirror. The Bush GOP facilitated the greatest wealth transfer out of the middle class in US history. Now how are they going to fix the deficit? More homebuilders, more drywall, more roads and infrastructure and water pipes with spigots attached for campaign contributions.

Then the Jebster says, "We should trust people interacting amongst themselves, investing in their own dreams, to far more prosperity than all of this command-and-control environment that exists in Washington." There you have it: the oldest canards in the Karl Rove playbook: command-and-control. As in, if I am a polluter, I dare you to stop me from flushing my pollution into the Everglades or anywhere else.

The real target of the GOP isn't taxes. The tax issue, honestly, is a red herring for the GOP, because of the small numerical base: wage earners above $250,000 can't win a national election. It is all about profits from that base, that can be directed into political campaigns. More pollution, more profit.

That's why the true GOP target of the Republican Congress is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; an agency that struggles for footing under Democrat and Republican administrations. The bottom line: we really, really don't like to clean up after ourselves. Politico gets it right, "GOP lawmakers say they want to upend a host of Environmental Protection Agency rules by whatever means possible, including the Congressional Review Act, a rarely used legislative tool that allows Congress to essentially veto recently completed agency regulations."

The GOP doesn't like command-and-control unless when expressed as federal judicial appointments made by Republican presidents. That's the GOP activist agenda: justices who will upend the notion of vigorous pollution control.

In the Newsmax interview, Jeb tries to be the man about the woman who un-mans the GOP. "She’s managed to figure out how to deal with this almost irrational displeasure of her. She turns it into a huge political strength. That requires just great political instincts... " Hitler required great political instincts, too, to conjure pre-war Germany's witless mob. In the arid world of Jeb Bush, Palin's instincts are admirable.

2 comments:

Mensa said...

God I hate that man.

Malagodi said...

Good, until the last paragraph.