Daddy to the Rescue

[Content Note: War; misogyny; privilege.]

Jeb Bush has been criticized for his defensiveness about the presidency of his brother, George W. Bush—but it's not his fault. He comes by it naturally:

After years of holding back, former President George Bush has finally broken his public silence about some of the key figures in his son's administration, issuing scathing critiques of Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

...In his interviews with Mr. Meacham, the former president returned several times to the topic of Mr. Cheney, who handled the role of vice president very differently from the way the first Mr. Bush did under Ronald Reagan.

"He had his own empire there and marched to his own drummer," Mr. Bush said. "It just showed me that you cannot do it that way. The president should not have that worry."

He said he thought Mr. Cheney had changed since serving in his cabinet. "He just became very hard-line and very different from the Dick Cheney I knew and worked with," Mr. Bush said. He attributed that to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "Just iron-ass. His seeming knuckling under to the real hard-charging guys who want to fight about everything, use force to get our way in the Middle East."

He speculated that Mr. Cheney was influenced by his wife, Lynne, and his daughter Liz, both strong conservatives. "I've concluded that Lynne Cheney is a lot of the eminence grise here – iron-ass, tough as nails, driving," he said.

So, Dick Cheney is to blame for anything bad in his son's administration, and Lynne and Liz Cheney are to blame for anything bad Dick Cheney did. Cool.

Naturally, Daddy is not only coming to the rescue of his son George the Former President, but also his son Jeb the Wannabe President, because to defend George is to defend Jeb's defending of George.

Don't blame Jeb for defending George! It wasn't even George's fault! It was Dick Cheney's fault! And it wasn't even Dick Cheney's fault, because it was THOSE WOMEN.

The person whose fault it definitely wasn't most of all is George H.W. Bush himself. THOSE WOMEN were the the ones who drove the Bush 43 administration's regrettable, belligerent Middle East policy, and it had nothing to do with the fact that George H.W. Bush enjoyed his Iraq War so much that he considered not running for a second term once all the fun was over:

In addition to the reviews of Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld, the book reveals that the older Mr. Bush suffered from a post-victory despondency after the Persian Gulf war of 1991 — a "letdown" over no longer being involved in such a huge endeavor — that led him to consider not running for a second term...

On March 13, 1991, just two weeks after Iraq capitulated in the gulf war, Mr. Bush fantasized in his diary about calling it quits after a single term. He would "call a press conference in about November and just turn it loose," he said in the audio diary. "You need someone in this job" who could give his "total last ounce of energy, and I've had" that "up until now, but now I don't seem to have the drive."

"Maybe it's the letdown after the day-to-day" 5 a.m. calls "to the Situation Room; conferences every single day with Defense and State; moving things, nudging things, worrying about things, phone calls to foreign leaders, trying to keep things moving forward, managing a massive project," he said in the diary. "Now it's different, sniping, carping, bitching, predictable editorial complaints."

The presidency just wasn't any fun without killing people in the Middle East, says the father of the man who launched multiple endless wars in the Middle East. But THOSE WOMEN.

What a terrific family the Bushes are.