Bush fatigue sets in

Remember when J.E.B. Bush vowed to “be his own man,” but then tapped the Neocon advisers of his brother “C Plus Augustus” who gave us the unnecessary and illegal war in Iraq? Jeb Bush vows to set his own course while tapping longtime family advisers; Jeb Bush’s foreign policy team is eerily familiar, in one Venn Diagram.

Last Week, J.E.B. said his brother “C Plus Augustus” is one of his top foreign policy advisers. Jeb: George W. Bush is a top foreign policy adviser. Yikes!

And then there is this: Jeb Bush endorses his brother’s Iraq invasion:

The Washington Post reported yesterday on the Florida Republican’s latest effort to connect his unannounced candidacy to some of his brother’s most striking failures.

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush would have authorized the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as his brother and then-president George W. Bush did, he told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly in an interview to be aired Monday.

“I would have [authorized the invasion], and so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody. And so would almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got,” the likely 2016 presidential contender said.

To top this off, the unannounced presidential candidate added, “[S]o just for the news flash to the world, if they’re trying to find places where there’s big space between me and my brother, this might not be one of those.”

Update: Bush was specifically asked “Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion?” He replied, “I would have.”]

This was too much even for right-wing talk radio host Laura Ingraham On Jeb’s Iraq Answer: There’s ‘Something Wrong With You’:

Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham dropped the hammer on former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) on Monday after the likely presidential candidate said he would invade Iraq again, knowing what we know now.

“You can’t still think that going into Iraq, now, as a sane human being, was the right thing to do,” Ingraham said on her radio show.

“If you do, there has to be something wrong with you,” she added.

“And so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody,” Bush said.

This did not fly with Ingraham.

“No Hillary wouldn’t!” Ingraham said on Monday. “Hillary wouldn’t authorize the war now, if she knew what she knows now.”

At one point she began laughing, and doubted that Bush was “his own person” capable of breaking with his brother, President George W. Bush.

“That’s just a fun hypothetical, but you have to say no to that!” she said.

“You have to have someone who says, look, I’m a Republican but I’m not an idiot! I’m not stupid!” she said. “I learn from the past and I improve myself.”

Over the weekend, J.E.B., who converted to Roman Catholicism, went to Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University to pander to Christian Reconstructionists and Dominionists. It did not go well. Jeb Bush fails to impress at Falwell’s Liberty U:

J.E.B. was the commencement speaker at the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University in Virginia.

As MSNBC’s Jane C. Timm explained, Bush didn’t exactly wow his evangelical audience.

The former Florida governor struggled to impress the evangelical audience at the university founded by Southern Baptist pastor Jerry Falwell. That could signal trouble for Bush, who, as seen in recent polls, is already struggling to woo evangelical and far-right conservatives. Saturday’s address did nothing to change that, as the governor delivered a speech about faith and religious persecution to a subdued audience that didn’t always acknowledge applause lines. […]

[I]n a handful of instances, [Bush] talked through cheers or waited for applause that never came.

* * *

It’s hard not to notice the degree to which Jeb Bush is stuck – his pandering to the right-wing falls flat, largely because social conservatives simply don’t consider him credible, while at the same time, the Republican’s posturing only alienates him from the American mainstream, undermining his general-election standing.

It’s a tough needle to thread, and as was evident in Lynchburg, Bush just isn’t doing it very well.

To top off J.E.B.’s really bad day, The Hill reports, Bush favorability rating suffers in new poll:

Former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) has the worst favorability rating of any of the prospective Republican presidential candidates, and a majority of voters nationwide say they won’t consider voting for him, according to a new poll.

The George Washington University poll released on Monday found that 35 percent of voters say they have a favorable of view of Bush, against 48 percent who view him negatively.

Only 36 percent of voters said they would consider voting for Bush, while 60 percent said they would not consider voting for him.

The rest of the GOP field has better favorability ratings but remains largely unknown.

Bush fatigue is setting in before J.E.B. has even officially announced that he is running for president. Maybe he should just stay on the porch and enjoy retirement from public life.

UPDATE: Oh J.E.B. Bush has reportedly told Megyn Kelly of FAUX News  that he would not end Obama’s immigration orders until immigration reform clears Congress. Bloomberg Politics reports Jeb Bush Says He Wouldn’t Repeal Obama’s Immigration Actions Right Away:

In an interview scheduled to air Monday night on Fox News, Bush suggested that he would wait until a new law was in place before overturning Obama’s actions.Noting the political difficulty of repealing the orders, host Megyn Kelly asked Bush how he would go about undoing them. “Passing meaningful reform of immigration and make it part of it,” Bush answered, according to a transcript of the interview. The interview will air in full on The Kelly File at 9 p.m.

Bush, who hasn’t yet formally entered the presidential race, also defended his support for giving undocumented immigrants driver’s licenses and their children in-state tuition, saying, “If you’ve been here for an extended period of time, you have no nexus to the country of your parents.”

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that J.E.B. really doesn’t want to run for president?