New in PJ Media:
You couldn’t find two more solid and stolid figures of the Republican establishment than Jeb Bush and William Barr. Both have also been harsh critics of Donald Trump, who has given it right back in spades. And so it was striking that both have come out strongly against the indictment of Trump, thereby demonstrating a good deal more integrity than the Democrats who have been cheering on Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and hailing the advent of America as a banana republic.
The bad blood between Jeb! and Trump goes back to the 2016 presidential campaign, and particularly to a Feb. 2016 debate during which Trump said, “Obviously the war in Iraq was a big fat mistake, all right? George Bush made a mistake, we can make mistakes. But that one was a beauty.” He was actually making a point not about George, but about his brother: “It took Jeb Bush — if you remember at the beginning of his announcement when he announced for president, it took him five days — ‘It was a mistake, it wasn’t a mistake,’ — it took him five days before his people told him what to say. We should have never been in Iraq, we have destabilized the Middle East. They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction — there were none. And they knew there were none.” All this was true, but restating it and making it the responsibility of Jeb Bush has led to undying enmity between Trump and the Bush family and their allies.
At that time, Bush criticized Trump for attacking him through his family, saying, “He’s had the gall to go after my mother. My mom is the strongest woman I know.” To that, Trump responded with a haymaker: “She should be running.” No member of the Bush family has had a remotely kind word to say about Trump ever since. Jeb’s brother led the way; after maintaining eight years of dignified silence during the Obama years, George W. Bush suddenly became a vocal critic of the Trump administration, with which he was, or at least should have been, much more closely aligned ideologically.
In light of all that, it was shocking indeed when Jeb Bush tweeted on Saturday: “Bragg’s predecessor didn’t take up the case. The Justice Department didn’t take up the case. Bragg first said he would not take up the case. This is very political, not a matter of justice. In this case, let the jury be the voters.” Jeb Bush is to be commended for speaking out against injustice, even when that injustice is directed against a political enemy. Such integrity is in short supply these days.
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