Jeb Bush
on Tuesday sought to arrest a chorus of criticism from Democrats and
some conservatives after he told an interviewer that, knowing what
history has since shown about intelligence failures, he still would have
authorized the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Calling in to Sean Hannity’s
syndicated radio show, Mr. Bush said he had misunderstood a question
that one of Mr. Hannity’s Fox News colleagues, Megyn Kelly, had asked
him in an interview shown on Sunday and Monday nights.
“I interpreted the question wrong, I guess,” Mr. Bush said. “I was talking about, given what people knew then.”
The
attempt at mopping-up was quick, but it did not bring the controversy
to an immediate end: When Mr. Hannity asked about the 2003 Iraq invasion
again, in yes-or-no fashion, Mr. Bush said he did not know what the
answer would have been, saying, “That’s a hypothetical.” Then, he seemed
to go out of his way to absolve his brother, former President George W.
Bush, who ordered the invasion: “Mistakes were made, as they always are
in life,” Mr. Bush said.
It
was the third time in six weeks that Mr. Bush had to backpedal,
offering a stark reminder that despite his deep political ties and his
family’s history in elected office, he remains a novice on the national
campaign trail.
Allies
believe that Mr. Bush, a former Florida governor, has had to contend
with an unfair level of scrutiny that no other Republican has faced.
Though his team still lacks formal structure, Mr. Bush is generally more
visible than, say, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who entered the race for the
Democratic nomination in mid-April but has not taken reporters’
questions in three weeks.
But
for Mr. Bush, the last six weeks have been a bracing reminder that
helping a relative run for president is not the same as running
yourself.
Mr.
Bush, who is said to take a dim view of his Republican rivals’
leadership qualities, prides himself on his candor, authenticity and
ability to work without a script, and his skills as a candidate have
noticeably sharpened. But he has repeatedly paid a price for straying
from his briefing notes.
In
a radio interview in late March, Mr. Bush praised an Indiana law billed
as protecting religious freedom that was backed by Gov. Mike Pence,
saying that if people read the law, they would find nothing
discriminatory in it.
Less
than 48 hours later, after a number of Republican donors complained to
his advisers, Mr. Bush told donors in Silicon Valley that he believed
Indiana would end up in “the right place” with a compromise fix that
would offer greater gay rights protections.
People close to Mr. Bush later told allies that he had gone further than he had intended to in the radio interview.
Also
in late March, Mr. Bush incurred the wrath of pro-Israel hawks by
refusing to step in to prevent James A. Baker III — the former secretary
of state who is on a long list of foreign policy advisers to Mr. Bush —
from appearing before the liberal pro-Israel group J Street. Fulfilling
the predictions of Mr. Baker’s critics, Mr. Bush has faced questions
about the episode at closed-door meetings with donors and party
activists ever since.
As
late as last week, in a meeting in Manhattan with more than 40 foreign
policy-minded donors organized by the hedge-fund executive Paul Singer,
Mr. Bush called Mr. Baker a “good man” but added that he was 85 — a
remark several people in the room took to mean that he believed Mr.
Baker’s worldview was dated.
Still,
Mr. Bush conceded that his rollout of such a broad array of foreign
policy advisers had been “a mistake.” He had pleased no one by putting
so many people on the list, he said, instead giving all corners of the
party something to criticize.
Mr.
Bush’s botching of the question from Ms. Kelly on the Iraq invasion —
one that was eminently foreseeable for a brother of the president who
ordered it — was seized upon by commentators across the political
spectrum.
“Jeb’s
statement is likely to resonate until he either changes his position or
loses the race for the Republican nomination,” wrote Byron York, the chief political correspondent for the conservative Washington Examiner.
Not
long before Mr. Hannity’s interview with Mr. Bush was broadcast on
Tuesday, one of Mr. Bush’s potential rivals, Gov. Chris Christie of New
Jersey, sought to draw a contrast between himself and Mr. Bush.
“I
want to directly answer your question, because that’s what I do,” Mr.
Christie told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “If we knew then what we know now and I
were the president of the United States, I wouldn’t have gone to war.
But you don’t get to replay history.”
Follow The New York Times Politics and W
No comments:
Post a Comment