More facts for the Fact Averse.
Peter Beinart is now convinced that “Jeb Bush will never seriously challenge for the presidency—because to seriously challenge for the presidency, a Republican will have to pointedly distance himself from Jeb’s older brother”:
No Republican will enjoy credibility as a deficit hawk unless he or she acknowledges that George W. Bush squandered the budget surplus he inherited. No Republican will be able to promise foreign-policy competence unless he or she acknowledges the Bush administration’s disastrous mismanagement in Afghanistan and Iraq. It won’t be enough for a candidate merely to keep his or her distance from W. John McCain and Mitt Romney tried that, and they failed because the Obama campaign hung Bush around their neck every chance it got. To seriously compete, the next Republican candidate for president will have to preempt that Democratic line of attack by repudiating key aspects of Bush’s legacy. Jeb Bush would find that excruciatingly hard even if he wanted to. And as his interviews Sunday make clear, he doesn’t event want to try.
Former Senator Joseph “He’s with us on everything but the war” Lieberman joined the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute yesterday. President Eisenhower once said that nominating Earl Warren as Chief Justice was the “biggest damn fool mistake” he ever made as President. Choosing Joe Lieberman as his running mate was President Al Gore’s second worst decision. His first? Shunning Bill Clinton during the 2000 campaign. It is sometimes funny how history plays out. If Gore had actually got to serve as President, and was reelected in 2004 as was likely, then guess who would might have been our likely nominee in 2008: Vice President Joe Lieberman. Or does Hillary beat him in the primary?
This is kinda cool, but how is it that a former President is walking the city without at least one Secret Service agent? I know they can refuse it, but still.