Saturday Open Thread [5.16.15]

NY Times:

So Jeb Bush now says he would not have invaded Iraq if he knew then what he knows today. Neither would Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, John R. Kasich, Rand Paul, Rick Santorum or Marco Rubio. In fact, Mr. Rubio said, “Not only would I not have been in favor of it, President Bush would not have been in favor of it.”
Which raises an interesting question: Would George W. Bush still have authorized the invasion in 2003 had he known that Iraq did not actually have the unconventional weapons that intelligence agencies said it did?

Mr. Rubio’s staff said he based his comment on the fact that Mr. Bush had expressed regret about the false intelligence he relied on and — since the war was predicated on it — it is reasonable to assume he would have decided differently, if he had known differently.

But in fact, while Mr. Bush has said he was sick to learn the intelligence was off base, he has always defended his decision to invade Iraq as the right one, arguing that the world is still better off without Saddam Hussein.

This really presents a logical conundrum for Republicans. Because for the last two years, hell, for the last seven years, every single Republican has criticized President Obama for withdrawing from Iraq, and then they blamed that pullout for the rise of ISIS. But how can that be? If they all now think that the U.S. invasion was wrong, then they have to blame President Bush for the consequences. And the consequences were sectarian violence and terrorism. We liberals said so at the time. And we were right.

Eugene Robinson:

At this point in the campaign, do you see the Republican presidential hopeful who’s going to beat Hillary Clinton? I didn’t think so.

Not if what we’re watching now is the best the GOP can do. Maybe a thoroughbred will emerge from the coming debates, assuming the party finds a way to cram all the candidates onto the same stage. So far, however, most of the GOP field seems to be in a contest to make the likely Democratic nominee look better. Jeb Bush has been the biggest disappointment. It’s one thing to be rusty after spending a few years away from politics — indeed, Clinton’s handling of her e-mail controversy was less than balletic. But Bush shows no sign of having given more than a passing thought to the central challenge he faces in reaching the White House: the fact that his brother got there first and made a mess of things.