Stephen Goldstein: Jeb Bush: Doomed to act out a Greek tragedy

Who does Jeb Bush think he’s “bushitting”?

The extremist former governor of Florida and (for the moment leading) GOP presidential candidate is now parading as the self-proclaimed voice of moderation — and the sycophantish press is letting him get away with it.

Floridians know the real Jeb. This entry below from my just-published Dictionary of American Political Bullshit helps set the record straight.

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During a recent appearance before a congressional committee, the same man who as Florida governor swore he would never raise taxes had the chutzpah to say that, had he been president, he would have accepted the hypothetical deal that every tea party/GOP presidential candidate rejected when it was proposed to them during one of their 2012 debates: $10 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases. The man is shameless and intellectually dishonest.

In addition, uncompromising Jeb now has the gall to posture himself as the leading GOP spokesperson for bipartisanship –and against take-it-or-leave-it, my-way-or-the-highway ideological rigidity. He has also been quoted in dyslexic English, lamenting the loss of an alleged GOP spirit of “working across the aisle”: “Ronald Reagan would have, based on his record of finding some degree of common ground, similar to my dad, they would have had a hard time if you define the Republican Party — and I don’t as having an orthodoxy that doesn’t allow for disagreement.” He also said: “Back to my dad’s time or Ronald Reagan’s time, they got a lot of stuff done with a lot of bipartisan support that right now would be difficult to imagine happening.”

Don’t be taken in by Jeb’s political equivalent of “I want to hold your hand.” As Florida governor, he was partisan, divisive, and autocratic. He set out to create the Sunshine State in his image—and let no one stand in his way. He relentlessly attacked government as the cause of our problems, was the sworn enemy of unions and public education. Now, Jeb pushes an activist, fiercely ideological agenda—nationwide—to privatize public schools.

So, why now? Why is Jeb speaking as the voice of moderation? Because being anti-everything-Obama has made the Tea Party GOP anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-almost-everything. He realizes — perhaps too late — that he and his party opened a Pandora’s box of political mischief, indulged the Tea Party Frankenstein that has taken over and is destroying them—and, through his own misguided actions, he’s largely responsible. Jeb and the Tea Party are acting out a Greek tragedy. Their rigid ideology, which they have all clung to as their strength, is now the course of their undoing.

The Ronald Reagan whom Jeb called “moderate,” set in motion the radicalism that has destroyed the GOP. As in any Greek tragedy, the Tea Party GOP is deaf to choruses that have tried, and continue to try, to save them from their clueless course of self-destruction. Of their own doing, they are twisting in the wind. Greek tragedies are not about “Forgive them for they know not what they do”—quite the opposite: The Law of Karma, “What goes around comes around.”

In Greek tragedy, characters are responsible for their own downfall, caught in a vice of their own making, unable to free themselves from themselves. We all know you can’t fool all of the people all of the time, though people like Jeb will never stop trying. Tragically, “bushitters” just can’t help themselves.

Stephen L. Goldstein is the author of “The Dictionary of American Political Bullshit” and “Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned.” He lives in Fort Lauderdale. Column courtesy of Context Florida.