JEB!watch going on conditional vacation as JEB! 2016 is put on deathwatch

Donald Trump has JEB! right where he wants him, making him defend his brother in ridiculous ways that all but destroy his chances for the presidency, and undercut any ad hominem arguments the Bush Republicans generally make against Hillary.

Trump's masterful, if not brilliant, political chess match with JEB! Bush has produced such great results that JEB! has sunk as low as 5 percent support in some recent polls. In fact, Trump has accomplished something even more devastating. He has brilliantly maneuvered the entire establishment right flank of the GOP into an incoherent and doomed defense of the GWB presidency with his latest line of attack on the Bush legacy, as evidenced by this pitiful Red State article equating the presentation of any evidence or argument of negligence by George W. Bush prior to 911 as Trutherism.

With all this good news in mind, JEB!watch will go on vacation!  Now that the threat of a third Bush presidency has been caged, for the time being, there isn't as much need for us anymore. But don't worry, we'll be back if JEB! comes back! But we hope neither of us do!

If JEB! does, and buys the Republican nomination with a little help from his family friends, then Trump will run as a third candidate, and finish him off next November. You can take that to your nearest "too big to fail" bank and deposit it. Whether Trump is a Manchurian Candidate for Hillary is debatable. Enough Republican voters bought the scam George W. Bush sold them in 2000, and enough appear willing in 2016 to buy Trump's scam, while others take Trump's bait and rally around the "W. kept us safe" mythology, so if he is working for the Clinton's, the champagne is already on ice in Chappaqua, and inaugural ball invitations are ready to send to the engravers. At this point, the only thing standing between Hillary and the presidency is Obama and the FBI.  And if they take her out, say hello to President Biden, and Vice President Warren.

Who stands to get a now likely worthless Republican nomination if the plutocrats can't revive their Crown Prince and put him over on the base?  It's really not at all clear, nor does it likely really matter much, so enjoy the Great Trump Circus while it's still in town. Make America GREAT again! By stopping JEB! 2016.  Thanks Donald, at least for that.

Game, set, match?...Trump has figured out Jeb Bush's greatest weakness as a candidate, and it's not his energy level

(Vox) - I don't know if Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination. But even if he doesn't, it's increasingly clear he's going to destroy Jeb Bush before he loses.

Over the past week, Trump and Bush have been in an argument that basically boils down to the question of was George W. Bush president on 9/11/2001?

Trump insists that Bush was president both prior to and during the 9/11 attacks, and he was therefore at least partly responsible for the security failures that permitted the tragedy. And to Trump's credit, there is considerable evidence that George W. Bush was president on 9/11/2001.

Jeb Bush's position is harder to parse: he argues that his brother was only responsible for what happened after 9/11, suggesting, perhaps, that someone else bore the responsibilities of the presidency on 9/11/2001. Or, to be a bit kinder to his position, he argues that the measure of as president isn't whether something like 9/11 happens, but whether it happens again.

The result is this absolutely brutal interview CNN's Jake Tapper conducted with Bush. "If your brother and his administration bear no responsibility at all," Tapper asks, "how do you then make the jump that President Obama and Secretary Clinton are responsible for what happened at Benghazi?"

Bush's response is almost physically painful to watch.

Trump has a bully's instinct for finding someone else's true weaknesses. His continued crack that Bush is a "low-energy" candidate is devastating precisely because it identifies a weakness not just in Bush's campaign style, but in the nature of his campaign.

Now Trump has pulled Bush into an even more dangerous quagmire: his brother's presidency. Trump is reminding every Republican voter that nominating Jeb Bush will mean running a general election campaign with two disadvantages. First, Republicans will have to answer for George W. Bush's failures in a way they wouldn't if they nominated Marco Rubio or Carly Fiorina or Donald Trump, and second, they'll need to somehow explain why they're holding Hillary Clinton responsible for Obama's presidency even as they don't hold George W. Bush responsible for George W. Bush's presidency. 

Read more.

CNN host destroys Jeb Bush: You blame Hillary for Benghazi but insist brother blameless for 9/11

(Rawstory) - Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush struggled on Sunday to explain how he could blame Hillary Clinton for the attacks in Benghazi while insisting that George W. Bush was blameless for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

While speaking to Bloomberg last week, Trump reminded the interviewer that George Bush was president when the World Trade Center was attacked in New York.

“He was president, OK?” Trump said. “Blame him, or don’t blame him, but he was president. The World Trade Center came down during his reign.”

The comments sparked Bush to respond by calling Trump “pathetic” in a Twitter post. And on Sunday, he continued to defend the 43rd president during an interview with CNN.

“My brother responded to a crisis and united the country, he organized our country and he kept us safe,” the GOP hopeful told Tapper. “And there’s no denying that. And the great majority of Americans believe that. And I don’t know why he keeps bringing this up.”

Tapper wondered if Bush’s loyalty to his brother “might be in some ways a political or policy liability blinding you to mistakes he made.” Read more.