¡príncipe heredero, Juan Arbusto!

Credibility? I don't need no stinkin' credibility!

We knew all along that the Crown Prince John Ellis Bush would run for president as a fake Hispanic identity candidate (fooling a few establishment media types, but not enough voters to win). Now we know that he actually claims to be Hispanic!  The revelation that JEB! listed his ethnicity as Hispanic on a Florida voter registration form has the Sunday morning punditocracy tripping over themselves to claim this was just some sort of "mistake," or Freudian slip. Was it?

There can be no question that JEB! believes his only path to the presidency, given his toxic surname, would involve dramatically increasing his share of the Latino voter over previous recent Republican nominees.  Given his likely inability to spike the turnout of base reactionaries and religious conservatives in his favor, simple math suggests he would have to do even better than his brother with Hispanics in order even to have a chance of winning against the Hildabeast.  So why not create a identity media event?  Get media to cover the story as a joke (and hope some Hispanics think the coverage is "disrespectful" to Hispanics), then claim it was an honest mistake (which one of the Crown Prince's PR people did exactly).  The Bushes may make mediocre presidents (or in the case of W., disastrous ones), but they prove out to be ruthless and calculating politicians.  So what is the chance this "gaffe" was an actual mistake?  Fat chance.

(With apologies to Alfonso Bedoya. RIP)