Does JEB! even really want to be US president? (Or does he feel, as a Bush, obliged to run, much like Ted Kennedy in 1979?)

Of course I WANT to be president.  It's my birthright. My entitlement.
I just should not have to RUN for the job!!!!   IT'S MY TURN!!!!
....How do I get a golfball out of the lake guys? Any ideas?  I'm all out.

(The Telegraph) - On November 4, 1979, Senator Ted Kennedy – the remaining heir to the Kennedy political dynasty – was asked a simple question: “Why do you want to be president?”

Kennedy’s rambling response – which included a lot of “ums” and cited America’s “natural resources” – is often used as evidence that Kennedy’s 1980 bid to oust the Democratic nomination from President Jimmy Carter was doomed before it started.

Close Kennedy observers speculate that the inability to field this fundamental and predictable question signalled that – as Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman later put it -- “The guy doesn’t want it."...

This brings us to Jeb Bush, heir to the Bush political dynasty. In an interview that aired on Monday, Fox News host Megyn Kelly asked the former Florida governor if – knowing what we know now – he would have approved the Iraq invasion.

Over the course of the past week Mr Bush has taken five attempts (one of which included the words, “I don’t know” and “mistakes were made”) to finally arrive, on Thursday, at what hopes to be his final answer: “I would not have gone into Iraq.”

So why did Jeb hem and haw so much over a question that couldn’t have surprised him?

The Bushes are famous for family loyalty, and one can understand how fraternal fidelity might make it difficult for him to rebuke his brother’s legacy.

Another hypothesis is that he’s simply stubborn – that he wanted to do things his way and is above pandering for votes. Support for the Iraq war has become deeply unpopular, even among the American Right, but Mr Bush’s initial response was “I would have [invaded], and so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody...” Read more.