Good news (PGNJB)

Republican prayers — Please God, Not Jeb Bush (PGNJB) — have been answered:

This morning, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush released the following statement on the 2010 United States Senate race in Florida for Senator Mel Martinez’s Senate seat:
“After thoughtful consideration, I have decided not to run for the United States Senate in 2010.
“While the opportunity to serve my state and country during these turbulent and dynamic times is compelling, now is not the right time to return to elected office.
“In the coming months and years, I hope to play a constructive role in the future of the Republican Party . . .”

Blah, blah, blah. K-Lo, Allah and Ace are all depressed by the news, but the only thing I find depressing is that Jeb Bush still wants to be involved with the Republican Party — meaning he might still seek the presidency at some future point. Is there some way we could get the Bushes to switch to the Democrats?

PGNJB Update

PGNJB = Please, God, Not Jeb Bush:

Former President George H.W. Bush said he wants more than a Senate seat for his son Jeb. He wants him in the White House.
Bush, appearing on Fox News Sunday, made the statement in response to questions about his son’s political future.
“I’d like to see him run [for Senate],” the elder Bush said. “I’d like to see him be president some day.” . . .
George H.W. Bush acknowledged that asking the country to elect a third “President Bush” might be asking for too much.
“I mean, right now is probably a bad time, because we’ve had enough Bushes in there,” he said.
But he added that his son would be “as qualified and able as anyone I know on the political scene.”

You were warned more than two months ago:

Conservatives who support Palin recognize her as a potential fresh start for the GOP, whereas devotees of the status quo are looking to continue the Bush dynasty. Republicans got stuck with John McCain as this year’s nominee not because there was an overwhelming landslide for McCain (who finished with just 47% of the GOP primary vote) but because conservatives failed to unite behind an Anybody But McCain candidate.
Mark my words, the 2012 primaries will come down to Jeb Bush vs. Please God Not Jeb Bush, and Palin is the obvious PGNJB candidate. If the field gets overcrowded with a bunch of wannabes — Huckabee, Romney, etc. — dividing up the PGNJB vote, then we’ll get Jeb Bush. We’ve already had two Bushes too many.
So, yeah, the GOP is screwed because somebody made the wrong running-mate choice, but it wasn’t made by John McCain in 2008. It was made by Ronald Reagan in 1980. Conservatives should rally around the slogan, “NO MORE BUSHES.”

Republicans now slagging Palin are paving the way for another Bush, whether they admit it or not.

UPDATE: K-Lo jumps aboard the Jeb bandwagon. We’re doomed.

Read My Lips: No More Bushes

Over at The American Spectator, Larry Thornberry sees talk of a Jeb Bush run for Mel Martinez’s Florida Senate seat as a sign of hope. Sorry, but I see it as a sign of insanity — according to that definition of insanity as doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

Especially if a Bush 2010 Senate campaign is a prelude to a Bush presidential campaign in 2012 or ’16 — and let’s not kid ourselves, that’s what it is — conservatives should oppose it with every means at their disposal. Having fooled ’em once with Bush 41, they fooled ’em twice with Bush 43, and now are attempting to fool ’em again by positioning Jeb to become Bush 45.

No. Not just no, but hell no.

It ought to be clear to intelligent conservatives by now that the Bushes have a hereditary disorder, a genetic predisposition toward bipartisan moderation which they inevitably pursue no matter how many times it leads to disaster. From “kinder, gentler” to “compassionate conservatism,” they are the Republican Party’s answer to Carrie Buck, and if they are allowed into office again, conservatives will be forgiven for quoting Oliver Wendell Holmes: “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

I’m seeing Karl Rove and the Bushies now trying to spin a “legacy” for Dubya. As far as I’m concerned, the list of Bush accomplishments begins and ends with “He cut taxes.” (Don’t get me started on judges — if it had been up to the Bushies, we’d have Supreme Court justices Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers. Only strong opposition from the Federalist Society prevented Bush from appointing these two cronies to the bench.)

Hell no. Not again. Not me. Having a senator from Florida with an “R” beside his name is not victory, if that senator’s name is Bush.

Some people didn’t believe me when I suggested (on Nov. 1) that the anonymous Republican “insiders” (e.g. Nicolle Wallace) trashing Sarah Palin were Bushies attempting to destroy her because she’s a threat to the Jeb 2012 bandwagon. Since then, however, we’ve learned that Bush loyalist Mel Martinez was one of the anonymous trashers, and now we see Martinez retiring in order to hand off his Senate seat to Jeb.

No. Hell no. This needs to be stopped immediately.

On the rogue diva whack job

Kathryn Jean Lopez’s latest column defending Sarah Palin, carries a stern permission warning, so I won’t quote it, except this one sentence:

She has presented America with an entirely new type of feminism, one that conservative women and the Catholic Church can finally understand and identify with.

Eh? K-Lo lost me around that curve. I don’t want a “new type of feminism,” or an old type of feminism, or any feminism at all. Feminism sucks. (Or, as I like to say, “Equality is for ugly losers.”) And what does the Catholic Church have to do with it?

K-Lo’s column would be more convincing if she were explicit about the real culprit in the Team Maverick debacle (i.e., the bailout stunt) and if she would identify the real source of the anti-Palin attacks. Palin is being sabotaged by Republicans who are trying to scramble aboard the Jeb Bush 2012 bandwagon.

Conservatives who support Palin recognize her as a potential fresh start for the GOP, whereas devotees of the status quo are looking to continue the Bush dynasty. Republicans got stuck with John McCain as this year’s nominee not because there was an overwhelming landslide for McCain (who finished with just 47% of the GOP primary vote) but because conservatives failed to unite behind an Anybody But McCain candidate.

Mark my words, the 2012 primaries will come down to Jeb Bush vs. Please God Not Jeb Bush, and Palin is the obvious PGNJB candidate. If the field gets overcrowded with a bunch of wannabes — Huckabee, Romney, etc. — dividing up the PGNJB vote, then we’ll get Jeb Bush. We’ve already had two Bushes too many.

So, yeah, the GOP is screwed because somebody made the wrong running-mate choice, but it wasn’t made by John McCain in 2008. It was made by Ronald Reagan in 1980. Conservatives should rally around the slogan, “NO MORE BUSHES.”