Sunday, May 24, 2015

Jeb Bush Says He Misinterpreted Iraq Query

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Jeb Bush in Puerto Rico last month. Credit Ricardo Arduengo/Associated Press
Jeb Bush on Tuesday sought to arrest a chorus of criticism from Democrats and some conservatives after he told an interviewer that, knowing what history has since shown about intelligence failures, he still would have authorized the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Calling in to Sean Hannity’s syndicated radio show, Mr. Bush said he had misunderstood a question that one of Mr. Hannity’s Fox News colleagues, Megyn Kelly, had asked him in an interview shown on Sunday and Monday nights.
“I interpreted the question wrong, I guess,” Mr. Bush said. “I was talking about, given what people knew then.”
The attempt at mopping-up was quick, but it did not bring the controversy to an immediate end: When Mr. Hannity asked about the 2003 Iraq invasion again, in yes-or-no fashion, Mr. Bush said he did not know what the answer would have been, saying, “That’s a hypothetical.” Then, he seemed to go out of his way to absolve his brother, former President George W. Bush, who ordered the invasion: “Mistakes were made, as they always are in life,” Mr. Bush said.
It was the third time in six weeks that Mr. Bush had to backpedal, offering a stark reminder that despite his deep political ties and his family’s history in elected office, he remains a novice on the national campaign trail.
Allies believe that Mr. Bush, a former Florida governor, has had to contend with an unfair level of scrutiny that no other Republican has faced. Though his team still lacks formal structure, Mr. Bush is generally more visible than, say, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who entered the race for the Democratic nomination in mid-April but has not taken reporters’ questions in three weeks.
But for Mr. Bush, the last six weeks have been a bracing reminder that helping a relative run for president is not the same as running yourself.
Mr. Bush, who is said to take a dim view of his Republican rivals’ leadership qualities, prides himself on his candor, authenticity and ability to work without a script, and his skills as a candidate have noticeably sharpened. But he has repeatedly paid a price for straying from his briefing notes.
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In a radio interview in late March, Mr. Bush praised an Indiana law billed as protecting religious freedom that was backed by Gov. Mike Pence, saying that if people read the law, they would find nothing discriminatory in it.
Less than 48 hours later, after a number of Republican donors complained to his advisers, Mr. Bush told donors in Silicon Valley that he believed Indiana would end up in “the right place” with a compromise fix that would offer greater gay rights protections.
People close to Mr. Bush later told allies that he had gone further than he had intended to in the radio interview.
Also in late March, Mr. Bush incurred the wrath of pro-Israel hawks by refusing to step in to prevent James A. Baker III — the former secretary of state who is on a long list of foreign policy advisers to Mr. Bush — from appearing before the liberal pro-Israel group J Street. Fulfilling the predictions of Mr. Baker’s critics, Mr. Bush has faced questions about the episode at closed-door meetings with donors and party activists ever since.
As late as last week, in a meeting in Manhattan with more than 40 foreign policy-minded donors organized by the hedge-fund executive Paul Singer, Mr. Bush called Mr. Baker a “good man” but added that he was 85 — a remark several people in the room took to mean that he believed Mr. Baker’s worldview was dated.
Still, Mr. Bush conceded that his rollout of such a broad array of foreign policy advisers had been “a mistake.” He had pleased no one by putting so many people on the list, he said, instead giving all corners of the party something to criticize.
Mr. Bush’s botching of the question from Ms. Kelly on the Iraq invasion — one that was eminently foreseeable for a brother of the president who ordered it — was seized upon by commentators across the political spectrum.
“Jeb’s statement is likely to resonate until he either changes his position or loses the race for the Republican nomination,” wrote Byron York, the chief political correspondent for the conservative Washington Examiner.
Not long before Mr. Hannity’s interview with Mr. Bush was broadcast on Tuesday, one of Mr. Bush’s potential rivals, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, sought to draw a contrast between himself and Mr. Bush.
“I want to directly answer your question, because that’s what I do,” Mr. Christie told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “If we knew then what we know now and I were the president of the United States, I wouldn’t have gone to war. But you don’t get to replay history.”
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