Those comments strongly contrast ones he made on Monday to Fox’s Megyn Kelly when he said he would have authorized an invasion. A day later, he backtracked, saying he misheard the question and did not know what he would have done. On Wednesday, Bush said he refused to answer as it would be a disservice to American troops.
But at an event in Tempe, Arizona, on Thursday, Bush gave yet another answer.
“I would have not engaged. I would not have gone into Iraq,” Bush said.
What was he doing, waiting to clear it with his big brother?
As Josh Marshall notes, now all the other Republican candidates think invading Iraq is a bad idea and they wouldn’t have done it. Not because it was a bad idea then — even though it was — but because they want to inflict as much damage on Jeb Bush as they can. It also gives us the chance to ask them about the whole war: how we got there, why they supported it, and what should we do with the aftermath.
Jeb may be the smart one but that’s compared to W.