January 27, 2007

Gov. Jeb Bush at the Conservative Summit

Governor Jeb Bush was the lunch speaker here at the National Review Conservative Summit. He gave a great speech. Gov. Bush opened up his speech by making it clear that he wouldn't be offering any criticism of his brother George. In his words (more or less): "I'm not going to stand up here and criticize the President of the United States. . . . I know some of you would like that, but, as my father would say: 'not gonna do it.'" (Note: I tried to do my best to get the words down accurately, but they may be treated as paraphrases.)

While Jeb prudently steered clear of criticizing his brother, he didn't mince words regarding the Party generally. As he put it: "Republicans have lost their way." He noted that "Democrats aren't offering reform--and Republicans aren't, either." Finally, he offered this ominous warning (again, paraphrased): "Until Republicans recapture their belief in limited government, they won't recapture control of the Congress."

During the Q&A session, the issue of illegal immigration came up. Jeb made it clear that he didn't really "see what the problem is." Although he paid lip service to border control, it was fairly clear that he doesn't concern himself much with illegal immigration. Of course, we already knew this about Gov. Bush, but I was nevertheless disappointed in the way he casually dismissed the concerns of those members of the public who don't share his relaxed attitude about illegal immigration. He also took the opportunity to tar the critics of illegal immigration as anti-immigrant generally--which is neither accurate nor fair.

By Ragnar Danneskjold, Typical Bitter Gun-Clinger at 01:36 PM | |