A New Bush and an Old McCain Will Represent the Past in 2015

[babylonsister]

http://www.politicususa.com/2014/12/30/bush-mccain-represent-2015.html

A New Bush and an Old McCain Will Represent the Past in 2015
By: Hrafnkell Haraldsson
Tuesday, December, 30th, 2014, 7:57 am


It looks very much like 2015 will see a new Bush coming out and an angry old McCain coming back. From the looks of it, John McCain plans to take full advantage of Republican control of the Senate to restore his oft-tarnished legacy at the expensive of our president, while Jeb Bush is apparently more than posturing and figures to do the same for the Bush family name.

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According to CNN, “John McCain is still angry.” Well, nothing new there, right? But soon, he’ll have the power he has lacked in recent years, “and an old enemy, President Barack Obama, is already in his sights.”

As Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, McCain will hold the White House to account for what he sees as a feckless foreign policy that has enabled “genocide” in Syria, left “evil” to fill a leadership vacuum elsewhere and splintered America’s moral example around the world.

But you can’t help but get the sense that McCain is being a little petulant and whiny because the president has been ignoring his repeated calls for war with this country or that, for a deeper involvement in Syria’s civil war, for not getting “all up” in Putin’s face.

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As Joe Hagan wrote at New York Magazine in 2012, Jeb Bush has a “complicated legacy” and that is certainly true. He will be violently opposed by the Religious Right, though it would not be surprising to see him moving further right, as Romney did, to attract their votes, while he will be the darling of the establishment, simply because he doesn’t come across as a loon every time he opens his mouth.

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These men want to make 2015 about them, and Democrats should be more than happy to grant their wishes, because we certainly have a great many questions for them, questions we would like answered, and with the release of the torture report, probably more questions than either man would like to answer. Bush and McCain are a conversation America should have, and the sooner the better.

If Democrats frame the narrative right, I’ve got a feeling the past might get to be just a bit more uncomfortable for them than either gentleman would like to think. After all, there’s a reason Republicans have spent the past six years pretending George W. Bush never existed.