Seriously, What?
"Jeb has a simple message to Congress: 'If Congress skips votes or hearings, Jeb will dock their pay. It's the responsible thing to do'."
Yes, really.
It's been
a while↑ since we paused to give the Serious Clown any serious attention, and that's probably seriously to his benefit. The former Florida governor seems to be experiencing some communicative difficulties.
But
this?
Okay, come on. Running against a do-nothing Congress is certainly a reasonable proposition this cycle, and it will be rather quite interesting to watch a
Republican do so.
But this is ... I mean ... come on,
really?
The inimitable
Steve Benen↱:
Jeb Bush recently added a new line to his stump speech, scolding members of Congress with poor attendance records. "The reality is that Congress is in session for typically three days a week when they are up there, so it's not asking too much that every member be there and work on those days," the Republican presidential hopeful said.
Bush first made the comment in Florida, which led me to think it was just a little passive-aggressive shot at Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who keeps skipping votes, private hearings, and important policy briefings. But this is actually becoming a key feature of Bush's national platform ....
.... Even by the standards of the 2016 Republican presidential race, this is a little weird.
I'll concede that elected lawmakers should, as a matter of course, show up for work as often as possible. It can get frustrating to see members of Congress blow off votes or important hearings because they want to appear on television or go to a fundraiser. I have a strong hunch the focus groups convened by Bush's campaign aides came to the same conclusion.
But Bush's proposed solution is quite foolish. Just on the surface alone, it's the sort of thing one might expect from someone with little understanding of how Congress works – sometimes, for example, hearings are scheduled at the same time and a lawmaker has to choose which one to go to. It's hardly evidence of neglect or indifference.
Even Bush's terminology is needlessly clumsy. "If Congress skips votes"? Congress refers to the institution itself; it can't skip a vote.
But it's the notion that a President Jeb "will dock their pay" that's especially odd. The pitch makes it sound as if legislators are dependent on the White House for their paychecks, and if the boss gets mad, he or she can simply dock the pay of employees at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Our constitutional system of government doesn't work this way. Presidents can't dock lawmakers' pay on a whim – if they could, plenty of presidents probably would have tried this already.
There is a degree to which this all sounds pedantic; to wit the point about needlessly clumsy terminology is laying on a bit thick, considering how many times Americans were expected to take a pass on Jeb's brother and say, "Er ... ah ... right, we know what you mean, George."
Still, though, that is part of the point. This doesn't even qualify as "not even trying". This is just plain, populist appeal to ignorance. And therein lies a difference that really isn't all that subtle, that between recognizing human frailty to the one, and to the other seeking to exploit it.
Jeb Bush, once expected to be the "serious candidate" amid a clown car of hack populists, keeps burying himself. In fact, it recalls something I often say about Democrats; it's not that the Democrats are saints by any measure, but rather that compared to Republicans, the prominent, harmful sin of the Democratic Party is incompetence. Even when it comes to stooping to match Republican attack adverts, superpaccing, and populist appeals to ignorance, they're just really, really bad at it all. Generally speaking.
Mr. Bush appears to suffer a similar problem. In his most human moments, he's making weird noises, and we can almost tell what he means, except he ends up looking like the socially underdeveloped family bookworm trying too hard to be cool.
Compared to the sounds of the internet, the Republican angry face, and that awkward, "Whoo!" of relief at the end of his campaign declaration speech, this kind of stupidity is considerably more difficult to receive kindly or simply overlook.
We already know Jeb Bush is smarter than that. Trying to play this skeezy game is problematic; Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul―even Rick Santorum and Ben Carson, for heaven's sake―all seem at home swimming in these polluted, even toxic streams of rhetoric. The Bush family is iconic of an older political form, with rhetorical sleights expected to be at least one or two valences more subtle, or, at least, less blatant. As the anti-intellectual fruit comes to bear after a generation spent
sewing populist appeals to ignorance↑, Jeb Bush finds himself something not quite a fish out of water, but, rather, a big clownfish in a strange and polluted pond.
And I know that's pushing too many metaphors at once, but such is the circumstance before us; if we intend sympathy unto Mr. Bush, some amount of figurative mythologizing is required. He still can be seen in this context as a tragic hero, but only barely, nor especially inspiring.
But therein lies the sympathy; it's actually kind of
sad watching Jeb Bush stumble along.
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Notes:
Team Jeb. "Skipping Work". YouTube. 21 July 2015. YouTube.com. https://youtu.be/YBE3P2yD7so
Benen, Steve. "Jeb Bush targets lawmakers who 'skip work'". msnbc. 3 August 2015. msnbc.com. 3 August 2015. http://on.msnbc.com/1Dngmtq
