Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Wednesday that he is his “own man,” not beholden to the policies of his brother or father — in the same speech where he embraced bulk data collection powers under the Patriot Act, a key program started by his brother.
In a major speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Mr. Bush — who is laying the groundwork for an all-but-announced presidential run, and is benefiting from the political network built by his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and brother, former President George W. Bush — insisted he won’t be bound by their legacies.
“Just for the record, one more time, I love my brother, I love my dad, I actually love my mother as well; I hope that’s OK,” Mr. Bush said. “And I admire their service to the nation and the difficult decisions that they had to make. But I am my own man, and my views are shaped by my own thinking and my own experiences.”
In his foreign policy address, Mr. Bush directed his sharpest criticism at the Obama administration, saying it has been “inconsistent and indecisive,” but he also said his brother’s administration made some “mistakes” before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and he acknowledged that intelligence regarding weapons of mass destruction “turned out not to be accurate.”
For the most part, however, Mr. Bush laid out a foreign view similar to his brother’s, calling for more military spending and a more muscular approach to global affairs.
“America does not have the luxury of withdrawing from the world — our security, our prosperity and our values demand that we remain engaged and involved in often distant places,” Mr. Bush said. “We have no reason to apologize for our leadership and our interest in serving the cause of global security, global peace and human freedom.”
Mr. Bush also described the 2007 troop “surge” in Iraq as “one of the most heroic acts of courage politically,” making the case that it helped bring stability to the country. He blamed the Obama administration for failing to build on the success.
The former governor singled out the NSA’s phone-data snooping program, built under his brother, as a valuable tool to prevent terrorist attacks.
“We must be prepared for a long-term commitment to fight this battle,” Mr. Bush said. “These attacks require a response on many levels, but most of all we should focus on preventing them. That requires responsible intelligence gathering and analysis, including the NSA metadata program, which contributes to awareness of potential terror cells and interdiction efforts on a global scale.”
The NSA under George W. Bush, and now under President Obama, has claimed the authority to collect the phone numbers, times and directions of calls made on U.S. telephone companies’ systems. The program has proven controversial, with a bipartisan majority in the House pushing to halt it, though Senate Republicans last year voted to preserve it.
Mr. Bush, though, suggested Wednesday that concern over the law has been misplaced.
“For the life of me, I don’t understand the debate has gotten off track,” he said. “We do protect our civil liberties, but this is a hugely important program to use these technologies to keep us safe.”
GOP observers said Mr. Bush’s support for the program, as well as his support for legalizing illegal immigrants and Common Core education standards, underscores why he could have problems shaking a family history that includes unpopular tax increases, immigration proposals and a controversial war.
“He’s never going to be able to distance himself from his brother or his father, especially on the big issues that matter to Republican primary voters and grass-roots conservatives,” said Keith Appell, a GOP strategist. “He and his brother agree on immigration. He has already said he’s willing to raise taxes if Congress promises to cut spending; his father infamously did the same thing, and spending was never cut. Conservatives opposed his brother’s No Child Left Behind law that was blessed by Ted Kennedy, and they’re even more opposed to Jeb’s support of Common Core. So who’s zoomin’ who?”
While conservatives protested Mr. Bush’s domestic priorities, Democrats said it was the similarity on foreign policy between the former Florida governor and George W. Bush that concerned them.
“We know that if Jeb Bush were in charge, our brave men and women would be stationed in Iraq indefinitely,” said Holly Shulman, spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee. “We know that Jeb Bush is leaning on more than a dozen foreign policy advisers who were the architects of George W. Bush’s cowboy foreign policy agenda that damaged the country’s reputation abroad.”
Multiple news outlets reported Wednesday that Mr. Bush has recruited former aides to his father and brother, including Paul Wolfowitz, John Negroponte and Robert Zoellick, to advise him on his new campaign.
Polls show Mr. Bush is leading the likely pack of GOP presidential hopefuls nationally. He is running third in Iowa and second in New Hampshire, which are the first stops in the nomination race.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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