The Bush family’s lament

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Politico:

Their distaste for Donald Trump was no secret. But they saw no point in publicizing it.

 

From Miami to Houston, Crawford to Kennebunkport, members of the Republican Party’s first family remained quiet for months, avoiding cameras and questions about presidential politics and focusing their few fundraiser appearances on assisting the GOP candidates who would be forced to share the November ballot with a nominee they detest.

 

But given the Bush clan’s proximity to public life, and their progeny’s desire to one day return the family to power, it was only a matter of time before they could hold their tongues no longer.

 

Over a 24-hour span that began with Jeb Bush's surprising and sardonic cameo in Sunday's Emmy Awards broadcast and Monday night’s reports that his father, former President George H.W. Bush, had told a family friend privately that he intended to support Hillary Clinton, the Bushes returned to the headlines, and are giving Trump just the establishment foil he so capably exploits.

 

"He probably loves that former President Bush isn't backing him because it underlines his whole case against the establishment," one former Jeb Bush campaign staffer said. "I bet he's highlighting it in his stump speech before long."

 

George W. Bush, who is headed to Washington this weekend to headline a fundraiser for Senate Republicans and attend the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, has shared in private settings for months his fear that he will be “the last Republican president.” And while Bush family loyalists say they do not know whether he is joking, they are certain he cannot support Trump.

 

“When you have a Republican nominee who supported John Kerry in 2004 and implied that President Bush was responsible for 9/11 and has repeated the worst lies of the Michael Moore liberal Democrats, how in the world would the Bushes support that?” said one longtime GOP operative close to the Bush family.

 

George H.W. Bush, at 92 years of age, is the freest to disavow allegiance to the party’s nominee. Although sources close to the former president indicate he would have preferred his vote remain confidential, he harbors a deep disgust for Trump, who mocked and insulted his son throughout the primary and whose life of shameless self-promotion and a coarse approach to politics are an affront to the cultivated gentility and pragmatic, big-tent conservatism he and his sons personify.

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Or maybe people are just tired of the Bush Clinton dynasty?