Obama Is Counting on Jeb Bush

One need not blame Jeb Bush for his brother to notice that he, too, believes in “Big Government Conservatism” — or, more likely, just Big Government. His celebration of  the monstrous “No Child Left Behind Act” spews the usual palaver, but there is a message here (don’t bother looking for a moral): The GOP’s rich, influential Hot Tub wing will fight to the death to defend its entrenched power from the Tea Party, inspired by Ron Paul to cleanse the Augean Stables with a disciplined, thorough, and bipartisan spirit.

Obama might be down, but he’s not out. The GOP establishment, on the other hand, is in, and wants the Tea Party out. In 1960 and 1964, it wanted Goldwater out. In 1968 and 1976 it wanted Reagan out. In 1980 it got Jim Baker in, who threw out every Reaganaut he could, a task which he completed with perfection on Inauguration Day 1989, when Jeb’s father gave him carte blanche.

Obama is counting on the GOP Hot Tub establishmentarians to wage war against the Tea Party — to the death, if necessary. They have tons of money (most of it made by and through government), they have seniority, and they have a modicum of power. They also have thinly-veiled contempt for the folks whose votes put them in power — Tea Partiers, pro-life, pro-family types, gun owners, conservatives, and even a handful of libertarians.

Gerald Ford and Bob Michel, House Republican leaders who loved being in the minority, are heroes to the GOP Hot-Tubbers. They know that, even in the minority, they will get their share of the plunder. But a Tea Party majority will shut everybody’s water off, and a hot tub gets smelly real fast without a fresh supply. Yes, they oppose Obama — but they “hate” the Tea Party.

Obama is counting on them. He wants the Hot Tubbers to make the Tea Party so mad that it goes Third Party, which will guarantee the nation four more years of Obamanism. Given Jeb Bush’s pathetic cheer for business as usual, it just might happen.

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8:59 am on August 4, 2011