On Thursday’s CBS This Morning, soon-to-be Face the Nation moderator John Dickerson blasted Jeb Bush for his handling of questions about the Iraq War and whether or not he would have authorized the invasion knowing what we know now.
In response to a question from co-host Charlie Rose, Dickerson insisted that “he's rusty and it we got no indication that he’s learned anything about this signature event in American history just as a matter of how he would run his presidency.”
Dickerson’s comments came in response to Bush’s response from a far-left college student who confronted the Republican over the issue at an event in Nevada. The segment began with Norah O’Donnell playing up how “[j]ust taking a look at the front pages of the papers today, the Washington Post and the New York Times suggesting that Jeb Bush stumbled the most basic simple question about his brother's legacy in Iraq. What happened?”
Nowhere in the segment did Dickerson bother to mention that while the press is obsessed with Jeb’s answer to the Iraq War question, Hillary Clinton continues to refuse to take questions from the press about her support for the Iraq War or a whole list of other issues that could impact the 2016 election.
Instead, the CBS host ended the segment by scolding Bush for appearing “rusty” and for not learning “anything” about American history:
He's rusty and it we got no indication that he’s learned anything about this signature event in American history just as a matter of how he would run his presidency. But also he doesn’t want to throw his brother under the bus. He doesn't want to make it look like his brother's foreign policy was a disaster. But on the campaign trial you hear Republicans talk about Ronald Reagan and the lessons of his leadership, they never talk about George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. That’s because of the fact that the public is so sour still on this Iraq War.
See relevant transcript below.
CBS This Morning
May 14, 2015
NORAH O’DONNELL: Jeb Bush continues his apparent path to a presidential campaign today in Arizona. The Republican faced a testy exchange in Nevada yesterday with a Democratic college student over his family's legacy in Iraq.
IVY ZIEDRICH: Your brother created ISIS.
JEB BUSH: Is that a question?
ZIEDRICH: You don’t need to be pedantic to me, sir.
BUSH: Pedantic? Wow.
ZIEDRICH: You could just answer my question.
BUSH: So what is the question?
O’DONNELL: Bush told the student that leaving U.S. troops in Iraq could have kept the country stable. CBS News Political Director John Dickerson is here. John good morning.
JOHN DICKERSON: Good morning, Norah.
O’DONNELL: Just taking a look at the front pages of the papers today, the Washington Post and the New York Times suggesting that Jeb Bush stumbled the most basic simple question about his brother's legacy in Iraq. What happened?
DICKERSON: If there is a single most predictable question you would have written down at the top of the list getting ready for president, this would have been it. His brother was president when this war was going on and he had trouble. His first answer was, when asked the question knowing everything we now, would
you have authorized the war. He said yes. Then immediately in talking to his aides they were saying he’s got to clean that up.
When he did clean it up though in the second answer he said, well mistakes were made as they are in life and left it there sort of dribbling out onto the page. The question here is not just what he would have done but what he has learned and we don't know that.
CHARLIE ROSE: I talked to Marco Rubio yesterday and I phrased the question this way. Based on the fact that we knew there were no weapons of mass destruction there, would you have been in favor of an Iraqi invasion and he said no nor would President Bush been in favor of an invasion if he had known that there were no weapons of mass destruction there.
DICKERSON: This is, well it’s an interesting question. President George W. Bush, Jeb Bush’s brother, said it was the right decision. Knowing everything we know now it’s the right decision. Dick Cheney says everything we know now it was the right thing to do because we got rid of Saddam Hussein. What Jeb Bush didn't want to do is look like he didn't understand that mistakes had been made that’s why he had to try and come up with a second answer. But part of the political pressure for Jeb Bush is that Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie all knew how to answer this question quickly and that makes them look more certain about the world than it does Jeb Bush.
GAYLE KING: Do you think it will be a difficult topic for all the candidates, the Iraq question?
DICKERSON: Well, 18% of the country thinks the war was worth it. Which is to say the rest think it was a mistake and not worth the incredible cost. And, you know, the reason this is important is because this is the largest invasion the United States launched since Vietnam. And Republicans talk a lot about Ronald Reagan. Some have been saying, well we don't want to talk about Iraq because it's in the past but they talk about Reagan all the time.
ROSE: But does it show John Dickerson that Jeb Bush is not, is a little bit rusty in handling questions?
DICKERSON: Well, he's rusty and it we got no indication that he’s learned anything about this signature event in American history just as a matter of how he would run his presidency. But also he doesn’t want to throw his brother under the bus. He doesn't want to make it look like his brother's foreign policy was a disaster. But on the campaign trial you hear Republicans talk about Ronald Reagan and the lessons of his leadership, they never talk about George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. That’s because of the fact that the public is so sour still on this Iraq War.
