Jeb Bush: I'm different than my brother George
CHICAGO (AP) — Republican presidential prospect Jeb Bush plans to note he is different from his former president brother George W. Bush in a Chicago speech about U.S. foreign policy.
In excerpts released ahead of the midday speech, the former Florida governor answers a question he faces repeatedly in closed-door fundraisers as he marches toward an increasingly likely 2016 Republican presidential bid: What makes you different from your former president father and, more recently, brother, George W. Bush?
“I recognize that as a result, my views will often be held up in comparison to theirs,” Bush says, referring also to his father, former President George H. W. Bush, in excerpts released early of a midday speech he’s to give in Chicago Wednesday.
“But I am my own man – and my views are shaped by my own thinking and own experiences,” he says.
Although he has not yet announced his candidacy, Bush has recently been among the most aggressive in a crowded field of Republican politicians contemplating a run for the White House. No one has emerged as an overwhelmingly front-runner for the Republican nomination, in contrast to the Democratic field, where Hillary Rodham Clinton is a clear early favorite, should she declare her intention to run.
Bush has been met with questions about how he would distinguish himself particularly from his brother, who finished his second term in 2009 amid an unpopular war in Iraq, an economy in freefall and a majority of Americans disapproving of his job performance. His father was president from 1989-1993 during the first Gulf War with Iraq.
The younger brother has noted privately, among potential donors, their strong family and religious bonds, but the differences common among siblings.
Some foreign policy experts say Bush must go further and take a stance on whether the war in Iraq, begun in 2003 under George W. Bush, was an appropriate move. Bush did not answer the question directly when asked about it last week during a quick press availability after an event in Florida for his mother’s literacy charity.
“The answer he gave last week, about not litigating the past, that’s not a satisfying answer,” said Peter D. Feaver, a former national security adviser to George W. Bush. “He has to come up with a better answer than that.”
But Feaver says Bush would have an international landscape far different than the one his brother left behind.
Instead of the lurking threat of al-Qaida, Jeb Bush would inherit a map dotted with violent and unstable spots including Syria, Iraq, Iran and the Ukraine.
Jeb Bush recognizes that, according to the excerpts of his speech.
“One thing we know is this: Every president inherits a changing world,” he said.
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