PUNDITS CALLED CLINTON A ROGUE SURROGATE. WHY AREN'T THEY SAYING THAT ABOUT JEB?
Obama surrogate Bill Clinton was described as "out of control" earlier this week after he made a few statements that conflicted with the Obama campaign's messaging (and sometimes didn't conflict as much as was reported). This plays into the hot new meme of Campaign 2012 -- that Obama is struggling while the Romney campaign is hitting stride.
So, um, why aren't there any "out of control" articles about the Romney surrogate with the most famous name in the Republican Party?
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), appearing on CBS' "This Morning" Thursday, said he hoped that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney would accept a plan exchanging 10 dollars in spending cuts for 1 dollar in revenue.
This, of course, directly contradicts a position Romney took in a debate last August.
That wasn't Jeb's only off-message statement:
Jeb Bush says he doesn't "have to play the game of being 100,000 percent against President Obama," although the former Florida governor has "a long list of things" that he thinks Obama has done wrong.
In an interview on "CBS This Morning," Bush cited the selection of Arne Duncan as education secretary as an Obama success. "I think Arne Duncan has done a good job," Bush told Charlie Rose. "And he clearly has the unmitigated support of the president."
Rose asked if Bush worried about the direction of the Republican Party, and the governor cited immigration issues.
"I worry that it's shortsighted because tonally, in terms of the tone of the debate, it sends a signal 'we want your support but you really can't join our team.' ... That's the short-term implications of this," Bush said....
And, of course, there's this:
Jeb Bush, who might have been the third member of his family to become president of the United States, says he missed "a window of opportunity" in not running this year.
"This was probably my time," Bush said in an interview airing on CBS News' "This Morning."
So: Jeb's at odds with the stated position of his party's nominee on the inclusion of tax increases in a budget deal. He's at odds with the nominee on immigration (or at least on the messaging). He's praising the other party's education policies. And he's expressing regrets that he didn't run against his party's nominee.
Where are the screaming headlines at Drudge and Politico and The Washington Post and The Atlantic Wire?
Why, if I were of a suspicious bent, I'd say there was a double standard at work here.
