What Jeb Bush should say on 9-11

I’ve been trying to figure out what’s been bothering me about the Jeb Bush campaign. I know he’s probably more moderate than most candidates, but that doesn’t usually bother me. He is definitely establishment, but that never bothers me.

But there’s something visceral that’s missing in his campaign speeches and appearances and I couldn’t grasp it until this week.

It goes to his campaign logo.

First name only.

There’s something that doesn’t emotionally click with me when a brother distances himself from a brother. We all know the strategy. There hasn’t been a Republican President not named Bush since Reagan, and even then a Bush was VP. Neither left offices with approval ratings worth bragging about. No wonder Jeb wants to be known as Jeb and not another Bush.

But my Irish-Italian kicks in and whispers, “Darn it, stick up for your brother, Jeb. Who cares what anyone thinks. Family is family.”

It’s political calculation over the regular blue collar sense of family first. The old “we can put down each other but don’t let anyone outside the family say a word or else” ethic.

I’d like to see Jeb stand up for his brother.

Throughout Labor Day weekend and this week, various channels are broadcasting 9-11 specials. I admit that when 14 years pass, the emotion of that attack has mellowed for many of us. But spend a few hours watching documentaries of that day, or the realtime news coverage that’s still on YouTube, and it comes back pretty quickly.

I still thank God George W. Bush was President on that day.

We can debate Afghanistan or Iraq all day long. I also read that bin Laden cited America’s Vietnam experience as motivation, in that America’s will to fight has limits.

George W. Bush never wavered once, even when it cost him in the popularity polls, because he saw himself as less important than his country and the mission at hand.

Meanwhile, Jeb doesn’t even have his last name on his logo.

If I was Jeb Bush, on Friday I would say that on this date, thousands of Americans lost their lives in a terror attack beyond anyone’s imagination. In those moments of panic and dread, America had a choice.

America could fold, withdraw and cower in defeat, or America could rise up and fight, paying any cost and bearing any burden so that liberty might endure.

America chose to fight. And America had no further attacks of terror on US soil.

And when those choices had to be made, I thank God that my brother George W. Bush was President