Maybe he just doesn’t care anymore, now that he is slipping in the polls. 
Maybe he practiced.
But Jeb Bush sure seemed more comfortable Tuesday night on the much anticipated return of the Late Show with new host Stephen Colbert than he was weeks ago on the Jimmy Fallon show.
Heck, he even gave a shout out to the GOP’s Enemy No. 1, Barack Obama in a soundbite that Ladra predicts will come back and bite him in the, er, ballot.
“I don’t think Barrack Obama has bad motives,” Bush said, sinking his primary chances even deeper. ” I just don’t think he’s right. If you start with the premise that people have good motives, you can find common ground.”
Common ground with Obama? Is he just giving this to Donald Trump?
He said Washington’s dysfunction didn’t happen in state offices or municipal offices where people work together. “We have to restore a degree of civility,” Bush said.
Um, has he been gone from Tallahassee that long?
In a smart but somehow desperate-looking move, Bush also used his time better to jam in as much as his message as he could. After all, as Colbert said, “this is the rare TV appearance that he doesn’t have to share stage with 16 people.”
Earlier, Colbert — who is the same guy even though he isn’t
playing the same guy — took a jab at the other presidential hopeful with an Oreo binge of bad Donald clips. Oh, by the way, I hope Oreo and Sabra compensated Mr. Pistachio with big bucks for their funny and prominent product placement for which they will get social media impressions for days to come. Weeks maybe.
Jeb Bush used the show to sell himself also.
“Washington is a complete basket case,” he said. “There are no priorities, no reform. Imagine if we fixed how we taxed, brought people together, grow our economy much faster, great middle would get a pay raise,” Bush said. Or something like that.
But he seemed more relaxed than he was when he went on Fallon and sang that weird song that he seemed to wince at. He seemed genuinely caught off guard by some of Colbert’s famous blunt honesty and actually chuckled often.
“I would have thought that the exposure to oranges and crazy people would have prepared him for Donald Trump. Apparently not,” Colbert said, and Bush could just laugh.
After he touted his record on education, which is all Bush has, Colbert called him out: “What can you do for education [as president], other than have your picture up in the classroom.”
Bush giggled. “Yeah, that’s true. Post offices and schools.”
But he got a few laughs himself.
When asked about his exclamation point in his logo — Colbert shouted the name — Bush said he’s been doing it forever. “It connotes excitement,” he said, which is probably what the consultant who came up with it told him. And, he added, people actually shout his name out like that.
“In Florida, they do… when they see me. Most of them. Out of happiness or deep anger.”
When asked what his mom, former First Lady Barbara Bush, was thinking when she said there had been enough Bush presidents, her youngest didn’t skip a beat: “Oh she was just joking.”
Jeb Bush said he saw and heard his mother say those words on TV without
knowing she was even on an interview. “It was a little bit embarrassing.”
That wasn’t the only family moment. Colbert got applause for asking a very carefully crafted question after he introduced his own brother, who he disagrees with politically: “Without in anyway diminshing the love for your brother, in what ways do you differ from yor brother George?”
Said Jeb: “Obviously, I’m younger. I’m much better looking.”
Policy, dude, Colbert said.
“I think my brother probably didn’t control the Republican government spending,” Jeb Bush said. “He didn’t veto things.”
Bush said he was called Veto Corleone in Florida because he had exercised the governor’s right to cut $2 billion from state budgets from 1999 to 2006.
But, as far as Ladra can tell, only former House Speaker John Thrasher called him that.
Everybody else calls him Jeb!
Sen. Marco Rubio might want to ask for equal time.
Jeb Bush funnier with Stephen Colbert than with Fallon added by Ladra on
View all posts by Ladra →
