Jeb Should Withdraw to Save the Country from Hillary

(AP Photo.)

Jeb Bush should withdraw from the presidential contest of 2016.  He should do so soon to become a true hero to our country that sorely needs one. And he should accompany his withdrawal with a detailed explanation of his reasons.  It is not just because his mother Barbara Bush was correct in her original assessment that the United States does not any more Bushes or Clintons.  It is far more.

The Democratic Party looks determined to nominate a woman for president that a majority of the country thinks a liar.  A recent poll from NBC and the Wall Street Journal found a paltry 25% of Americans believe Hillary Clinton to be honest. And this is before Mrs. Clinton assumes office.  Who knows what would happen thereafter when so many presidents find themselves in crisis situations demanding courage and integrity?

If Mrs. Clinton were to win the presidency, she would do so under a cloud of distrust unprecedented in any of our lifetimes.  She would have no honeymoon period and would not deserve one.  And this would be happening at a moment in history when the entire world is on a knife edge because of the rise of radical Islam and ISIS throughout the Middle East, Africa, South East Asia, Latin America and, increasingly, Europe, not to mention having to monitor the controversial nuclear deal with Iran, if and when such a thing is signed.

More than ever, we would need a man or woman in the White House we could trust — yet so many of us wouldn’t.  America would be split asunder at the beginning of a Hillary presidency as never before since the Civil War. No other Democratic candidate would create such a rift. If that sounds like an exaggeration, I assure you it is not.

Jeb Bush is eminently positioned to prevent this from happening. He can sacrifice his own presidential ambitions for the good of the country.  In the process he would be free to detail his reasons, free to be specific about the lies and evasions surrounding Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, the erased emails and missing server, the Benghazi prevarications, the ill-conceived and disastrous war in Libya, the dizzying corruption of the Clinton Foundation and then the inability to face the truth when confronted by her own myriad dishonesties, the quasi-fascistic silence of her political campaign during which she avoids substantive questions whenever possible.

While Jeb reminds us that the founding of our country was a rebellion against “royal families,” not a blind embracing of them, he can be the one to save us from a rupture that has the potential to destroy our social fabric for years to come.  He will be enshrined in the history books for his patriotic act of withdrawal, because that is what it will have been. He might even be able to shame Hillary Clinton and her supporters in the process, if such a thing is possible. At the very least, he will shine a bright light on her mendacity and extreme entitlement that would seriously threaten her candidacy.

I write urging this withdrawal with no special animosity toward Jeb Bush, nor is this about his policies as they may or may not evolve.  For all I know, he could be a great president.  No matter how smart we think we are, none of us really knows how someone will behave once they assume that office.  History plays tricks on almost every president.

And I know I’m not the first to make this suggestion.  Others have talked to me about it.  But I make it here publicly in the hopes that the potential candidate reads it and considers.

Do it, Jeb.