A Reflection on History, Standards, and the Establishment

“Hillary Clinton is indeed, as her critics claim, part of the “the establishment.” Like all women of lofty ambition, she is keenly and woefully aware that in 2016, less than a century out from women’s suffrage, pioneering into a space formerly only occupied by men requires an acceptance that gender constrains one to work within the system, rather than from outside of it.”

―Katie Massa Kennedy

Two generally grim thoughts arise and insist:

• The nagging feeling that my fellow liberals are about to blow our best opportunity in generations, and seemingly because the GOP has decided to run dangerously out on a limb, and we want a little bit of that spectacle for ourselves.

• The nagging feeling that it isn’t blindness toward history driving the liberal need to endanger this chance, but, rather, the proposition that some will do anything to keep a woman out of the White House.

The Jeb Bush Show (Launching the Light Fantastic)

“It depends how radically Mr. Bush plans to restructure the economy.”

―John Cochrane

Okay, work with me, here: If we bear in mind that a writer should always accommodate the intended audience, then what are we supposed to think about articles like “6 takeaways from Bush’s launch” by Niall Stanage of The Hill, which actually does, in fact, feature a sentence that reads, “Here are six takeaways from a positive day for the Bush campaign”?

To the other―

Jeb Bush had a lot riding on his official presidential launch on Monday.

Stumbles over the last few months have stripped the sense that the former Florida governor is the front-runner for the Republican nomination next year.

Bush has looked rusty at times on the campaign trail, and a reshuffling of his campaign team just last week highlighted the sense that he needs to get his candidacy in order. But the professionalism of Monday’s launch is likely to calm the nerves of some early Bush backers disconcerted by the early missteps.

Here are six takeaways from a positive day for the Bush campaign.

―it really is a pretty good primer, and carries the metavalue of aptly demonstrating the lowered expectations permeating the GOP’s 2016 nomination contest.