Earlier in this campaign season, Jeb Bush looked reasonably appealing to me as a possible Republican presidential nominee. He struck me as smart, moderate, experienced, and electable.
But he hasn’t run an impressive campaign so far. And his people’s attacks on one of my favorite judicial divas, Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, aren’t helping.
In a recent interview with Mark Halperin, Donald Trump said some nice things about his big sister, longtime Third Circuit Judge Barry. In true Trump fashion, he praised her as “great,” “phenomenal,” and “the best” — but when asked if he’d appoint her to the Supreme Court if he became president, he admitted that “we’d have to rule that out” (perhaps because she’s 78, and perhaps because of the nepotism problem).
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That didn’t stop Jeb Bush’s campaign from turning Judge Barry into a campaign issue. After Ramesh Ponnuru noted some of her pro-choice rulings in a National Review piece, “just 20 minutes after that article went up, Bush’s spokesman and campaign manager tweeted it out, sexing it up a bit to say that Trump actually wanted to put his sister on the bench,” as reported by David Weigel in the Washington Post.
“Sexing it up” is charitable of Weigel. The tweets were downright misleading, considering that Trump had explicitly “rule[d]… out” placing his big sis on SCOTUS. I have to say, I actually agree with MSNBC here:
There’s a legitimate question about whether Team Jeb, and in fact all campaigns, would be better off leaving candidates’ family members out of the debate altogether. Sure, Trump said nice things about his sister, and apparently conservatives have reason to disagree with her, but unless there’s a substantive reason to connect the judge’s views with the candidate’s, it’s a questionable line of attack.
Indeed. One might call it… Bush league.
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Team Jeb adds Trump’s sister to the mix [The Rachel Maddow Show / MSNBC]
Jeb Bush’s campaign shames Donald Trump for praising pro-choice sister [David Weigel / Washington Post]
Trump Praises His Sister, a Pro-Abortion Extremist Judge [The Corner / National Review]
Earlier: A Delicious Judicial Diva: Donald Trump’s Older Sister, Judge Maryanne Trump Barry