Maureen Dowd, "Jeb Bush’s Brainless Trust": The Revenge of King George III

While talking with my 90-year-old father the other day, he irately declared that he will never vote for "Hope" and "Change" again. I quietly explained to him that he will not have another opportunity to vote for Obama, who in another two years will be hitting the lecture circuit and the golf course, and passing the unsightly mess he made over to some new narcissistic opportunist.

New opportunists? In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Jeb Bush’s Brainless Trust," Maureen Dowd expresses her disdain for the Republican and Democratic 2016 front runners, Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. Dowd writes:

"Like the Clintons, the Bushes drag the country through national traumas that spring from their convoluted family dynamic and then disingenuously wonder why we concern ourselves with their family dynamic.

Without their last names, Hillary and Jeb would not be front-runners, buoyed by networks of donors grateful for appointments or favors bestowed by the family."

Unfortunately, Dowd fails to make reference to a Wall Street Journal article entitled "Foreign Government Gifts to Clinton Foundation on the Rise" by James V. Grimaldi and Rebecca Ballhaus, which last week disclosed:

"The Clinton Foundation has dropped its self-imposed ban on collecting funds from foreign governments and is winning contributions at an accelerating rate, raising ethical questions as Hillary Clinton ramps up her expected bid for the presidency.

Recent donors include the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Australia, Germany and a Canadian government agency promoting the Keystone XL pipeline."

Hillary is being funded by the UAE, Oman and the Saudis? From whom won't she take money?

Incidently, Dowd is not the only Times columinist criticizing Jeb and Hillary today. In an op-ed entitled "Hillary, Jeb and $$$$$$," Frank Bruni concludes:

"We articulate misgivings about how much of Clinton’s or Bush’s thinking may be rooted in the past. But the bigger issue, given the scope of not just their own political histories but also their relatives’, is how heavy a duffel of i.o.u.s each of them would carry into office.

Their prominence is commensurate with their debts. And only so many of those can be forgotten."

But are Jeb and Hillary to blame? Or is it a system that has spun out of control, and notwithstanding the fact that the nation is faced with crushing debt and escalating international savagery, it foists such nauseating choices upon the populace?

King George III most certainly is guffawing from his grave.