Will the Bushes please just go away?

For months now, Jeb Bush has been listening as President Obama blasts his older brother’s administration for the battered economy, budget deficits and even the lax oversight of oil wells.

“It’s kind of like a kid coming to school saying, ‘The dog ate my homework,’ ” Mr. Bush, this state’s former governor, said over lunch last week at the Biltmore Hotel. “It’s childish. This is what children do until they mature. They don’t accept responsibility.”

Oops. Jeb! just called his brother an immature child, because during the Bush/Cheney years, everything was everyone else’s fault–especially Bill Clinton’s. Just for starters…

The Lousy Economy

“Two-and-a-half years ago, we inherited an economy in recession,” he [George W. Bush] told donors at a Bush-Cheney ’04 reception yesterday in Miami. He has raised the same accusation in fundraising appearances since mid-June in Washington, Georgia, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The Israeli/Palestinian Conflict

“It wasn’t all that long ago where a summit was called [by the Clinton administration] and nothing happened, and as a result we had significant intefadeh in the area.“

The Record Deficit

…the senior [Bush] administration official says the budgetary problems stem from what is believed to be inadequate defense, intelligence and homeland security resources that were handed down from Clinton.

Job Losses

“In the last six months of the prior administration [Clinton/Gore], more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs were lost. We’re turning that around,” said Bush, who cited the addition of 107,000 manufacturing jobs this year.

North Korea’s nukes

Bush rejected criticism from Democrats that his administration had not paid enough attention to the brewing North Korean nuclear crisis. “The North Korean situation was serious for years,” he said in a veiled swipe at former President Clinton. […]“Bilateral negotiations didn’t work. You know, I appreciate the efforts of previous administrations. It just didn’t work,” Bush said.

Even 9/11 was everyone else’s fault.

They [al Qaeda] looked at our response after the hostage crisis in Iran, the bombings of the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the first World Trade Center attack [under Clinton], the killing of American soldiers in Somalia [under Clinton], the destruction of two U.S. embassies in Africa [under Clinton], and the attack on the USS Cole [under Clinton]. They concluded that free societies lacked the courage and character to defend themselves against a determined enemy… After September the 11th, 2001, we’ve taught the terrorists a very different lesson: America will not run in defeat and we will not forget our responsibilities.

And yet, Jeb! has the balls to say,

“The issue to me is what we do now,” Jeb Bush said. “Who cares who’s to blame?”

It was awfully nice of Matt Bai of the New York Times to give Jeb! a forum to spout this nonsense unchallenged.

Great job, Matt!