But...but...but...he was inevitable.

Holy shit, that's big. My dreams of seeing our friend create the Gay Dude for Bush slog profile are crushed.

And if I'm Carson, Kasich or any of those other dim-witted shitheads I jump at the chance to get out now so as to disperse and share the late night monologue fodder and mocking amongst as many of us as possible.

But he already showed everyone his gun.
Good clapping riddance.
Clap. Clap. Clap.

LOL, @3. And I agree @4. I'm hoping Kasich gets out ASAP. He just promised to defund Planned Parenthood in OH to gain a few dozen of those SC votes. Who knows what other parts of the state he'll sell down the river before Super Tuesday.

I've felt sorry for him ever since he got in. He's just a schlub. I really feel sorry for him having to face Poppy and Bar as a loser.

Bye, bitch.

(What's going to happen to all of that leftover munnie???)

@8 vacation's all he ever wanted.

That's now THREE presidential losers in the Bush family! Amazing record!

Please laugh.

Good Christ could you please disable auto play on the Kesha story.

@11: Word.

@11, oh that's what that is. Yes please.

Can't wait for Colbert to do his next, "Hungry For Power Games."

Kesha? They have put something in the water over there, yes. You guys are not making much sense to me.

@1 It's a Jeb quote. He actually had to ask his audience for applause. It was beautiful.

Is no one else deeply offended by the fact that these A**holes ponied up one hundred million dollars to get their man in office? That is one hundred million dollars!!! This country is getting exactly what it deserves.

I really don't know why you're all piling on Jeb with such glee.

I mean, it just makes it easier for Tump with fewer "establishment' candidates nipping at his heels. If Trump wins the nomination, he has a very good chance of becoming the 45th President of the United States.

What 11, 12, & 13 said. Please disable that awful Kesha video autoplay!

@19 Um, no, it makes it easier for the establishment not to have their votes scattered across RobotRubio, Jeb?, Kas-(howdoesthatgoagain), CarlyCrapupter, etc. You need to get your shit focused on a Not-Trump candidate, if that's what you want.

I forget, is TheCruzer an "establishment" candidate, or are we pretending that theocracy is not the R's only real base?

@20: If you're running OS X El Capitan on a Mac, mute the sound icon in the URL box of the Safari browser.

@22 - Ah, yes, I forgot about that option! Thanks.

@18: You don't understand why we're piling on Jeb with glee? Do you want me to explain it to you with puppets or something? JEB! thought he had it in the bag, that the nomination would be handed to him on a silver platter. He waited for McCain and Romney to do the losing against Obama, and thought he could just step in like some kind of freakin' savior and continue his family legacy. It's delicious to see him being trampled underfoot and not held aloft like the hero he believes himself to be.

@10 - THREE Presidential losers? Last time I checked Bush43 was inaugurated twice, so not sure how you count him (even though 2000 was stolen)...

I'm imagining a conversation that took place as the S.C. numbers (or lack thereof) were being tallied. It would have gone something like this:
"Son, you do what you have to do. I never wanted you to run to begin with. We know that the republican party is no where near ready to embrace our First Latina of the U.S.. I tried to tell you way back when you first told us about her. Then....you further disgraced/disappointed us by converting to her "cult". So, just do what you must. Yes, I know that you keep saying daddy is the greatest man who ever lived & we all know that this disappointment could kill him. But eventually you'll learn to live with what you did to him."

"Thanks for the pep talk, mom. Please clap."

If we want a democrat for president (and i assume most do in this forum), then dissolving away any republican candidate, (like Jeb!), who can make sounds of moderation and relative sanity is a good thing.

@26: Barbara Bush is not like that. She can be aloof, condescending, and terse - but she's not one for racial predudice - no matter the straw narrative republican bashing narrative you want to project on to it. You ought to read Kitty Kelly's biograpy on the Bushes.
But she undoubtably, as probably George H and George W did too, feared that the GOP would not embrace Jeb for this election cycle.
The results from South Carolina put the nail in that coffin. However, Jeb's son Prescott could be a candidate in some future version of the whatever party there is besides the Democrats.

@24 "JEB! thought he had it in the bag, that the nomination would be handed to him on a silver platter."

Jeb Bush ran a very fail safe campaign that his brother ran in 2000 and Mitt Romney ran in 2012. Try to round up most the big donors on Jeb side, and let the other campaigns starve for funds, so they can't have a strong national campaigns.

The problems were a couple things. Number one, people are sick of the Bushes, as much as Republicans hate the Obamas, they have some pretty big antagonism toward George W. Bush. Jeb Bush wanted to have it both ways, use the Bush name, but hold no responsibility for his brother and his administration's actions.

Number Two, Citizen United has change financing campaigns. It is much easier to raise money, and there is no way to control the fat cat donors as before. In many ways, Jeb Bush use a standard formula, but the rule have changed..

Number three, Bush has been out of politics for almost ten years. He left the Florida Governorship in Jan. 2007. He didn't really start his campaign until mid 2014, he seemed to be slow and defensive, besides not really offering much, except to break unions and environmental regulations to get 4% GDP growth.

@29: #3: Terry Schiavo. Every time one might have thought he was some kind of moderate, those two words brought reality rushing right back in.

You know her personally, Raindrop @28.
TampaDink@26 has probably got it in the bag. And it was funny.
She stood by while her husband then her son, idiots both of them, caused havoc around the planet. I can imagine she is one tough old bird.

President Prescott ; raindrop. I don't think so.
You read a biography of the Bush family? You'll never get that time back you know.

@31: ISIS = Havoc around the planet - which started after Obama failed to get a standing forces agreement in Iraq.

@32: Your dislike of a candidate or potential candidate does not translate into some supernatural force that prevents him or her from achieving their ambitions.

raindrop @ 26
Bush sr. was groomed by the oil industry to be their government rep some 45 years ago. Him and the older son didn't disappoint and chose to fight for oil. Twice.
Jeb failed since the party "base" shifted over the years, becoming more ignorant and absolutist since the Christian right took over during the Reagan years.
Today's base voters want someone who can scream out their fears and mask stupidity and assholism with "being decisive."

33- ISIS flourished in the Iraqi vacuum, created by war heroes like Bush and Cheney.

Excuse me , raindrop. Think those Bush men crashed into the Middle East long time before Obama was in the picture.
Bush no2 showed no understanding of how things worked over there, swinging his little dick all over the place.
ISIS is the baby his behaviour brought about.

@33: Yes, we did such great work in Iraq, it's shocking, just shocking!, that they wanted us to get the fuck out.

@37, you're right but that's really an awful visual you turned on.

As little as I want a third Bush, i would prefer him to a President Trump, Cruz, or Rubio.

@36: Correct. The Iraq invasion created the vacuum; but at the time Obama took office he took advantage of the relative peace and stability and left Iraq hanging. Despite his defense secretary's advice, he had no interest in pressing Iraq for maintaining any forces at all and made the vacuum even worse and all that much easier for the "JV" team.

As I understand it the people of the US were over having their young people killed for zero gain, raindrop.
A war which began because of lies.
You really think Obama could have stopped these mad young men exploding? The intention from the start was not to save a country, but to punish someone / anyone for 9/11.

@41:

Funny thing is, Iraq had the ability to put the big thumb down on Daesh-like insurgencies BEFORE shrub decided to go all "Wanna make mah daddy PROUD of me" Oedipal-issues and taking the rest of the nation along for the ride. Was Saddam a nasty guy? You betcha. But, ask yourself: is what we have to face now better or worse?

@36, @41, @43:

There is little point in being partisan about this. Both Republican and Democrat administrations have done everything they could conceivably do to create and strengthen ISIS.

ISIS couldn't have happened without Bush Sr's vacuum, Clinton's ongoing sanctions, Bush Jr's pointless war, or Obama's funding for and arming of "democratic rebels" fighting Assad in Syria. And it would have been easier to fight ISIS if everyone hadn't been such dicks (and if the Republicans weren't continuing to be such dicks) about Iran, and if everyone - Democrats, Republicans, and even foreign governments - were not continuing to be such dicks about Assad.

If you just carry on blaming the other political party for what they've done to create ISIS, and ignore what your own side has done, you will achieve nothing.

But I am willing to bet that that is what's going to happen.

@28, Raindrop.
Actually Barbara Bush IS like that. When she was 2nd Lady, she referred to 3 of her grandchildren as "the little brown ones"....and you might want to consider her comments about refugees from Katrina who were holed up inside the Houston Astrodome. Former first lady Barbara Bush said that New Orleans refugees being housed in the Houston Astrodome were "underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."

@44. sh1331. I realize you haven't included me in your statement. Cause I'm a woman?
I think Obama should have helped Syrians stand up to Assad, four odd years ago. It was obvious that vicious maniac wasn't going to ever listen to some of his people. That he would rather see Syria destroyed, than step down.

All too late now, isn't it.

Bush2 didn't have a pointless war; the point of it was very clear.
Punish someone. The outcome has been to unleash mayhem.

@47, oh come now. Iraq was Cheney's war to make money for himself and others from the corporations that were paid by the government to do everything the military used to do. W may have thought it was to avenge his father but Cheney didn't, and he was running the show.

Not avenge his father, Sarah@48, avenge 9/11.
Many n the US/ Britain/ Australia didn't seem to mind the path taken.
I'm sure financial gains were involved. It would not have been an accepted direction, if 9/11 hadn't happened.

@49

I believe avenging his father refers to reports that Saddam Hussein sent agents to assassinate Senior Bush following the first Iraq war.

Something Bush2 could also have done to Saddam, not invade the whole country, seatackled@50.
Blood lust and fear is what some in the west had after 9/11, or nobody would have joined him.

@46.....

Right.... A few things here.

First, I'm sorry. I didn't proof-read my post and re-proof-read it against existing posts, which is why I failed to include a reference to your post in my post. My mistake. I am sorry. I shall employ an editor for future posts.

Second, I'm sorry you feel belittled by my failing to single you out to tell you you are wrong. I shall try not to make the same mistake in future.

Third...."'Cause I'm a woman?" Really? So you're assuming that the names "Raindrop", "COMTE", "CMDWannabe" and "sh1331" are all men's names? That seems like a rather lazy and baseless assumption, especially on this forum, where the name "LavaGirl" does not necessarily tell me anything about your gender. Please, call out sexism everywhere it happens. I do. But don't call it out somewhere that it isn't happening. I'm really quite offended that you would make such a lazy, stupid assumption about me.

Fourth, you're generally one of the better posters on here. I usually respect your opinions, and I think you've thought things through far more than many others. That's part of why I'm so disappointed about the third point.

Fifth, just so I'm not sexistly ignoring your opinion on the rest of post 46 , you're completely wrong when you say Obama should have "helped the Syrians stand up to Assad".

In other posts, you complain - rightly - about how terrible it was when Bush decided to "help the Iraqis stand up to Saddam" by overthrowing a Ba'athist dictator, installing a weak pro-American regime, and creating a power vacuum which helped create ISIS. In this post, you complain - wrongly - about how terrible it was when Obama didn't decide to "help the Syrians stand up to Assad" by overthrowing a Ba'athist dictator, installing a weak pro-American regime, and creating a power vacuum which helped create ISIS. There is something of a contradiction there. And that's before we get to the fact that Obama DID "help the Syrians stand up to Assad" and that's why we're in the mess we're in now, so complaining that he didn't do it seems somewhat redundant.

And Sarah31 is absolutely right in her response @48 to your post @47.

Which brings us back to the whole "helping the Syrians stand up to Assad" thing. There's a choice here.

1. We don't "help the Syrians stand up to Assad". We fight ISIS, and accept that Assad is the lesser of two evils. Because - get this - ISIS aren't actually very nice.

2. We do "help the Syrians stand up to Assad". This is what we are doing. We fund and arm ISIS, as we have done for the last few years. This is because Assad likes the Russians. And we are therefore willing to provide arms to any ISIS group that says "Oooh, no, we're moderate. Can we have some guns please?" Because we would rather see children captured, enslaved and raped than see a dictator we don't like very much, who gets on well with another government we don't like very much, remain in power. And at the same time, we pretend we don't like ISIS, and bomb them. And at the same time, we can remain allied to Turkey, which is supporting ISIS against both the Kurdish militia that's fighting Assad, and against Assad, and we can support Turkey when it shoots down any Russian or Syrian plane that might be threatening ISIS, and thus reducing ISIS' ability to kill Kurds. So we attack ISIS, and we attack - or support attacks on - anyone else who's bombing ISIS. That's a good way to boost the number of dead people while achieving two-tenths of fuck-all strategically. And after turning Syria from somewhere not brilliant but certainly livable into a cesspit of death, slavery and rape, we're willing to do everything we can to ensure that the people who would rather not be killed or raped either stay in Syria and get killed or raped, or drown trying to escape.

I'd go for 1. But 2 is what everyone else - including you, it would appear - seems to think, so let's just stick with that.

And once again, I apologise for not pointing out how fundamentally wrong you were earlier.