Jeb Bush was at a fundraiser for his political action committee, Right to Rise, last night. The fundraiser, as is now custom with presidential candidates, was closed to the media. But as is becoming custom, the press immediately interviewed attendees after the fundraiser to pick up any salacious quotes that the candidate may have dropped. Hearst's Connecticut Media Group published two such quotes.

Apparently in reference to Hillary Clinton, Bush said that "If someone wants to run a campaign about ’90s nostalgia, it’s not going to be very successful." Which is a fairly bold statement for a legacy candidate whose dad was president during the 1990s. But Bush also addressed that whole legacy-candidate thing by insisting he's a different brand man than the other famous Bushes. Bush allegedly asked a rhetorical question to argue the point: "Do you have a father? Do you have a brother? Are you the same person?" This misses the points raised by people who are concerned about a third Bush presidency: Would a Jeb Bush White House be staffed with many of the same people his dad and brother hired to run the country? Where does Jeb differ from his father and his brother? Will he invade Iraq again, just to go for a three-fer?

Bush's arguments are working on the media, though. Everything about the press surrounding Jeb is interested in casting him as a new man, a new Republican, with new ideas. The Washington Post quotes Fred Sainz, the former Bush staffer who quit the Republican Party over George W. Bush's homophobic policies, as saying Jeb Bush is finding a new way for Republicans to talk about gay marriage. That's not really true.

Bush's statement that "couples making lifetime commitments to each other" deserve "respect" is new for Republicans—how sad is that?—but he also calls for "respect" for "those of us who believe marriage is a sacrament and want to safeguard religious liberty." These two charges cannot coexist, because people like Bush who "want to safeguard religious liberty" do not want gay marriage to be legal. (Take Bush's potential presidential rival Marco Rubio, for example, who's arguing that anti-gay-marriage forces in Florida should keep fighting.) They believe it's an affront to their God and their Bible. By definition, that's not respect.

If you're looking for more evidence that the media is ready to believe Bush's claims that he's a new breed of Republican, look no further than Peter Beinart's piece for the Atlantic, which speculates that naming his PAC "Right to Rise" is a sign that Bush is going to take income inequality seriously. Right to Rise does list income inequality as a major concern on its "What We Believe" page, but absolutely nothing in Bush's record as a politician suggests that he's serious about this idea. Fiscally, he's a typical small-government Republican, and it's hard to believe that his years making millions in hedge funds would have instilled a come-to-Jesus moment in him on the topic of income inequality. His solutions to grow the middle class are likely to be the same bullshit ideas as Mitt Romney's: Cut regulations, give out tax breaks to business, and trust the money to trickle down. Which it never does. Doesn't sound very new to me.