After being attacked by Donald Trump for being "low energy," Bush is trying to inject some verve into his appearances. The New York Times notes that apparently his new apprach involves using the word "damn" a lot more.
“We’re Americans, dammit!” he told a crowd in New Hampshire Tuesday. “A president has to roll up their damn sleeves and get to work,” he told another. In Florida on Monday, he noted, “We’re going to win this damn thing."
Damn, what a potty mouth. Reporters noted that it appears Bush is trying to dial his speaking voice up a few levels and is now fond of yelling a bit more.
However, perhaps Bush is undercutting his attempts at being an upbeat, straight-talking man of the damn people by telling middle- and high-school students about his daddy issues and resulting depression. Bush was speaking at the Founders Academy, a New Hampshire charter school, and took questions from the students, in sixth through 12th grades.
Bush was asked what it was like having a president for a father.
Jeb, asked what it was like growing up with a presidential father: “When I was a kid, he was just a dad. And he was the greatest dad alive”
— Matt Viser (@mviser) November 4, 2015Jeb, on dad: “All he would have to say is ‘I’m disappointed in you’ and it would send me into a deep depression for days.”
— Matt Viser (@mviser) November 4, 2015Oh, and Bush also found time to apologize to the French. During last week's debate, he attacked Marco Rubio for missing so many Senate votes. "The Senate, what is it like, a French workweek?" Bush asked Rubio. "You get, like, three days where you have to show up?"
The French media apparently didn't like that comment too much, claiming that stereotypes of the shortened French workweek are over-exaggerated.
"I really did a disservice to the French," Bush told reporters on a bus in New Hampshire Tuesday. "I now know that the average French workweek is actually greater than the German workweek. So, my God, I totally insulted an entire country — our first ally — that helped us become free as a nation! And I apologize. That did a huge disservice to France. It didn't really get to the magnitude of the problem: Three-day workweek.
Of course, Republicans, for some reason, love bashing the French. Remember "freedom fries"? Remember people taking jabs at John Kerry for being too "French"? The apology didn't go over too well with many of the #TCOT types on Twitter.
Jeb Bush just apologized to the French. If you're weaker than France, you're unelectable. https://t.co/2t3pqQs9Ou #tcot #politics
— Ben Johnson (@TheRightsWriter) November 4, 2015
