As Jeb Bush struggled to frame his position on the invasion of Iraq this week, the tendency among many of his GOP rivals was to pile on.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he would have had a clearer answer. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul told The Associated Press that Bush’s initial refusal to answer the question meant that the American people would “get George Bush 3.” Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum questioned the younger Bush’s readiness for the rigors of a presidential race.
But Mike Huckabee said Friday that he and the rest of the field should cut the former Florida governor some slack.
The former Arkansas governor said the discussion over Jeb Bush’s shifting answers this week on whether he would have invaded Iraq given the information that Americans know now about intelligence failures amounted to a lot of “wasted energy.” Huckabee dismissed the query as a “ridiculous frame of questioning” that he said was like going into the future and then coming back.
“Leadership is about making decisions with the information you have, not the information people will have 12 years later,” Huckabee told reporters Friday before addressing the spring meeting of the Republican National Committee.
“I kind of feel sorry for my friend Jeb Bush,” Huckabee continued. “I feel like he’s been caught in the crosshairs of an unfortunate game of semantics and I’m going to cut him some slack on this one.”
He was much more keen on talking to reporters about his affinity for Apple products — declaring that he was “an Apple snob” who has “everything Apple.”
Unlike Bush — who proudly wore his new Apple Watch to the RNC meeting this week — Huckabee said he wasn’t sold on that accessory.
“I’m going to wait a while,” he said. “I just haven’t convinced myself that I need it.”
Though he said he’s typically into the latest Apple product, “that’s one that hasn’t caught my fancy yet.”
Told that Bush had the watch, Huckabee paused.
“Huh,” he said. “Did he say whether he liked it though?”
The newly announced presidential candidate also said he wasn’t sure he needed the feature that would allow him to talk to his watch.
“I’m having enough trouble carrying on a conversation with humans,” he quipped, “much less a piece of machinery.”