Is Jeb now a human pinata on Iraq? I think so! After asking for a Mulligan, Jeb Bush has now given his second, and presumably final answer to the question of whether he’d still invade Iraq “knowing what we know now.” The answer is: “I don’t know what that decision would have been.” Somehow this is not satisfying in a presidential candidate! A president is supposed to be able to make up his mind. And, given the unpopularity of the Iraq War even among Republicans, Bush’s non-answer would seem to open him up to the argument that “You can’t still think going into Iraq now, as a sane human being, was the right thing to do.” That’s Laura Ingraham’s quote.

Among potential presidential contenders, Gov. Chris Christie has also already gotten in his whacks (“I don’t think you could honestly say that if we knew then that there was no WMD that the country should have gone to war.”) Ted Cruz says “Of course not.” Who’s next? If Marco Rubio piles on we’ll know the polling on the issue really is against the war KWWKN (Knowing What We Know Now) among Republicans. … Update: Rubio gets in his lick. (“Not only would I not have been in favor of it, but President Bush would not have.”) Also Kasich.

P.S.: The interesting Jeb answer would have been “no.” He can’t even dis his brother to that extent? Why is it so important to Jeb that there be no “space between me and my brother”? Tells us something about Jeb we needed to know, involving baggage (lots) and balls (not so much). …

‘LOL — Dad, You Screwed Up Your Iraq Position’: Damage control through New Media playacting is becoming Team Jeb specialty: 1) Did Jeb list himself as “Hispanic” on an official form? His son tweets: “LOL — come on dad, think you checked the wrong box.” Ha ha ha. 2) He’s asked if he’d invade Iraq even “knowing what we know now,” and he answers yes. Whoops. Then an ally just happens to email him (‘Hey, I’m a little confused by this answer so I’m genuinely wondering did you mishear the question?”) and says he emailed back “I misheard the question.” … It’s all very Webby and savvy and Shakespearean (talking about what the King did offstage). I suppose it has the virtue of not generating too much news while giving friendly MSMers an excuse to drop the story. But at some point it becomes too savvy and too cute, no?. Why do they keep having to do this? Don’t they trust their candidate to man up and do his own damage control? (Jeb strategist Mike Murphy didn’t have an ex-aide to Arnold Schwarzenegger tweet “Where there’s smoke there’s fire.” Schwarzenegger said it himself.)  …

Update: Jeb has now gone on the Hannity radio show and attempted to re-answer Megyn Kelly’s actual question (“knowing what we know now”). His second-chance answer: “I don’t know.” Seems like he should! …