ArcaMax

WASHINGTON -- Let us talk about answering hypothetical questions, gotcha-type questions and no questions at all. That is, let us talk about Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee and Hillary Clinton.

Bush first flubbed his answer Monday to a question from Fox News' Megyn Kelly about the war in Iraq.

Kelly: "Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion?"

Bush: "I would've, and so would've Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody. And so would've almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got."

So Flub No. 1 was that Bush misheard the question. The context of his answer -- invoking Hillary Clinton, citing the available intelligence -- seems to assume that Kelly was asking about whether it was the right decision at the time.

Standing alone, that would be a minor misstep, easily fixed. Except for Flub No. 2: Bush dug himself into a deeper hole on Tuesday. And Flub No. 3, deeper still on Wednesday.

Bush on Tuesday, on Sean Hannity's radio show: "I don't know what that decision would have been, that's a hypothetical. But the simple fact is, look, mistakes were made, as they always are in life ... and foreign policy. So we need to learn from the past to make sure that we're strong and secure going forward."

Duck. Passive voice. Pabulum. A trifecta of non-responsiveness.

Wednesday was even worse -- not only hiding behind the notion that hypothetical questions don't deserve answers, but wrapping that dodge in concern for fallen soldiers.

Bush at a town hall meeting in Nevada: "Rewriting history is hypothetical. ... If we're going to get into hypotheticals, I think it does a disservice for a lot of people that sacrificed a lot. ... What we ought to be focusing on is what are the lessons learned."

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