Jeb Bush defends Cheney, Rumsfeld against his dad's slams

Former President George H.W. Bush, former First Lady Barbara Bush, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Jeb Bush has said he loves his dad so much he'd "kill for him" and "go to prison for him," but apparently he draws the line at backing up the 41st president's comments about "iron-ass" Dick Cheney and "arrogant" Donald Rumsfeld.

In the new book Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush, biographer Jon Meacham quotes the elder Bush as saying both former Vice President Cheney and former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld were too hawkish after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Bush not only called Cheney "iron-ass" and Rumsfeld "arrogant," but also said he believed it was a "big mistake" to let Cheney "bring in kind of his own State Department," and found Rumsfeld to suffer from a "lack of humility, a lack of seeing what the other guy thinks."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.