Don't skewer Jeb Bush over half of a sentence

The 2016 gaffe wars have finally begun. Oh, there have been gaffes before now in this presidential race, but the one Jeb Bush uttered on Wednesday — that in order to get our economy moving, "people need to work longer hours" — may be the first of this campaign's gaffes that is being accepted by both his political opponents and the media as terribly consequential ("Jeb Bush's 'Longer Hours' Remark Will Haunt Him," reads a headline at Time magazine). I may not have a lot of love for Jeb, but even this liberal is willing to say that on this one, he's getting a bum rap.

As I've mentioned before, my gaffe rule is this: When determining how harshly we ought to judge a candidate for something everyone is calling a gaffe, we have to ask whether 1) he made the statement once, extemporaneously, or said it multiple times; and 2) whether, given the chance, he'd put it differently. If it's something that just came out wrong one time, the candidate ought to be forgiven.

On this, Bush seems to qualify, particularly since there's a reasonable explanation for what he was trying to say. Here's the full excerpt:

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There's a lot I disagree with in this statement — indefinite 4 percent growth is virtually impossible, and productivity isn't the problem, since American workers have gotten steadily more productive while their wages have stagnated. Not only that, but full-time workers work too many hours, and don't get mandated paid vacation and sick leave.

But the way Bush clarified the statement the next day — that he was talking about people who are working part-time, but would rather work full-time — is perfectly reasonable.

If you want to say that this statement reveals that Bush is disconnected from the struggles of everyday Americans, I'd ask: You didn't know that already? This is a guy whose grandfather was a senator and whose father and brother were presidents, who gets paid millions of dollars to sit on corporate boards, whose career in business (like that of his brother) seemed to consist mainly of people throwing money at him so they could be associated with the Bush name. Of course he's disconnected from the struggles of everyday Americans. And what really matters isn't whether he feels your pain, it's what he'd do about it. That's no mystery either. He'd probably do what every other Republican would do: cut taxes for wealthy people and reduce regulations on corporations.

In that, what Bush's gaffe told us is just what every other major gaffe tells us. Given the attention they get, one is tempted to conclude that the gaffe must show us something we didn't know, a hidden yet vital truth about the candidate. He's been fooling us all along, but the the gaffe tears the mask from his handsome face to reveal the twisted monster beneath, right?

Wrong. In fact, every gaffe — and I mean every gaffe — tells us exactly what we already know. Or at the very least, it reinforces the things reporters already believe about the candidate. When the "47 percent" recording was revealed, people didn't say, "Wait a minute — are you trying to tell me Mitt Romney is not brimming over with sympathy and caring for people of modest means? I never would have guessed!" When Sarah Palin couldn't remember which newspapers she read, there weren't too many voters saying, "Wow, I guess she's not quite the intellectual powerhouse I thought she was." When Bill Clinton said he tried pot but didn't inhale, no one said, "My god, I can't believe Clinton would try some sneaky rhetorical formulation to please everybody at once, while still kind-of-but-maybe-not-quite telling the truth!"

Things candidates say become gaffes when reporters and commentators look at them and decide that they reinforce the conclusions we've already made about that candidate — that he's too uncaring, too dumb, too dishonest, or whatever. Then we can repeat the gaffe over and over as a vivid illustration that justifies the conclusions we've made. And we obviously get plenty of encouragement — if there's a Democratic organization that hasn't already emailed reporters a press release to explain what a terrible insult Bush's statement was to American workers and how it shows he's unfit for the presidency, they're falling down on the job.

So if you want to criticize Jeb Bush for not caring enough about ordinary people, or not understanding the fundamental challenges the economy faces, go right ahead — you'll have plenty of evidence on which to build your case. But a half a sentence that he said one time that might or might not have meant what you think he did? For that, we can forgive him.