Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, continuing a family tradition, said something patently stupid on Sunday at an inaugural gathering for the National Council for a New America (NCNA):

So our ideas need to be forward looking and relevant. I felt like there was a lot of nostalgia and the good old days in the [Republican] messaging. I mean, it’s great, but it doesn’t draw people toward your cause.

Although I can’t find a quote from Bush that is as direct as the headline: “Jeb Bush, GOP: Time to leave Reagan behind,” the inference is apparent.  Jeb, as did his father George and his brother, the other George, are “moderates” who do not – did not – subscribe to Reagan philosophies.

Bush went on to say:

You can’t beat something with nothing, and the other side has something. I don’t like it, but they have it, and we have to be respectful and mindful of that.

“Nothing?”  “NOTHING?”

Jeb, you ignorant slut. How dare you marginalize Ronald Reagan to irrelevant nostalgia! it’s not about “nostalgia,” or “the good old days,” it’s about sound principles of governance.  It’s about doing what’s right, not what polls du jour suggest.  It’s not how the wind blows, but what the wind carries.

You, like your father and brother, are burning the Reagan bridge and not heeding the lesson of the biblical burning bush.

In Exodus 3, God revealed himself to Moses through a burning bush and with it the message of deliverance. Ronald Reagan was no god, but his message and his philosophy was resolute and timeless.  To paraphrase:

I have surely seen the affliction of [the] people who are in [the grip of liberals]. I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.  I have come to deliver them from the hand of the [liberals and Democrats] and to bring them up from that land to a land that is both good and spacious, to a [free America].

It was running from what Reagan did that got us where we and the Republican Party are today.  Thomas Jefferson said “Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.”  The tried and true.  Jefferson was certainly no foe of change.  He helped marshal in the greatest political change of humankind.  Yet he understood that proven methods deserve repeat.

Jefferson also said:  “Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.“

Pay attention, Jeb.