Former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida talked about Iran and Benjamin Netanyahu’s scheduled speech to Congress and said his foreign policy positions were his own, not his family’s.
CHICAGO — Jeb Bush pointedly sought to distance himself from his brother’s presidency on Wednesday, even as he used his first major foreign affairs speech to call for an assertive American presence abroad that recalled George W. Bush’s own national security strategy.
It was no coincidence that Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, who early polls suggest has challenges with both Republicans and voters in general because of his last name, made his first rhetorical break with the last Republican president in remarks about foreign policy, the issue that sent George W. Bush’s presidency spiraling.
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Seeking to distinguish himself from the previous presidents in his family, Mr. Bush explained that his formative experience on foreign policy came not from watching his brother or father serve as commander-in-chief but as a 20-something working and starting a family in Venezuela, and then as the governor of a state actively involved in foreign trade.
He even recalled exactly how many times he had visited Israel (five) and noted that he had “forced” himself to visit Asia four times each year.
