Jeb Bush, the multiple-choice candidate

In case you've been distracted by  less critical matters, I should tell you that the national media are reporting that George Pataki may run for president.

George Pataki?  As Gail Collins scolded her readers in the New York Times, how could you not remember the guy who was New York's Republican  governor for 12 years, though not the last eight? He says he will announce his plans on May 28.  That would be the day after Rick Santorum, a quadrennial candidate who's never been governor of New York, reveals what he says will be a "major" announcement.  May we guess?

Still more dramatic will be  Donald  Trump's "exciting" announcement in June. After all, he says, the country is going to Hell.

And even still more dramatic, Lousiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a presidential wannabe,  brashly called on the Pope to keep his nose out of politics.  Sadly for him, Bobby has yet to regain his focus since he fizzled in his response to President Obama's State of the Union address.

But the most consuming news these days has been about the Brothers Bush. Jeb, media-projected as the chosen one by the GOP establishment because he was the least craziest in the field,  has emerged as the multiple-choice candidate for giving us four answers about whether he woud have, as did his brother, ordered America into the Iraq war. Jeb's family-values response was that was had great respect for Dubya and wasn't about to throw him under the bus.

Well, how about dispatching some of his brother's hawkish advisors who are now working for Jeb.    He can begin with Paul Wolfowitz, who was quite comfortable with the war and even predicted that Iraq's enormous oil profits would pay  for the country's reconstruction within three years.  That would be the financial payoff  from Dick Cheney's prediction that Americans would be greeted as liberators.

For now, we must live with Jeb's multiple choice responses. (Will No. 5 be, "None of the above"?)  They recall my days as a freshman in a world history class at the University of Pittsburgh.  I had filled all 12 pages in answering the single essay question. But when the professor returned it a few days later, it was graded with an  "F".  I confronted him and argued that I had filled all 12 pages.

 "I know",  he said, calmly.  "The correct answer was in there somewhere, but you obviously didn't know what it was."