8 Quotes That Prove How Arrogant Jeb Bush Is

We're getting the point in the 2016 election when the candidates are slowing down in announcing their campaigns and starting to lay out what their biggest causes will be. Hillary Clinton has taken on women's issues and pre-K education. Bernie Sanders wants to break up big banks. Rand Paul is courting the marijuana vote. Taking a different approach, Jeb Bush promised to attack the "arrogance" of Washington.

The Republican candidate spoke Monday at Florida State University. He made a point to say that he would take on the "arrogance" and "sheer incompetence" of the capital. Although congresspeople do seem to be, as a whole, a fairly arrogant bunch, I'm not sure exactly how Bush plans to accomplish this feat. Besides giving the government a total personality makeover with federal life coaches, there's not much you can do to change something like that. Still, he said, "We need a president willing to challenge the whole culture in our nation's capital — and I mean to do it."

The really ironic part of all this is that the former Florida governor's critics have a grand time accusing him of being arrogant. Many of his past quotes lead me to conclude the same thing. To celebrate Bush's attempt at a complete overhaul of government leaders, here are eight really arrogant quotes from one government leader.

On Climate Change

Look, first of all, the climate is changing. I don’t think the science is clear what percentage is man-made and what percentage is natural. It’s convoluted. And for the people to say the science is decided on, this is just really arrogant, to be honest with you. It’s this intellectual arrogance that now you can’t even have a conversation about it.

You have to be pretty pretentious to think you know more than pretty much everyone in the scientific community. Yet here Bush is, attempting to say he does anyway.

On Working Class Women

If people are mentally and physically able to work, they should be able to do so within a two-year period. They should be able to get their life together and find a husband, find a job, find other alternatives in terms of private charity or a combination of all three.

Wow. Thank you, Jeb. Thank you for making this statement in 1994 and telling women their only three options. You are so wise.

On Immigrants

Immigrants are more fertile, and they love families, and they have more intact families, and they bring a younger population. Immigrants create an engine of economic prosperity.

OK, this one might just border on stupidity. Bush said this in 2013 as an argument for why the United States needs more immigrants. Still, you have to have a certain amount of smugness to speak about all immigrants like this.

On His Father

My dad is the greatest man alive. If anyone disagrees, we’ll go outside.

Making a sweeping declaration that your dad is the greatest man alive — when you're older than the age of nine — is pretty arrogant. Bush must get into a lot of fights.

On Working Class Women — Again

Bush's 1990s plan for Florida's public assistance required that women "identify the fathers of their children, submit to random drug tests and work if jobs were available," according to The Huffington Post. He really does think he knows so much more than the women he's speaking out. Bush needs to check his vanity — and his privilege — before going any further in this campaign.

On Gay Rights

According to ABC News, Bush said that gay marriage was a "distraction" from the economy. Calling the love and civil rights issues among a huge sector of the population a "distraction" is incredibly insulting.

On Other Conservatives

The conservative cause would be the governing philosophy as far as the eye could see … and that’s doable if we just stop acting stupid.

According to Politico, Bush made this statement in February. He probably scored points with more moderate Republicans with this one, but it's still pretty pompous to imply that he knows more than every other member of his party.

On The Minimum Wage

I think state minimum wages are fine. The federal government shouldn’t be doing this. This is one of those poll-driven deals. It polls well, I’m sure — I haven’t looked at the polling, but I’m sure on the surface without any conversation, without any digging into it, people say, "Yeah, everybody’s wages should be up."

Whoa. According to The Daily Beast, Bush knows what every person in the country thinks about the minimum wage. He doesn't even have to look at any facts or research. That sounds pretty arrogant to me.

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