Barbara Bush Says NYT Does ‘Anything To Make News,’ Cancels Subscription

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Former First Lady Barbara Bush has apparently had it with the New York Times, as speculation mounts that her son Jeb is considering a presidential run.

Fox News host Steve Doocy asked Bush in an interview that aired Wednesday if she’d read a Maureen Dowd column titled “Brace Yourself For Hillary And Jeb.”

Bush said she did read the Times column, but brushed it off as “anything to make news.”

“Did you read about the man who died, in his obituary . . . this man who said don’t send flowers, don’t send donations to anything. Cancel your New York Times subscription,” she added. “So I did.”

The former first lady didn’t name the man, but an obituary in the Greenwich Time for a Mr. Leonard Smith grabbed headlines in January for this line: “In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you cancel your subscription to The New York Times.”

Bush repeated to Doocy her belief that presidential talent does exist outside her own family and the Clinton clan, but she conceded her son Jeb was “the best qualified person in the country, there’s no question about that.”

h/t Erik Wemple

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