#MemeOfTheWeek: Jeb!, A Gun And ‘America.’

That is why Jeb lost SC; that is why his campaign is finished; that is why Trump romped to another victory; and that – on closer inspection, the real story of the night – is why Marco Rubio’s dream of beating Ted Cruz for second place should turn into a nightmare.

The former Florida governor posted on Twitter the words “America”, with an image of a gun that had Gov. Jeb Bush engraved on it.

Indeed, Jeb is the square-peg-in-a-round-hole candidate – too wonky, not bombastic enough, and all too obvious in trying to play to the conceits of Republican voters.

“Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we’re in”.

Bush has a long way to go to catch up the GOP leaders.

Asked again about his position in 2002, Trump said: “I wasn’t a politician”.

He briefly mentioned his daughter’s struggles with addiction, and said he believes the government should “focus a little bit more on treatment and a little less on punishment” of individuals convicted on drug-related charges.

Nobody wants to tangle with the Pope – not even Donald Trump.

The latest CBS News Battleground Tracker Poll shows Bush on polling at 6 percent ahead of South Carolina’s Republican primary.

He urged voters to back a candidate who will be “measured and thoughtful” on the world stage. “I don’t know why he went in” to Iraq. That only sharpens you for the general election and that only sharpens you to be president. He complained about being “lectured” by “a gifted young guy” whose knowledge of foreign policy is restricted, said Bush, to what he hears in Senate committee hearings. “I was moved by Jeb’s concession speech”.

“I like him very much”, Kasich said, before saying about the rest of the field: “They all deserve an terrible lot of respect”.

The former president’s return to presidential politics has been met with blistering attacks from Trump about the unpopular Iraq war and the economic recession that began at the end of his administration.

He even offered his own theory on why Bush pressed for war, “whether he lied or not”.

“Yeah, I guess so”, Trump said after Stern asked him if he favored invading Iraq.

Rather than gloss over 9/11, Bush leaned in. “By the time the war started, I was against it, and shortly after, I was really against it”, he said. I would have done it differently and he shouldn’t have said we’re getting out at at a specific date.

As he praised South Carolina’s Republican Gov. Nikki Haley, the daughter of Indian-born parents, Bush pointedly said: “Thank goodness our country welcomed her parents when they immigrated here in 1969”. At a time when more Republicans than ever are calling out for fundamental reform, abandoning the Bush legacy, he’s offering a change in generations that would change nothing else.

But by Thursday evening, the GOP front-runner was doing something unusual: de-escalating a fight.