Jeb Bush claims 'I am my own man.' Now meet his foreign policy advisers.

His Own Man (right) and the man whose foreign policy advisers he's relying on.

His Own Man (right) and the man whose foreign policy advisers he's relying on.

In a foreign-policy address today, Jeb Bush will try to convince people that he's not his father or—probably more importantly—his brother. Literally, his prepared remarks have him saying:

I love my father and my brother. I admire their service to the nation and the difficult decisions they had to make.

But I am my own man — and my views are shaped by my own thinking and own experiences.

In light of that claim, it's interesting to consider the foreign policy advisers with whom Jeb Bush has, as his own man, chosen to surround himself. Like Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff, George W.'s two homeland security secretaries. And Porter Goss and Michael Hayden, two of George W.'s CIA directors. And Iraq War architects Paul Wolfowitz, Stephen Hadley, and Meghan O'Sullivan. The list goes on.

The independence and his-own-man-ness doesn't just ooze from every one of Jeb Bush's pores, it crackles and pulses in the air around him like an aura of flames. Oddly, though, it carries a distinct odor of bullshit.