Remember when Mitt Romney shushed people asking about income inequality, telling them that was talk for quiet rooms, that it was just the "politics of envy"?

ROMNEY: I think it’s fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms and discussions about tax policy and the like. But the President has made it part of his campaign rally. Everywhere he goes we hear him talking about millionaires and billionaires and executives and Wall Street. It’s a very envy-oriented, attack-oriented approach and I think it will fail.

Jeb Bush is now the rightful heir of that misbegotten idea.

Jeb Bush, a likely Republican candidate for president in 2016, argued Thursday that now is not the time to talk about the systemic underlying problems that exist in Baltimore while unrest remains in the city. Riots broke out in Baltimore on Monday in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray, a young resident of the city who died from a broken spine while in police custody.

“Allowing the riots to kind of just happen was disturbing. You can’t just push over that and go to the grand societal problems,” Bush said at an event sponsored by the conservative National Review. “I do think that public safety is the first priority for any city or government jurisdiction.” He added, “There are a lot of people who are going to suffer because of what happened and hopefully order is going to be restored.”

Bush said there is a tendency on the left “to create a set of reasons why this happened” and to lay blame on others. “Having this conversation in the broader sense is probably not appropriate today,” he said.

When exactly would be the right time? When the media circus folds up its tents and goes home?

I love the way he doesn't think there should be any assignment of blame, either. Freddie Gray's neck was snapped and he didn't do it himself, but we should just shush up and let the status quo remain.

That crap isn't going to get him elected.