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Jeb Bush on education was like FDR on economy, Cardinal Dolan says

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, sat down with CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell for a taped interview for Sunday’s "Face the Nation"
Jeb Bush on education was like FDR on economy, Cardinal Dolan says 01:12

Potential 2016 heavyweight Jeb Bush during his tenure as Florida governor "was almost like for education what Franklin Roosevelt was for the economy," Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, told CBS News' Norah O'Donnell in a taped interview for Sunday's "Face the Nation."

"I found him remarkably innovative," the archbishop said of the former Republican governor. On education, "he said, 'Darn it, let's see what works. We can't do business as usual. We've gotta help our public schools, we know that they're terribly flawed. What can we do?' And he experimented and he went out on a limb.

"...And if you don't mind me blowing our own horn here," Dolan went on, "he says one of the best things going is Catholic education."

Jeb, the youngest son in the Bush political dynasty, converted to Catholicism from the Espiscopal Church in 1995.

Asked whether he'd back a Jeb Bush bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, Dolan said, "I sure think he'd bring something, yeah. He'd be good, yeah.

"I like Jeb bush a lot," Dolan continued. "Whether I'd be for him as a presidential candidate or not I don't know personally, but I sure admire him, and I especially appreciate the priority he gives to education, and immigration, by the way."

The archbishop of Miami, Thomas Wenski, recently praised Bush's controversial remark that immigrants who enter the United States illegally are committing an "act of love."

Watch the full interview with Cardinal Dolan this Sunday, April 20, at 10:30 a.m. ET.


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