The former first lady made the remarks on CBS’s This Morning, the latest contribution to the slippery debate of whether Jeb’s sense of humor is subtle or non-existent. His mom appears to be coming down on the subtle side, but in any case she is on safe ground, because who isn’t funny relative to, say, Pol Pot?

Barbara Bush has a habit of damning her son with faint praise, most notably in a recent campaign ad in which she said he “seems” to be the best candidate to solve the nation’s problems. Her newest comments will do nothing to dispel the notion that Jeb’s campaign is fueled by a very complex brew of mommy/daddy/brother issues, which have been on open display as he campaigns with his famously forceful mother. “I jokingly say that when we were growing up in Midland, in Houston, that mom was fortunate not to have a child-abuse hotline available,” he told a New Hampshire crowd yesterday. He then teared up describing his father as “this perfect, idyllic man who to this day is the greatest man alive.”

Or maybe we’ve just reached the point of the campaign where anything Bush says sounds suspiciously weird.