What Jeb Bush Says vs. What He Says He Means

— -- Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush has made several statements that have landed him in hot water since he entered the race.

This, of course, comes with the territory, especially when one tweet is all it takes to catapult a gaffe or slip of the tongue into an out-of-context behemoth that looms over a candidate's head for months.

It seems, however, that Bush has had more than the other candidates of these inelegant instances, where a great distance exists between what he said, what the public heard, and what he says he actually meant.

Let's explore five examples, starting with the most recent.

1. '...Stuff Happens'

What He Said:

While participating in a constitutional conversation in Greenville, South Carolina, on Friday, the topic turned towards Second Amendment rights and mass tragedies. The massacre in Oregon was referenced and the conversation then turned to the broader issue of tragedies and prayer.

"We're in a difficult time in our country and I don't think more government is necessarily the answer to this. I think we need to connect ourselves with everybody else. It's just, it's -- it's very sad to see, but I resist the notion, I did -- I had this challenge as governor because we had -- look stuff happens. There’s always a crisis and the impulse is always to do something and it's not necessarily the right thing to do."

The Reaction:

One tweet was sent out, then the progressive-leaning group American Bridge sent out a clip of his comments, and media and voters alike started weighing in. Twitter was aflame with reactions from both sides: Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz weighed in, and ABC News' Jonathan Karl asked President Obama about the comment, to which the president replied: "I don't even think I have to react to that one. I think the American people should hear that and make their own judgments based on the fact that every couple of months we have a mass shooting. And they can decide whether they consider that 'stuff happening.'"

The Bush camp and others on the conservative side decried the outcry as "sad and craven" and accused liberals and the media of taking his comments out of context in an attempt to politicize the issue.

What He Says He Meant:

Directly after the event, ABC News and other reporters sought to clarify his comments. One reporter asked if his comments were a mistake. "No it wasn’t a mistake, I said exactly what I said, why would you--- explain to me what I said wrong," Bush said, adding, "Tragedies, a child drowns in a pool, and the impulse is to pass a law that puts fencing around pools, it may not change it."

ABC News also asked him about his comments. Bush said that his comments were not related to the Oregon shooting and that he was broadly referring to tragedies.

"Let's make sure that we don't allow this to get out of control," he said. "There are all sorts of things that happen in life, tragedies unfold."

2. 'Free Stuff'

What He Said:

While speaking at an event in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, last week, Bush was asked by a voter how he would set out to attract African American voters. Bush, after citing his efforts to meet with Black ministers, set out to make the point that the Republican party could, indeed, attract black voters, a voting block that has historically leaned Democratic.