Posted on 11/29/2003 2:49:31 PM PST by Pokey78
If you survey the contrasting fortunes of the Bush brothers this week, you cannot help noticing that Neil Bush is the guy the media, the Democrats and the Europeans accuse George W Bush of being. The one who's President - George, not Neil - flew in to Baghdad to spend Thanksgiving with the troops, whose rapturous reception was reported in The Independent under the headline "The turkey has landed" - which is apparently what passes for wit among its sub-editors. I hope they saved some turkey jokes for leftovers: they're going to have to keep up the moron cracks until January 2009.
On the other hand, Neil Bush, 48, would seem to be a bona fide turkey, served up trussed and roasted by his ex-wife's divorce lawyers. "Mr Bush admitted that he had sex with several women during trips to Thailand and Hong Kong," reported The Times. "The women, he said, simply knocked on the door of his hotel room, entered and had sex with him. He said that he did not know if they were prostitutes because they never asked for money and he did not pay them."
Well, he's paying for them now. "Mr Bush, you have to admit it's a pretty remarkable thing for a man just to go to a hotel room door and open it and have a woman standing there and have sex with her," said Marshall Brown, Sharon Bush's attorney. "It was very unusual," conceded Neil, who apparently hadn't given it much thought. Maybe these foxy babes had just spotted him in the piano lounge, taken a fancy, and given the bartender 10 bucks for his room number.
Mr Bush's answers were even less convincing when he was asked why a semiconductor business would give him a $2 million contract when he knew even less about semiconductors than about why Thai chicks were lining up outside his bedroom door. But the business was controlled by the son of the then Chinese President. In other words, Neil Bush is doing a pretty good impression of the Left's caricature of George W: a dimwit son of privilege riding his father's contacts to some sweetheart business deals.
While I am loath to categorise any man as a "moron", Neil's behaviour four months after September 11 certainly gets him through the preliminary qualifying round: he accepted an invitation to go to Jeddah and speak at an "economic forum" organised by Prince Talal ibn Abdul Aziz, who got his money's worth. The President's brother laid the blame for tensions in Saudi/American relations squarely at the door of the "US media campaign against the interests of Arabs and Muslims". Like Noam Chomsky and Co, he thought "the root causes of terror" were poverty and the plight of the Palestinians. And, he added, while "in the US for years we believed in Israel's right to exist", public opinion could be changed by a "sustained lobbying and PR effort", which the Saudis promptly launched. If I were President, I'd have had the Feds meet Neil's return flight and cart him off to Guantanamo, where he could study the "root causes" at close quarters.
Neil Bush dropped off the radar screen for a decade, but I remember, in the '92 presidential campaign, being on a radio panel with a conservative who said he couldn't possibly vote for Bush Sr because Neil was such a "sleazy" figure. Back in the 1980s Democrats made great hay over his role with Silverado Savings and Loan, which went belly-up fairly spectacularly, leaving taxpayers on the hook for a billion dollars. In those days, Neil was the most famous of the Bush boys. His older brothers, George and Jeb, were not yet governors of Texas and Florida, and the baby of the family, Marvin, has always kept a low profile, eschewing politics entirely, except for a crack during the 2000 Presidential campaign that "that great sucking sound you hear is the sound of the media's lips coming off John McCain's a...", at which point he was dragged off by Dubya's minders.
One reason the media were kissing up to McCain is that they disliked the thought of a new generation of Bushes. In that sense, Neil is not just the latest holder of the post of Embarrassing Presidential Brother, a tradition whose importance in American life has been much overrated - Donald Nixon and Billy Carter are a long time ago, and, despite the best efforts of a coke-fiend sibling, Bill Clinton essentially served as his own Embarrassing Presidential Brother. But Neil Bush accomplished something more than Donald or Billy: his reputation in the 1980s helped pre-define his brother; the press looked at George W and saw Neil.
The cuttings from the 2000 campaign make funny reading now: Scotland on Sunday's big profile of the Texas Governor was all about the "bland, Ivy League, cufflinks" Bush style, as befits someone from "the born-to-govern, Wasp establishment". It's not the cufflinks that bug Dubya's detractors, it's the cowboy boots; it's not the Ivy League blandness, it's the Lone Star swagger as he walks to the chopper on the White House lawn. George W is the only one of the Bush boys who is not a Texas native - he arrived in Midland in 1950 as a four-year-old, when his parents bought a house on Maple Street, now said to be worth a little under $15,000. But, more than any of his siblings, he has imbibed the West Texas spirit. Maybe it was different for Jeb, Neil and Marvin, all roughly a decade younger than George: they thus reached adulthood in the 1970s, when Dad had become far more politically prominent.
Still, if he had wanted, George Wcould have flown around the world at some other fellow's expense working his pop's extensive Middle Eastern and Asian Rolodex. Instead, he barely left the country. It's hard to imagine Dubya enjoying the services of Thai hookers, not only because, until the Apec summit a few weeks back, he had never been to Thailand but also because he has hardly spent a night away from Laura and, even when he does, he generally turns in at nine. In five years at the Governor's Mansion, the Bushes never threw a black-tie event: they like Tex-Mex barbecues and tailgate parties.
That is why Dubya had such a grand time in Baghdad on Thursday, serving up turkey, joshing with every single soldier in the room. Try to picture other dynastic beneficiaries - Ted Kennedy or Al Gore - doing the same, with the same easy authenticity. And, because they saw Bush only as a pampered mediocrity, the media still don't quite get his boldness: he pushed through his tax cuts and, to the horror of Democratic presidential candidates who have insisted that Bush plunged America into recession, he is been rewarded with third-quarter growth of 8.2 per cent. He was equally bold on Iraq, and Dems who have figured they can run on "It's the quagmire, stupid!" had better be pretty confident that that won't pay off for him, too.
One of the best examples of George W's farsightedness is a strange report he commissioned privately when his dad was in the White House. Called "All The Presidents' Children", it was an unsparing examination of the offspring of America's leaders. For example, of John Adams's sons, one became president but two others degenerated into alcoholics. By that measure, the Bush brood are batting better than average: the surviving daughter, Doro, is married to a Democrat; Marvin, deciding he couldn't stand the phoniness of politics, is a venture capitalist; of the three brothers with political ambitions, George is President and Jeb, as chief executive of a key state, would be ideally placed for a White House run himself, were it not that three Bush presidents in 20 years might be more than citizens of any self-respecting republic would be willing to entertain.
And then there's Neil. He doesn't matter now. Toppling Saddam was, explicitly, a repudiation by one Bush president of the policies of another and, subconsciously, of his brother, the wannabe crony to Gulf emirs, Saudi princes and Chinese Communists. George W Bush has proved that, politically, he's not his father's son, and, temperamentally, he's not his brother's brother.
Neil on the other hand, would be best advised to hide somewhere in a nondescript country, until after the election. In my mind, he has surpassed Billy Carter and Roger Clinton already. They were just bumbling jackasses, who were embarassing to the President. Neil has the potential of doing real damage if he keeps trying to hit up the Chicoms and the Saudis for money, for quid pro quo access to the President.
I actually hope the Chinese and Saudis are smart enough to know that W isn't going to listen to crap from Neil. They are just throwing their money away.
ROFLOL.
Oh my! *wipes tears* Did he really? I think I would like that boy. As for Neil, well every family has them. And four out of five isn't bad.
A classic "Steynism"!
Thanks for the ping.
Somehow, when Steyn aims for the bulls-eye, he always hits it!
GW Bush is so basically American it makes the socialists hate him.
They may consider him an idiot but he is not a useful idiot like his father. -Tom
I still wish I knew how Steyn is capable of such great articles week after week.
Ted Kennedy or Al Gore - doing the same...chuckling almost uncontrollably.
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