This is good educational material, and at least to me opens my mind to understanding the fear in these peoples' minds. Why they falsely believe this is the land of the "WHITE", when in all actuality, it was {is} the land of the Brown " Native American" I know it is pretty long, but really worth the time to read........Fred
Nazi's In America
Some Hateful Ideas
And Their Legacy in the Conservative Right
Sometimes it only takes a little time for even the most hateful ideas to catch on. With enough power and money‹especially money--the most heinous ideas can become "acceptable" and appear "respectable" to some. Such are the ideas of white male racial superiority and the implied right to power over all others. This includes the additional implied right to "phase out" of existence others who are held to be inferior. These ideas and their underlying rationale were the basis of Hitler's National Socialism. Though Allied Forces put an end to Hitler and his Third Reich over fifty years ago, ideas of Nazism are still very much alive. They are still wreaking pain, suffering, and death on those whom the Powerful decide are unfit to live.
Historically, National Socialism-termed ŒNazism'(1) --was Hitler's Conservative political creed of racial and cultural "purity." It was also a genocidal program of hatred directed specifically against Jews. Hitler's nazism was based on the twin myths of racial and cultural "purity" of so called Aryans (the Whites) and the "diseased and dirty" race and culture of so called non Aryans (the non-Whites), particularly the Jews. National Socialism became the foundational creed of a genocidal eugenics political program to cleanse" the world of the "dirty" Jews and their "diseased" cultural influence. Hitler envisioned his Third Reich as the beginning of a New World Order that would put Ayran Whites back in their "natural" place of Superiority and Power over all others. It was also intended to rid the world of those whom he claimed had usurped Aryans of their "rightful" Power and Superior Position in the first place. Aryans had to be put back in to their natural place of superiority over others, Hitler held, because a powerful and deceitful Jewish cabal had over many years conspired through devious financial and cultural manipulation, to misplace them.
In Hitler's view, the only real solution to the so-called "Jewish problem" was a Final Solution to rid the world of them, a world that had to be cleansed" of Jews and their influence. At the end of WWII, the world learned of the efficient machinery of death built and operated by Hitler's SS to do just that. Throughout Europe, millions of Jews and entire populations of other diseased and dirty" so-called "non-Aryans" were shipped in train cars to multiple concentration camps and murdered.
A Dramatic Shift to the Conservative Right in America
Since the end of WWII, but especially over the last 35 years or so, the political landscape in the U.S. --as well as other parts of the world--has shifted dramatically to the Conservative Right. That shift has largely one unnoticed by those not old enough or not historically sensitive enough to place the Conservative Right political ideology and agenda in historical perspective. Many do not realize that the inherently racist, homophobic, and bisogynist ideology now passed off by some Conservative Right politicians such as George W. Bush as acceptable and even respectable, was part of the reason the U.S. entered WW II. Millions of American soldiers died fighting against that hateful ideology that many on the Conservative Right in varying degrees-- are now trumpeting as a kind of "final solution" to socioeconomic and other problems they claim have been created by the U.S. Government and by the "Liberals" of the 1960's.
Certainly, American G.I.s returning from the ravages left by Hitler's third Reich at the end of WWII probably could not have conceived the possibility =hat the United States might one day have its own Nazi Party. But in the 1950's, while the world was still coming to terms with the Holocaust and fighting bold War Communism, George Lincoln Rockwell, born March 9, 1918 in Bloomington, Illinois, was engendering the idea of the American Nazi Party (ANP).
From the late 1950's until his death in 1967, Rockwell became the deminal force of post-World War II National Socialism (Nazism) in America and the originator of the "Holocaust Denial" movement. That movement, institutionalized in various neo-Nazi organizations such as the so-called "Committee on the Open Debate on the Holocaust" (CODOH) is so rampant today across the United States that many college-age and younger unquestioningly accept its fundamental =hesis, that the Holocaust is a Jewish lie.
William H. Schmaltz's Hate: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party is an excellent, well-researched book on Rockwell's American Nazi Party (ANP) and its legacy to Conservatives in the United States. He has documented the historic development of this Conservative Right organization and its leader, who would otherwise be (and was, by some) dismissed as a "half-penny" Hitler. Through numerous interviews with many of the original ANP Stormtroopers" of Rockwell's Party, and much research from the FBI and other original sources, Schmaltz traced the persistence of Rockwell and his supporters to establish the ANP over many financial, political, and legal obstacles, from 1958 through 1967.
Most importantly, Schmaltz provides us with an invaluable overview of =he American Nazi Party's evolution to its present forms, the Christian identity movement, Aryan Nations, and the Order. Certain of Rockwell's original Stormtroopers, such as William Peirce, head of the neo-Nazi National alliance, have carried forward the Nazi creed and agenda of Rockwell's ANP. The last part of the book, the Epilogue, provides a very useful summary of that evolution and development, as well as an outline of the similarities and differences between the Conservatives of Rockwell's time and present-day Conservatives of the 1980's and 1990's.
Following a largely historical approach to Rockwell's formation of the American Nazi Party, Schmaltz provides a much needed insight into how it =as possible for Rockwell to be as successful as he was among a very politically Conservative population during the 1950's and early 1960's in the U.S. All other things being equal, one might expect such a population, still recovering from the scars of WWII and the battles against Hitler, to entirely reject then, and still do not reject it today in the year 2010. Indeed, under various guises paraded today before the Public by factions of the Conservative Right, too many are welcoming the basic ideas of Nazism with open arms.
Schmaltz's main contribution is his focus upon Rockwell's belief that Conservatives are really National Socialists. Though we would today reject Rockwell's claim about all Conservatives, we should take a serious look as for whether or not his claim is true about factions of the Conservative right. Rightly or wrongly, In a national presidential election year where one of the front runners is a very popular candidate of the Conservative Right, we will focus upon that theme as well in this Commentary and Review. We want to examine the extent to which Rockwell's belief may be true.
Conservatives as National Socialists (Nazis)
Rockwell's legacy to the world especially to the Conservative right in America--has been far-reaching. He believed that millions of people in the U.S. who considered themselves Conservatives, were either conscious National Socialists or were "only a synapse away from discovering that they were National Socialists and never knew it because they have never been allowed to know what National Socialism is". He believed that National Socialism is the very essence of what Conservatives really want, but are afraid to openly say so. In the upside-down, Looking Glass language of the Conservative Right, it simply wouldn't be "Politically Correct" to admit that one is a Nazi.
Rockwell adhered to two basic beliefs in his desire to see the triumph of Nazism throughout the U.S. and eventually throughout the world. One belief, as noted, was that every Conservative is at heart a National Socialist, a Nazi. He believed that if given sufficient understanding of what that doctrine is, every Conservative would recognize his or her own basic beliefs in that doctrine. However, he also believed that Nazism had been given such "bad press" by powerful Jewish leaders in Hollywood--with their anti-Nazi WWII films--that most Conservatives would not openly acknowledge that that is what they really are.
The second major belief Rockwell held was that merging Nazism with Christianity would not only ensure Nazism's survival, but its ultimate triumph in the United States. Thus, Rockwell set out a plan which he followed in =he last several years of his life, turning National Socialism into a =redefined version of the Christian religion, Christian Identity. It is important to stress that Rockwell and the followers of Christian Identity have redefined and rewritten fundamental doctrines of traditional Judeo-Christianity in order to achieve a following for Nazism. Their redefined doctrines bear little resemblance to those of traditional Christianity. One of the foundational beliefs of Christian Identity is that Jews are the "seeds of Satan," and conspired to eradicate "God's chosen people," the Aryans. Christian identity holds that one of the historically recent means Jews did this has been by perpetrating the lie of the Holocaust. Thus, in addition to merging Nazism with the contemporary Christian Identity movement in the U.S., Rockwell also originated the "Holocaust Denial" movement as well.
Some of the same religious and political arguments Rockwell used to advance the causes of National Socialism in the 1950's and 1960's until his death =n 1967, can be found articulated in various statements by spokesmen for Conservative Right groups in the United States today. These spokesmen range from the Reverends Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell to Pat Buchanan, to Ronald Reagan at Bitburg's SS Cemetery, and to the overtly neo-Nazi World Church of the Creator Reverend Matt Hale. The Conservative Right religious spokesmen along with politicians upon whom they have great influence--have repeatedly and consistently advanced social, political, and legal policies against non-white minorities, women, homosexuals, and the poor, that are consistent with Hitler's and Rockwell's Nazism. Hitler's National Socialism and Rockwell's American Nazi Party (ANP) both left a strong legacy of hate to the Conservative Right in the U.S. today..
What is a Nazi?
But the Reader may rightfully ask, "Just what is it about the =onservative Right that might make it Nazi?" Clearly, on the surface that seems to be a very strong claim for anyone to make. To answer the Reader's question, one must distill the essence of Nazism--from Hitler to Rockwell to David Duke and the Reverend Matt Hale. Once one gets clear on what that essence is, all one has to do is look for it anywhere one may find it.
The essence of Nazism comprises two fundamental beliefs: that some people are genetically and morally inferior forms of life; and that genetically and morally superior forms of life, to survive, must purify" their race by eliminating genetically and morally inferior groups. In essence, Nazism is not just racism; it is also genocide. Genocide, however, can take many forms. Under Hitler, the systematic efforts to exterminate entire so-called "inferior" peoples consisted of murder, both in the camps and out of them, starvation, and forced sterilizations, among other means. Additionally, there were systematic efforts put in place to simply "phase out" of existence more members of those so-called inferior groups by withholding food, shelter, and medication from them. "Inferior" people, including children, were often left simply to starve to death. "Under Nazi rule, 750,000 people across Europe, including 5000 children, were murdered [just] for being mentally or physically handicapped. Children were killed by injection, medical experimentation or simply starved. The Nazis called them "unworthy lives.
Moreover, these groups of so-called "unworthy lives" provided a plentiful supply of research specimens for Nazi physicians and scientists. These victims often died as a result of cruel and inhumane experiments performed upon them. More specifically, concentration camps provided the ultimate Final =olution devised to efficiently exterminate as many Jews, Gypsies, handicapped, homosexuals, and mentally deficient as possible.
Use of the 'Disease' Metaphor
To promote his genocidal agenda, the "Disease Metaphor" was deliberately used by Hitler and his Nazi Third Reich theorists to promote the perception of a necessity to "cleanse" the body of Germany by ridding it of "putrid morally degenerate human filth" that had invaded it. So-called inferior peoples such as Jews, Gypsies, Blacks, and the poor, were seen as mongrels, racial and moral degenerates, an "insidious disease" infecting the body of society in the same way that cancer if left unchecked spreads throughout the human body:
"There is a close analogy between a human body invaded by a cancer and a nation afflicted with sub-populations whose inborn defects cause them to become social liabilities. . .When these inferior elements are not effectively eliminated from a (healthy) population, then. . .they destroy the host body as well as themselves.
Under Hitler, the new [pseudo-] science of eugenics was used to systematically set up programs of research and development to exterminate =nd "phase out" of existence so-called genetically and morally"inferior" persons, particularly Jews. He saw Jews as unnatural, diseased, and corrupting in their influence on others. And just as some diseases are spread by infections, when healthy organisms are invaded by the disease, Hitler held that Jews were parasites that had "infected" the "healthy" organism of Germany--with its naturally healthy and superior form of Ayran life. That diseased influence =f the Jews, Hitler held, was destroying the German people. Thus, under Hitler, eugenics laws were first passed in Germany in 1933, quickly followed by similar laws throughout Western Europe and the United States.
Throughout the 1930's until the end of WWII, eugenics was popular in both Germany and the United States. It became synonymous with the scientific promotion of "race hygiene" to "purify" the white race of "low grade" and degenerate groups, the genetically inferior.. "Not surprisingly, the victims usually turned out to be the traditional victims of racism - Jews, Blacks, women, and the poor. Among such laws in the U.S., forced sterilization programs were designed to limit pregnancies among those persons held to be "feeble-minded" or having heritable diseases. The state of Virginia, for example, had a forced sterilization program that sought to sterilize all persons with hereditary defects, not just those who had been institutionalized, until the state was challenged before the Supreme Court by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Of course, most of those who were sterilized under Virginia law turned out to =e Black females.
Hitler's concept of the Third Reich was of a Pure Nation "cleansed" of impurities and diseased degenerates. The Third Reich was to be based on the hegemony of the German People whose pure blood would determine its culture and its community. He and his SS set up Lebensborn to ensure future generations of pure blooded Aryans who would build the Kultur of Germany. his concept of the German nation was not based on a concept of a common Constitution, with the free and open association of a richly diverse mosaic of citizens. It was to be a pure White Man's Nation whose values and culture were to be determined by purity of blood.
When the ravages of Hitler's eugenics extermination program became known at the end of WWII, there arose in the 1950's a concerted effort by many of its followers to divorce eugenics from racism.When it became known that hundreds of concentration camps were scattered across Europe, specifically designed to "cleanse" Germany and the world of "inferior" groups of people, the world reacted with revulsion. The science of eugenics --and the biological determinist ("Natural Law") beliefs upon which it is based--became unpopular.
However, the effort to divorce eugenics from racism primarily drove the explicitly racist motives of eugenics advocates underground, where they largely remain today. Knowledge of what Hitler and his SS had done, based in part in the so-called scientific principles of eugenics, however, did not end eugenics advocacy and belief in biological determinism among racists in the United States.
The Conservative Right Ideology Today: From Natural to Unnatural election Brought About by Civil Rights and 1960's Liberals.
Facets of the Conservative Right in the U.S. today hold that until the advent of Civil Rights laws in the 1960's, the rigors of Nature herself had largely ensured upward evolution of the species by natural selection of the strongest and (by implication) the best. Until the Civil Rights era, so-called "Natural Laws" determined who was best, brightest, and most deserving of life and the rewards of power. Those who were not the "best" simply died off from starvation, the diseases of poverty, or other forces of Nature. And, according to =hese Conservatives, until the 1960's--before anti-discrimination and affirmative action laws-- social policies and laws reflected the "natural" superiority of whites in positions of power. Until the 1960's, White Men were in virtually all significant positions of power in the United States. White Men held all the significant and high-paying jobs; White Men were the lawmakers, the decision-makers. It was White Men who commanded the U.S. Government and white Men who commanded the U.S. military.
But in the 1960s, these Conservative Right factions claim, with the passage of Federal Civil Rights legislation by a liberal Federal Government, along with modern science and (secular) humanism, a reverse, downward selection has been started among the human races.
That is, these factions of the Conservative Right claim, 1960's iberal political forces in the U. S. Government passed civil rights laws against discrimination based on race and ethnic origin that have started a downward evolution in the human species. Liberals and the U.S. Government have started an increased breeding of the weakest, most unnatural and morally degenerate human beings, non-whites, homosexuals and women. With affirmative action, these spokesmen claim, morally, culturally, and genetically inferior and degenerate persons are increasingly occupying positions of power throughout the U.S. this is unnatural selection, they claim, which is "contrary to God's Law," and contrary to "Natural Law." If humanity as a whole is left a victim to innatural ideas of human equality and racial integration, advocated by 1960's liberals, it will breed itself back down to the barbarian.
Of course, this ideology is at core Social Darwinism or biological determinism, the basis of eugenics. It is an expression of so-called "Natural Law" theory, of "White Male Might Makes Right," the core of National socialism as both Hitler and as Rockwell saw it, and is held in one form or another by virtually all factions identified as falling under the Conservative Right today in the U.S.some Far Right Conservatives not only accept this ideology, but want to expand Hitler's genocidal doctrine beyond any primary focus on Jews to include non-white women, the poor, homosexuals, and what some refer to as "mud people." "Mud people" include African Americans, Hispanics, and anyone else who isn't white.
Academic Racists and the American Nazi Party in the U.S.
As this article is being written, there is a very powerful anti-government, anti-Liberal, Conservative Right movement spreading in universities and colleges across the United States. This Conservative Right movement includes a very strong racist ideology of biological determinism, also known as "Social Darwinism" and "Natural Law" Theory. This is nothing less than a resurgence of eugenics-advocacy, propelled by factions of the Conservative Right, that intend a full-scale roll back of any Federal legislation designed to protect non-white minorities and women. These factions of the Conservative Right movement are allied with anti-Semitic, Christian Fundamentalist-Christian reconstruction and Christian Identity groups as well as neo-Nazi organizations.
These Conservative Right neo-Nazis and their followers have successfully garnered positions for themselves in public and private organizations and agencies. In some cases, they evidently do not allow State, Federal, and local laws to stand in the way of their racist, misogynist, and anti-government goals.The influence of members of these groups is so far reaching that they have been able within a relatively short period of time to influence the political makeup of various local, State and Federal agencies. They have also been able to effectively undo both Federal and State legislation against discrimination and to roll back laws protecting non-white minorities and women.
Increasingly, public policies, regulations of public and state supported institutions--especially public education--as well as some civil and criminal laws, are being radically changed by the Conservative Right so as to accommodate their "Natural Law," racist, religious, and misogynist views, as well as their anti-U.S. Government, anti-science, and anti-public institution views. It is out of this racist, homophobic, misogynist, and quasi-religious "Natural Law" theorizing that laws permitting discrimination against non-whites, homosexuality, and recent theories about the "naturalness" of rape and =assault against females, have arisen.
Increasingly as well, such Conservative Right groups call for nations to identify themselves in biological terms. It is this call, among other things, that the Conservative Right has in common with neo-Nazi groups. For example, one finds the following on the neo-Nazi World Church of the Creator website http://www.creator.org]:
We have come to hold these [race] views by observing the Eternal laws of Nature, by studying History, and by using the Logic and Common Sense everyone is born with: the highest Law of Nature is the survival of one's own kind; history has shown us that the White Race is responsible for all that which we call progress on this earth; and that it is therefore logical and sensical to =lace supreme importance upon Race and to reject all ideas which fail to do so.
It is biological determinism that says immigration should be discouraged and genetically "superior stocks" should be encouraged to have large families. It is this view that holds that Federal Civil Rights laws, like anti-discrimination and affirmative action laws, effect "reverse evolution," giving inferior people unfair, parasitic advantages over "superior" white people. It is biological determinism that says that the Poor [mostly women, non-white minorities, and children] are poor largely because they are unintelligent, genetically unfit, and morally unworthy.. It is also biological determinism that says that =he policy of the United States toward developing countries with starving populations should be "Let them starve to death. It is Nature's way of =idding the world of dysgenic [genetically unfit] populations.
"Natural Law" theory, the legalistic expression of biological determinism, is a brutal denial of human possibilities. It effectively says that there are no possibilities beyond what biology gives to us. In the 1930's, the famed German universities and their intellectuals first capitulated to the Third Reich, providing a mantle of intellectual "respectability" to anti-Semitism, helping to usher in the Holocaust. Likewise, today these "Natural Law," eugenics =rguments have been advanced by academic racists and anti-Semites in some of the largest universities in the U.S. who are well known for their Conservative Right publications.
Although academic racism is nothing new, it has become so powerful in the U.S. over the last 35 years or so--particularly at major universities in southern states such as Texas---that forces supporting it are effectively rewriting laws of the land to reflect their views. In the name of "States' Rights" and "individual rights --historically the clarion cry of racists--they are effectively rolling back Federal Civil Rights legislation protecting nonwhite minorities and women in order to accommodate their racist, =iological determinist view of human kind.
And where they are unable to obtain legislation reflecting their racist views, they find ways of illegally putting those views into practice in any case. Groups of Conservative Right individuals formed at some State institutions of higher education, for example, contrive to drive minority and women faculty and students out of those institutions by illegal means. This is what some advocates of Social Darwinism, biological determinism, are doing at the University of Texas, under the cover of institutional authority.
Some outspoken proponents of the "Natural Law" view can be found in Texas. The Conservative Right has such a strangle hold on the State of Texas that it has become George W. Bush's and the Conservative Right's blueprint for the United States, should George W. become elected President of the U.S. these proponents can be found in prestigious positions as department heads, faculty, and administrators at the University of Texas. If the edicts of these Texas Conservative Right spokesmen are any measure --as reflected in recent anti-immigrant and anti-affirmative action sentiment found among =onservative Right tenured faculty especially at the University of Texas at Austin, =he United States is overdue for a national "cleansing."
These Conservative Right academic racists now claim that virtually all non-white peoples and cultures are morally corrupt and "diseased." non-white peoples and cultures, the Texas Conservative Right spokesmen claim, are not worthy of equal rights, protections, and opportunities under any State or Federal law in the United States. These Conservative Right academic racists want not only to completely abolish or roll back all Civil Rights legislation largely passed in the 1960's, they also want to roll back all social service supports that in any way help non-white minorities to remain alive. These conservative Right spokesmen want to effectively "phase out" of existence non-white peoples and cultures they hold are unworthy to live. They hold that too many non-white peoples and cultures are like "parasites" on the healthy body of the United States.
The Basic Principle of Hate
The basic principle of hate underlying Nazism is simple. Non-white minorities, the poor, homosexuals, and females are lower than the heterosexual White Man on the evolutionary chain of life. Invoking religious sanction, =hey claim that God has ordained that the heterosexual White Man, the highest, most morally perfect, and racially purest level of life on earth, should be vested with the most Power and Wealth. It is his sacred moral right to take and use everything else as he pleases. Whatever he does‹no matter what it is by its very nature in the service of God's Will. This is so because the heterosexual White Male is by his very nature God's Chosen. No matter what he does, it will be Good because it is God's Will. This is the "Natural Order" of all things; whatever does not fit this "Natural Order" is "Unnatural" and must we either banished, beaten, locked up, or destroyed. This basic principle, wrapped in religious garb, is nothing short of Social Darwinism and is an expression of Nazism as Hitler and Rockwell expressed it.
Social Consequences of the Principle of Hate
Of course, there are brutal logical corollaries to this already brutal pseudo-religious principle of "White Might Makes Right." One doesn't have to look very far to find them, especially when social policies and laws are based upon a brutal and brutalizing vision of the "Nature of Things." One has only to look back at Hitler's Third Reich in the 1930's and 1940's.
But one can also look at the goals of the Conservative Right Big Money interests in the year 2000. Conservative Right Big Money interests have a two-pronged brutal "final solution" to the problems of poverty, increasing illegitimate births, rising numbers of non-white immigrants, and the =ncessant cry for equality from women, Hispanics, and Blacks. That "solution" shy;under the rubric of various legislative "reforms"--is a coordinated assault on all federal and state civil rights laws and all public social service supports that in any way help the poor to remain alive, or help minorities gain equal rights and protections under the law. That assault also includes a heavy-fisted reassertion of patriarchal structures--clothed in Conservative Religious "Bible speak"--intended to shut women up and keep them in "their place."
The Conservative Right wants to reinstate traditional rigid divisions between public and private realms. In doing so, they will shift all social programs such as Welfare and Child Protective Services and public education to the private (religious) realm, ultimately with no public tax support. The poor will be left where they have almost always been left: with their poverty and hunger, their Church, and their children--and out of sight of the rich and well-to-do classes. They will also be left with a wrecked justice system that does not hear the poor and does not recognize civil and human rights. A revised "Kinder, Kirke, duche" is the sum total program for poor women devised by the Conservative right.
Threads of the "White Might Makes Right" ideology of the Nazi, sound in abundance in the Conservative Right in the United States, are starkly simple. When non-white minorities and their children go hungry and starve or die prematurely from diseases of poverty, well‹that's just the way it is. They should die because they are deficient as human beings, the ideology rants. the poor are deficient by Nature because most of them are not white and do not--cannot--have the superior values of white culture. Of those who are white, they are the progeny of mixed races and hence are mongrels. These lower forms of life deserve to die because they are racially and (hence) morally impure. is such, they are not worthy of God's rewards on this earth. Furthermore, we must not thwart God's Will by helping the poor to remain alive. Welfare programs must be either drastically cut back or, preferably, ended altogether. Either the poor, women and children survive on their own‹or they die.
To find more of the brutal corollaries to the Principle of Hate, one must look at what the Conservative Right does‹and listen a whole lot less to what they say. Ideas of White Male racial and moral superiority, with an implied right to use and diminish or "phase out" other groups or the programs upon which they depend to remain alive--are found throughout the political agenda of the Conservative Right.
As is evident, these ideas generally rest on spurious fundamentalist religious foundations. One does not have to look far to find such ideas in the ideological rants of politicians from George W. Bush to Pat Buchanan to Richard Butler, the leader of the Aryan Nations, and to Pontifex Maximus Reverend Watt Hale of the World Church of the Creator. They are also found in the defeacto racist, homophobic, and misogynist policies of State governments‹such as the State of Texas; and in policies of state colleges and =niversities‹such as the University of Texas. They are also found in decisions made in boardrooms of large corporations, such as Texaco; and those Big Money corporations that own and operate certain states such as the State of Texas.
By Any Other Name. . . Threads of the American Nazi Party in the Conservative Right
Hiding behind nice-sounding labels and linguistic equivocations, some of these ugly Nazi ideas‹with a few twists-- are rearing their heads wet again in the Conservative Right across the United States. To help these hateful ideas catch hold, the Conservative Right uses virtuous labels in political "bait and switch" tactics. In one hand, they offer the Public an idea labeled Good and Kind. When the Public reaches for that idea, it turns out sometimes =oo late for the Public to reject--to be something Ugly, Brutal, and cruel.
One such label is "Compassionate Conservatism." In one hand, the Public at large is handed an idea of racial and ethnic "inclusiveness" and help for "those who really need it." It is an idea that even gets championed by token African American and Hispanic marionettes who dance to the tune of Conservative Right Big Money.
In reality, "Compassionate Conservatism" is George W. and Big Money's Conservative Right ideological program of brutal and cruel war against the poor, children, women, and non-white minorities. It is not so well hidden under various rhetorical and linguistic masks intended to cover the harsh brutality of its effects on its targets. In reality, it is a program of hateful brutality intended to diminish the lives or "phase out" of existence whose most in need. It is a program intended to eliminate federal or state help to the poor and others most in need of food, health care, decent housing, clean air and water, and civil and criminal due process.. It is a program of brutality against the most defenseless in our society.
"Compassionate Conservatism," its progenitors say, is "Tough Love." But what these well-fed, well-kept and pseudo-intellectuals from Texas are calling "Tough Love" has left a large percentage of the poorest children in Texas hungry. Most of those children, of course, are African American and Hispanic. What they call "love" has left far too many Texas children with little or no medical care while also living =n severely impoverished conditions. What these ideologues call "love" leaves children not only without enough to eat, without sufficient healthcare, it also leaves them without even minimal protections for their welfare and safety under the law, and without adequate education. What these well-fed and well-kept theorists call "love" builds more prisons than schools every year to house juveniles, alongside those whose miserable lives have led either by design or by accident to the ravages of crime. What these sophisticates call "love" as a program of vicious cruelty that arrogantly engages in the official machinery of death. It engages that official machinery even for those not old enough to vote when they commit crimes for which they are imprisoned. It is a program that denies even the semblance of justice to the most poor, mentally deficient and diseased. Moreover, what these "compassionate conservatives" call "love" is a program that has the effect of forcing pregnancy on economically =isadvantaged pre-teen girls while it denies them sufficient legal and medical means to protect or care for themselves.
Though it may take us on a detour from Schmaltz's book, given its focus upon the Conservative factions in the U.S. and their relation to Nazism, the State of Texas warrants serious mention here. The State of Texas under the governorship of George W. Bush is effectively nothing less than a Blue Print for the nation, should George W. become President of the United States.. Thus, certain facts about Texas under the governorship of a Conservative Right Presidential contender bear repeating:
Some facts about Texas, the Conservative Right Blueprint for the U.S.
1. Texas executes more prisoners than any other jurisdiction in the Western World. Most of those executed are too poor to hire their own attorneys, or they are mentally retarded or mentally ill. In some cases, Texas has executed young prisoners who were 17 when they committed the crime that led to their imprisonment. In response to the Columbine shootings, one Texas legislator wanted to lower the death penalty in Texas to age 11. It was probably the image of a small child being strapped to a prison gurney as the state pumped poison into a little arm that led other legislators to stop that effort. But George W. publicly supports assembly =ine executions now taking place in Texas.
2. Amnesty International issued a report this year [1999] citing Texas' clemency process for "violat[ing] minimum safeguards for human rights.. Along with countries like China, Iraq and Iran, Texas ranks low in terms of according prisoners minimal human rights.
3. Texas ranks exactly 51st out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia in the quality of criminal defense provided for accused defendants too poor to hire their own attorneys. "In recent years the Texas Court of Criminal appeals has upheld death sentences in at least three cases in which the defense lawyers slept during trial, Yet George W. vetoed a bill that would have modestly improved the disgraceful quality of legal representation available to =oor defendants in Texas.
4. Both the civil and criminal parts of the Texas system of justice are an acknowledged public mockery of American justice. Texas justice is a system in which large corporations can be legally "forgiven" for causing the death of workers, while 9-year old little girls are essentially held responsible for their own gang-rapes.
5. Texas ranks 48th out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia in terms of conditions best for bringing up children.Texas is 3 states away from being the absolute worst state in the United States for bringing up children. In spite of billions of dollars of a huge budget surplus, Texas can't seem to find the spare change to provide decent conditions for children to thrive. Of course, internationally, the entire United States doesn't rank very high in terms of its treatment of children. But Texas ranks near the bottom of the barrel of the bottom of the barrel on recognized measures of child welfare: rates of child abuse and neglect; immunizations under age 2; high school dropouts; child poverty; child deaths; infant mortality; mothers not receiving prenatal care in the first three months of pregnancy; juvenile arrests; teen births and divorce. Texas ranks at or near the bottom of the barrel in virtually every one of these categories.
6. In one year alone, 1998, the number of children who died of abuse and neglect in Texas increased by 71 percent. Deaths of children in Texas from abuse and neglect have increased every single year [until the year he openly ran for President of the U.S.] since George W. became governor. Apparently, the only time the State of Texas does anything about deplorable conditions is when those conditions publicly =mbarrass the Texas governor while running for President.
7. Texas is 2nd in the United States in the number of medically uninsured children (1.5 million uninsured). Yet George W. established eligibility to the federal/state Children's Health Insurance Program at 150% of the federal poverty level, dropping or leaving more poor children in Texas out of the insurance program.
8. Texas leads the nation in lost Medicaid coverage for children due to George W.'s welfare initiatives, which he calls a "model for the nation."
9. Texas has the largest volume of air pollution in the United States. Yet George W. supported a voluntary emissions program for grandfathered industrial plants that have been exempt from pollution control since the Texas Clean Air Act was passed in 1971. Those exempted industrial plants in Texas are among the worst industrial polluters in the entire United States.
10. Texas ranks 50th in per capita spending. It had a 241.7 billion surplus in 1997 and had a $6.7 billion surplus in 1999 under George W. Yet George W. did not use these surplus billions to fund underfunded programs, such as those to prevent the 71% increase in deaths of children from abuse and neglect. They were used primarily to benefit Big Money.
11. After the Littleton, Colorado massacre of high school students, the only gun-related bill passed by the Texas Legislature was a bill protecting gun manufacturers from lawsuits filed by cities. George W. signed that bill into law.
12. Texas ranks among the top states in the nation in the rate of violence against women committed with guns. Women face greater danger in states like Texas which have fewer gun controls than in those states that have gun control legislation in place. Yet George W. refuses to sign gun control legislation, saying =hat no law can change people's hearts.
13. Texas ranks eighth from the bottom among the fifty states in the number of jobless citizens who get unemployment benefits. Only 22 percent of jobless Texans receive unemployment benefits, compared to a national average of 35 percent.
14. Texas ranks sixth from the bottom among states in the number of residents who earn family incomes below the federal poverty level.
15. Texas ranks 47th in the percentage of workers in unions.
16. Texas ranks 47th in the amount of welfare for a family of three, barely at subsistence level.
17. Texas ranks 47th in per-capita state funding for public health, while approximately 25% of its babies go without immunizations.
18. And Texas ranks 50th in poor working parents without health insurance and 50th (as noted above) in the percentage of children with no health insurance.
19. Finally, Texas ranks 48th in spending for parks and recreation.
In every single major category of quality of life and protections for the health and well-being of families, especially children and the =oor, Texas consistently ranks at or near the bottom of the barrel.
All along, this program of "Compassionate Conservatism" rewards those who already have big Money and Power with more of the same. It rewards Conservative Right Big Money interests who have Big Plans for those who have little or no resources of their own. In Texas, it especially rewards those who despoil the land around us, who poison the air we breathe and the water we drink.
Though Œcompassion' is a word that calls forth visions of care, concern, and charity, George W.'s "Compassionate Conservatism" is in reality a program of brutality, viciousness, and cruelty. It is based on the myth that the poor =nd non-white minorities as morally undeserving and degenerate, and on the genocidal, racist motive to diminish their existence or "phase" them cut of existence entirely by ending any public Federal or State support for =hem.
National Socialism and Christianity: The Religious Basis of Nazism
As stated, Rockwell's legacy to the Conservative Right in America included verging Nazism with forms of Christianity. Rockwell's plan was to make Nazism respectable and acceptable on a massive scale to the American people by turning it into a religion. Like politicians today, especially George W. Bush--with his appeal to "faith-based" programs to take over social services for the poor--Rockwell wanted to "manipulate America's intrinsic religious fury' [in order] to seize political power". Rockwell's plan was to eliminate all references to Nazism' while retaining the creed and agenda of Nazism--and to restructure the entire National Socialist movement into a form of Christianity
The Christian Identity Movement: Jews as the "Seed" of Satan
As Schmaltz recounts , Rockwell met in 1964 with Wesley Swift, the leader of the Christian Identity Church in the United States. Swift had popularized Christian identity theology--also known as Identity, Kingdom Identity, and Christian Israel-- during the 1940's and 1950's, teaching that God's law on earth had to be established through an apocalyptic battle between the forces of good and evil. Identity believers hold that only white Christian men are "true sovereign citizens. Only white men form the real, legitimate Government of the United States. All others are not legitimate citizens. Blacks and other people of color are the 'beasts of the field' or 'mud people' on the same spiritual level as soulless animals. They are not true citizens. .Identity portrays Jews as =he "spawn of Satan," the descendants of Eve and the serpent. They are also the "killers of Christ," who was not a Jew but an Aryan.
Rockwell's concern was to devise a plan to mold the American Nazi party into a religion to give Biblical authority to the racist genocidal policies of the American Nazi Party. Like other politicians, Rockwell knew how to sress up ugly, hateful ideas to make them look and sound like something they aren't. Like the Conservative Right today, he knew how to play political "bait and switch" games. To make his political agenda more palatable to the American Public, we undertook a "denazification" program to eliminate all references to the word "Nazi," while still retaining the original Nazi creed and agenda. He knew that "Nazism" was an objectionable term for most people, even those who may otherwise be attracted to the ideology behind it. He was killed, however, before entirely fulfilling his plans to turn National Socialism into the religious movement he envisioned. But his followers are attempting to carry out his vision. The meeting between Christian Identity leader Swift and Rockwell led to Rockwell appointing one of his Stormtroopers as the American Nazi Party's own Christian Identity minister.
Christian Identity is only one of an entire network of Conservative =ight groups who believe that whites are racially superior to everyone else.. many right-wing groups such as the Aryan Nations, Ku Klux Klan, and National Alliance, have been either directly or indirectly involved in terrorist and criminal activity, and some of their leaders are direct descendents of Rockwell's American Nazi Party.
The ideology of the Aryan Nations and the Order, as well as groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, and the National Alliance, flows from the same racist, anti-Semitic religious beliefs of "Christian Identity." Aryans who =cooperate with anti-government sentiments, holding that the Federal Government is an instrument of Satan, a creation of the Jews. In an attempt to live apart from "inferior people," some right-wing groups advocate creating a separate nation from the five states comprising the northwest region of the United =tates--Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.
Many of these groups have been involved in criminal, terrorist activities. In April 1997, three members of the True Knights of the Ku Klux Klan were arrested and found guilty in Texas for planning to blow up a natural gas storage facility as a diversionary tactic prior to robbing an armored carrier. Earlier, the FBI's "Rapid Lightning" investigation involved a series of criminal acts committed by individuals associated with a domestic terrorist organization known as the Phineas Priesthood. The subjects of the investigation were responsible for at least two bombing/bank robbery incidents in Spokane, Washington, in April and July 1996. Three subjects were arrested in October 1996, and a fourth in 1997. Since then, all four have been convicted of all eight felony counts for which they were charged and have received lengthy jail sentences.
Fifty Five Years After Hitler: The New World Order of the Conservative Right
Upon Rockwell's death, the American Nazi Party metamorphosed in the late 1960's and early 1970's into the National Socialist White People's party (NSWPP). It later became what is now known‹in 1999--as The Order. the Order, headed by one of Rockwell's foremost Stormtroopers, Matt Koehl, has been involved in numerous criminal violent acts of terrorism across the U.S. the following description can be found online at http://www.nswpp.org/.
The National Socialist White People's Party (NSWPP)/ The Order
Matt Koehl
The Official Program of the NSWPP [NSWPP, Koehl, 1980] calls for an Aryan Republic. It calls for citizenship on the basis of Aryan blood, a racial community, a new educational system that instills racial values, a better =ace, and a rebirth of traditional Aryan spiritual values. NSWPP supports augenic measures and demands an end to racially impure blood within the gene pool of the racial community.
The loss of a biological community is a major concern for neo-Nazis and the Klan, according to Dobratz and Shanks-Meil .The New Order organization White Power, No. 104, states that white people have lost contact with their own biological community and thus feel themselves alienated and alone. As the cure for the problems associated with individual freedom, whites need to live their lives in harmony with the laws of nature and reject everything that is decadent and corrupt. Stoner, of the National States Rights Party, "accused the government of 'race-mixing' to remold minds like molding clay." The "race-mixing" not only creates alienation, but "destroys law and =rder and education" which will lead to the inevitable death of America.
Also according to Dobratz and Shanks-Meile [op.cit], a stable =family unit, a healthy environment, and a healthy farming community which provides social, racial, and environmental stability are major ingredients of the community for both the neo-Nazis and the Klansmen. Members "should have the freedom to associate in their own communities" without interference from other "cultures, nations and races of man In the "enlightened community...anything which interferes with the smooth and harmonious functioning of society must be ruthlessly suppressed"
The "Disease Metaphor" used so effectively by Hitler is evident in the following statement by Koehl.
"It is the goal of the New Order to attack the spiritual syphilis which is eating away at the soul of our Race in a bold and uncompromising manner, and to destroy the infection by massive doses of the proper antidote - the pure, undiluted medicine of the National Socialist world view as conceived by Adolf Hitler. . .There should be an America "without swarming Black filth in our streets and schools...and free of alien, Jewish influence".
To develop an Aryan culture, the New Order states that one must "flush down the drain the poisonous Jewish and Negroid degeneracy which today is passing for 'art' and 'music' and 'literature.'" There also needs to be white self-defense so people can live without fear and a white world solidarity based on alliance with racial kinsmen in Australia, Europe, and South Africa.
The National Socialist White People's Party (NSWPP)
Harold Covington
Harold Covington currently heads the National Socialist White Peoples Party. Harold Armstead Covington, a.k.a. Winston Smith, was born September 14, 1953, in Burlington, N. C. He appeared on the far-right scene in the late 1970s, when he made the acquaintance of Frank Collin of the National Socialist Party of America (NSPA). Collin himself had been ousted from the Arlington, Va.-based National Socialist White People's Party (NSWPP) of the late George Lincoln Rockwell.
Covington at that time claimed to have been an acquaintance of Rockwell (though this information has never been confirmed by a third-party source for even denied by Covington's worst enemies) and claimed to be a representative of a North Carolina branch of the NSWPP. Together, Collin and Covington planned a re-staging of Rockwell's famous march through the largely Jewish Chicago suburb of Skokie, Ill. However, once it came to be known that Collin was actually Jewish (born Frank Cohn), Collin withdrew his plan to march in Skokie, though he maintained that he was being "smeared" by political enemies.
He traveled instead to North Carolina, where his rabble-rousing with Covington and assorted elements of the far right including White Patriot party leader Glenn Miller. This led to a shoot-out in Greensboro, N.C., in Fall of 1978, leaving five Communist Party USA activists dead and Collin, Miller and Covington all under Federal investigation. The investigations into the Greensboro shootings continued through the early 1980s. In 1980, Covington replaced Collin as head of the NSPA.
Despite a continued show of force on his part, and even a relatively successful run for State Attorney General of North Carolina as a Republican in 1980 (he took 43% of the vote), Covington left the U.S. soon after and traveled to Ireland, South Africa and the United Kingdom. He then settled in United Kingdom for several years. Some elements of the far right claim that Covington had turned FBI informant in the Greensboro case (and there is some third-party evidence to suggest that this is true), thus evoking the wrath of former allies and fellow travelers.
The most prominent of Covington's new-found enemies was Ben Klassen, founder of the World Church of the Creator (COTC), who, with William Pierce of the National Alliance and Tom Metzger of White Aryan Resistance, tried to expose Covington as an informant and, like Collin, a Jew. The World Church of the Creator is now headed by the Reverend Matt Helm, who declares himself contifex Maximus (High Priest).
Before settling in the United Kingdom, Covington claims to have served as a mercenary for white separatists in the apartheid nations of Southern Africa. This claim has been widely disputed. Enemies that Covington made in the United Kingdom have also linked him to the Irish Republican Army (IRA), and it is believed that Covington holds dual Irish and U.S. citizenship as a result of a marriage to an Irish woman. During his sojourn in the United Kingdom, Covington made several contacts within the fascist-leaning British National Party and openly fascist National Front. These contacts culminated in Covington's hole in forming Combat 18 . The "18" in the name refers to the letters of the alphabet corresponding to Adolf Hitler's initials. Combat 18 was an openly violent organization that took the United Kingdom race problem to the streets with violence resulting. However, it was also revealed at the time that Covington, was also keeping a North Carolina Post Office Box for Combat 18, giving further credence to the idea that he was an FBI or CIA informant.
In the early 1990's, Covington returned to the United States, and set up the NSWPP again in Raleigh, N.C., declaring himself the rightful heir of Rockwell. He briefly moved the organization to Seattle in 1994, apparently trying to capitalize on the "white bastion" idea of Aryan Nations, but returned to North Carolina within two years, settling in Chapel Hill, his base of operations today.
Covington launched the NSWPP Web site in 1996 and began posting anti-Semitic and racist diatribes in Usenet. He quickly found allies in the Holocaust denial community and offered his writing services openly to Ingrid Rimland of the Zundelsite. Although Klassen was by now dead, Pierce and his North Carolina lieutenant Will Williams and Tom Metzger launched an all-out attack on Covington on the Internet. Williams successfully sued Covington for libel in 1997 for statements made on the Internet. Also, Metzgerites in Florida set up NSWPP.COM as an "expose" of the true nature of Harold Covington. Still, despite his constant embattlement and laughingstock status, Covington remains.
The National Alliance and "The Turner Diaries"
William Pierce
One of the leaders of National Socialist White People's Party (NSWPP) in the =960's, William Pierce, now heads what is called the National Alliance at his "headquarters" in West Virginia. The following description of Pierce =nd his organization can be found at http://www.natall.org/.
Dr. William L. Pierce, head of the National Alliance, does not fit the stereotype of the redneck racist. He commands uncommon respect from nearly every corner of the extremist Conservative Right movement in America. Beneath the polished exterior that he presents is a dark character that is revealed only in his self-published fiction-- "Hunter"--a novel whose hero's hobby is shooting interracial couples, and the now infamous "The Turner Diaries"--an apocalyptic vision of the future. The Turner Diaries inspired the worst incidence of domestic terrorism in U.S. history, the Oklahoma City bombing.
The Turner Diaries also inspired the most successful terrorist underground to emerge since the Civil War, The Order, which robbed banks and armored wars, counterfeited money and committed murders across the country in the early to mid-1980's.
Pierce's doctorate was awarded in the discipline of physics by the University of Colorado at Boulder. Though he originally hailed from Atlanta, Pierce ended up in the Pacific Northwest, teaching physics at Oregon State University until 1965, when he left academia to work briefly as a Physicist in the private sector in New England.
It was during this period that he became involved in the ultra-conservative but not outwardly fascist or neo-Nazi John Birch Society, which has traditionally ousted members for openly anti-Semitic points of view, =including Tom Metzger of White Aryan Resistance, Richard Butler of Aryan Nations, and others.
In 1966, Pierce left physics for good and threw his lot with the America Nazi Party led by George Lincoln Rockwell. After Rockwell's death, the American Nazi Party had little life left in it, until it was resurrected by Harold Covington a few years ago. Pierce eventually formed his own splinter group, the National Youth Alliance (later The National Alliance). Over the course of the last 15 years, Pierce moved his organization from the Washington metropolitan area to Westboro, West Virginia. Like the Church of the Creator (COTC) and White Aryan Resistance, Pierce has abandoned Christianity as a religion tainted by its Jewish roots. Instead, Pierce promotes an anti-Semitic "Creativity" style religion similar to that preached by the COTC. Pierce had close ties with COTC founder Ben Klassen and owns several acres of property that he bought from Klassen in rural Georgia.
The National Alliance and Pierce are most successful as propaganda wills.. His press, the National Vanguard, publishes not only Pierce's hateful novels, but also tracts advocating forcible separation of the races, "proofs" that blacks are genetically inferior to whites and bizarre theories of Jewish control of American government, society and thought. He broadcasts a weekly radio program called "American Dissident Voices" which he makes available for all to hear on his Web site.
Shortly following the death of poet Allen Ginsberg, who was Jewish and gay, Pierce stated that he believed that persons who published material such as Ginsberg's should be shot. This speech was reproduced at a Web site, which is emblazoned with the motto "Free Speech."
Pierce also once wrote that "all the homosexuals, race-mixers and hard-case collaborators in the country who are too far gone to be re-educated can we rounded up, packed into 10,000 or so cattle cars, and eventually double-timed into an abandoned coal mine in a few days' time." This statement is, of course, similar to the actions of Hitler's Third Reich. Despite [or because =f??] Pierce's stark neo-Nazism, research shows that the National Alliance is a consistently growing organization.
The World Church of the Creator
Matt Hale
Another Conservative Right group that is a descendent of Rockwell's American Nazi Party is the so-called World Church of the Creator. As seen above, William Pierce rejected Christianity because it was "contaminated" with Judaism. Hence, he and other followers of American Nazism, specifically Matt Hale, established a new religion of "Creation." The following description of the religion of Creativity =an be found at http://www.creator.org
After =ix thousand years of recorded history, our people finally have a religion of, for, and by, them. CREATIVITY is that religion. It is established for the survival, Expansion, and Advancement of our White Race exclusively.. Indeed, we believe that what is good for the White Race is the highest virtue, and what is had for the White Race is the ultimate sin.
Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
David Duke
The =following description can be found at http://www.duke.org/. David Duke is owner of the David Duke Online Report.
David Duke is the best known and most politically active racist in the United States and has one of the longest resumes on the Far Right. Beginning as a Nazi sympathizer as a student at Louisiana State University, Duke eventually formed the Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, of which he was national leader. His lieutenants included Don Black of Stormfront web page, Louis Beam, now of Aryan Nations, and Tom Metzger, =ow of White Aryan Resistance.
In the early 1980s, Duke left the KKK to form the National Association for the Advancement of White People, a group he called a "civil rights group" for whites. He also made a foray into electoral politics, running first for President on the 1988 Populist ticket backed Holocaust denier Willis Carto and managed by former American Nazi Party official Ralph Forbes (under George Lincoln Rockwell). His running mate for a short period of time was militia sympathizer Bo Gritz. After garnishing a tiny number of votes, Duke then =ut his emphasis on Louisiana politics, winning a seat in the Louisiana legislature.
In 1992, Duke shocked the country by forcing Louisiana into a runoff election for governor that he eventually lost. Recently, however, Duke ran abortively once again for president in 1996 and was very recently elected to head the =OP in St. Tammany, Louisiana, the largest white parish in the state.
Holocaust Denial and the "Respectability" of Racism
Committee on the Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH)
As pointed out by Schmaltz, though it was once espoused solely by the "lunatic fringe," the denial of the Holocaust has become an acceptable art of the public fare in both academic and public media outlets. The Committee on the Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH), part of a national neo-Nazi (Aryan Nation/Christian Identity) movement in the United States, regularly runs advertisements in student newspapers on public and private university and college campuses. They openly seek to persuade young students that the holocaust was a lie, perpetrated by powerful Jewish conspirators seeking even more power.
CODOH was originated by Bradley Smith and Mark Weber, using marketing techniques that are directed at students. Of course, university and college students are not only experienced with the Internet but are also somewhat disposed to challenge authority. Recent ads, like the one appearing in the student newspaper, the Logos, at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, hooks readers with a promise of a $250,000 reward to whoever can arrange a 90-minute, prime-time nationally televised debate about the Holocaust between Smith and ADL.
According the AntiDefamation League, Smith readily admits he doesn't "really expect a TV debate to take place." This ad, like Smith's previous efforts, is a "bait and switch," a deceptive enticement spouting follow promises designed to encourage students to visit his "vast Internet archive of revisionist scholarship and comment."
Conclusion
In spite of the absence of the title "National Socialism" in the language of the Conservative Right in the United States, the original racist, misogynist, and genocidal creed of National Socialism and its objectives have been inherited by various Conservative Right groups sharing the same ideology of hate. The legacy of this creed can be traced from Hitler's third Reich eugenics theorists and practitioners to the American Nazi Party, the National Alliance, the Aryan Nations, The Order, and Christian identity--among others. It is also found in various guises in social policy and political pronouncements and proposed "solutions" of politicians and spokesmen for the Conservative Right, including powerful Conservative Right factions of the Republican Party.
In addition to spouting the Holocaust Denial theme, various Conservative Right groups associated one way or another with the Republican Party, rallying against Civil Rights legislation passed largely in the 1960's, have used what amounts to the creed of National Socialism on which to base their arguments and their movement.
In the year 2000, we are witnessing a dramatic increase in hate groups across the U.S. Many of them spout the most hateful invectives against Jews, "mud" people, "60's Liberals, the U.S. Government, and women. The Internet has proven to be one of their most effective means of their communication and growth, enlisting more and more disenfranchised or just simply disturbed people. their hate websites are filled with overt threats against leaders of liberal groups and other social causes. We have also witnessed an apparent willingness of some young people-- mostly young white males --to use assault weapons to kill others as well as themselves. Among the latter, police and investigators found a disturbing presence of neo-Nazi sentiments and admiration of Adolf Hitler.
Footnotes
*Labels such as 'Conservative' and 'Liberal' are notoriously vague. However, the term 'Conservative Right' is taken to refer to a spectrum of political groups generally associated with the Republican Party in the United States. It is also taken here to refer to the extreme and religious Right and Far Right Conservatism in the United States.
Fred G. Herrera
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
I was raised to believe that all people truly are created equal
I laugh a little when I consider what I could possibly say to describe myself as a person. Then, I realize that what is likely to be the most important thing people need to understand about me is that I think I'm the funniest person in the world. I don't mean that like, I tell funny jokes and I should be a star or anything like that.
I mean, when I take a step back and look at things I do and reasons I believe what I believe and assess the things I take for granted, it's pretty funny. In my own way, I have lived an "observed" life, and have learned a great deal from it. And laughed alot.
I'd feel suppressed about that, except that we're all actually that way. Some people wear funny looking ties, some wear long hair to show rebellion, short hair to fit in or just the opposite. In other words, we judge ourselves based on how we believe we relate or measure up to other people, especially to those we admire.
I was raised to believe that all people truly are created equal. Part of the heritage that was passed on to me in the early years of my life included understanding that there is truly no other human above me or below me.
That was the at the heart of my loving our Democracy. we have the right to think differently, but we remain equal as the beings we are.
As a person, I always believed that it was my job to decide about what I believed in, after carefully weighing my own needs and other people's needs, and with all that considered, decide how I wanted to respond to circumstances and develop a discipline of conduct and thought consistent with that decision. That would be living life with integrity. It would mean being responsible for who I am being as a person. And I am really happy with who I am, I've had a few stumbling blocks along the way, but have risen to enjoy life even more.
In the United States, we commonly think of that as something like our religious values, or moral discipline. I'll talk about that more later, but I thought it was important to consider.
I have always been a leader. I don't mean that I was placed in positions of authority or lead thousands of people. I never sought titles or roles.
I'm the kind of guy you've probably known a time or two who sits in business meetings very quietly and attentively, and just about the time people have reached a stalemate in their discussions or the focus is lost, I'll put in my two cents worth in a way that lays out a concept or correction or plan of action, and the project moves forward again.
I call that passive leadership. I developed that style because I often found that when people said they wanted to accomplish a given task, for example, I would spell out a theory and structure to fulfill the requirements too quickly, so I learned to interject ideas, and cause people to think of things they hadn't thought about before in order to expand the scope of their original thinking.
I've worked with a number of people and organizations where, when I left for other opportunities, made me felt honored for my contribution. In reflection, I've often wondered what they "got" from me, or what they thought I was doing there while I was working there. I always did my job.
But my real love was empowering other people, and so I always made it a habit to wander around and find ways to cause people to go beyond themselves personally and professionally. Mostly, though, they just knew I was there, and provided a sense of understanding, compassion, and maybe feeling a little better about themselves after comin to talk to me.
The times when I've decided to take the reigns and lead powerfully, as in when authority was required in addition to good ideas, were at times when I believed there were no other particular individuals or organizations who could actually take all of the actions necessary to resolve a conflict or adapt to the next phase of the development or business cycle. In the past, I've always been willing to step up to the plate and do what is necessary at the moment for as long as it actually took to complete an important phase.
But, in this case, at this time in American heritage, history and social progress, I believe I need to take the reigns and lend a firm, guiding hand in making sure that American values are employed in our real policies toward other nations, and that the leadership of this country is truly committed to the principles of Democracy and willing to accept responsibility for the well-being of all its own citizens, and in consideration of every other nation.
I can certainly understand that what I just said may sound arrogant. I would assert, instead, that I am an individual who is comfortable with himself, confident in his ability to assimilate information with an open mind.
I am a true believer... a believer in American Democracy, the deep-down built-in goodness of people, the concept that people can find ways to get along in responsible and empowering ways... I have modeled my life around the intent and wisdom of our nation's founders, contemplating their words when considering what it means to be a patriot, and someone committed to the American dream.I believe everything is possible, so long as people are willing to work together.
I actually believe in a global peace and integration that can work. I am capable of leading a good debate. I say all that while trying to explain to you that I am a very playful person who jokes around alot, enjoys life, feels deeply and cares even more. Be on the lookout for smile signs :}
I have had an unusual life. I've had incredible opportunites and done things that most people will never have the chance to do. Maybe not monumental things, but things that have a great deal to do with enjoying and understanding people, this beautiful country, and a simple appreciation for simple things. Basic things. The things that matter most.
I grew up in the Corpus Christi, a beautiful Texas city by the Gulf,
At the same time, I remember that when I moved to a new town when I was 19 and people would sincerely want to know more about me, I'd just say "Well, I've seen more stuff in my short 19 years than most people will see in their lives." And I'd say that because I couldn't begin to explain what I'd experienced as a child, as a friend to people.
"some people may think I'm crazy. I'm so objective, I could make the case for you..."
I love following the news, But, mostly, I tend to defy categorization. I don't try to be a non-conformist, I just am. I'm every bit as curious and adventureous as I am cautious. By the time you think you've got me figured out, I'll surprise you. And I have a tendency to find ways to make people think about things that are important to them, even if they don't know it is important to them. It's one more way to make a difference.
I always want to understand how things work, how things and circumstances evolve, how social patterns change and are changed, how the government works and how communications have changed the face of our world. I like to observe the rippling effects... how doing one small thing effects other things, and how all things are related. Yes, I'm an analytical. :}
I'm very open-minded. I actually enjoy speaking to people who disagree with me because I want to understand other points of view, mostly politically.It's rare that I don't learn something valuable when I listen.
I also find it rare when ways can't be found to satisfy or reconcile the differences between people. That may easily be my favorite thing to do.
I especially love it when people tell me that something can't be done. When people say things like that, it tells me it's something they really want, but gave up on. Those are the challenges that are fun.. but making people believe again.
I really believe everything (based in reality) is possible. After that, all you have to do is define reality.} If you know what you want to accomplish, it's easy to define the steps required to cause the result. Working towards a goal, when we can all come together again as Americans, standing together, and not as we stand divided today over Poitical issues.
I mean, when I take a step back and look at things I do and reasons I believe what I believe and assess the things I take for granted, it's pretty funny. In my own way, I have lived an "observed" life, and have learned a great deal from it. And laughed alot.
I'd feel suppressed about that, except that we're all actually that way. Some people wear funny looking ties, some wear long hair to show rebellion, short hair to fit in or just the opposite. In other words, we judge ourselves based on how we believe we relate or measure up to other people, especially to those we admire.
I was raised to believe that all people truly are created equal. Part of the heritage that was passed on to me in the early years of my life included understanding that there is truly no other human above me or below me.
That was the at the heart of my loving our Democracy. we have the right to think differently, but we remain equal as the beings we are.
As a person, I always believed that it was my job to decide about what I believed in, after carefully weighing my own needs and other people's needs, and with all that considered, decide how I wanted to respond to circumstances and develop a discipline of conduct and thought consistent with that decision. That would be living life with integrity. It would mean being responsible for who I am being as a person. And I am really happy with who I am, I've had a few stumbling blocks along the way, but have risen to enjoy life even more.
In the United States, we commonly think of that as something like our religious values, or moral discipline. I'll talk about that more later, but I thought it was important to consider.
I have always been a leader. I don't mean that I was placed in positions of authority or lead thousands of people. I never sought titles or roles.
I'm the kind of guy you've probably known a time or two who sits in business meetings very quietly and attentively, and just about the time people have reached a stalemate in their discussions or the focus is lost, I'll put in my two cents worth in a way that lays out a concept or correction or plan of action, and the project moves forward again.
I call that passive leadership. I developed that style because I often found that when people said they wanted to accomplish a given task, for example, I would spell out a theory and structure to fulfill the requirements too quickly, so I learned to interject ideas, and cause people to think of things they hadn't thought about before in order to expand the scope of their original thinking.
I've worked with a number of people and organizations where, when I left for other opportunities, made me felt honored for my contribution. In reflection, I've often wondered what they "got" from me, or what they thought I was doing there while I was working there. I always did my job.
But my real love was empowering other people, and so I always made it a habit to wander around and find ways to cause people to go beyond themselves personally and professionally. Mostly, though, they just knew I was there, and provided a sense of understanding, compassion, and maybe feeling a little better about themselves after comin to talk to me.
The times when I've decided to take the reigns and lead powerfully, as in when authority was required in addition to good ideas, were at times when I believed there were no other particular individuals or organizations who could actually take all of the actions necessary to resolve a conflict or adapt to the next phase of the development or business cycle. In the past, I've always been willing to step up to the plate and do what is necessary at the moment for as long as it actually took to complete an important phase.
But, in this case, at this time in American heritage, history and social progress, I believe I need to take the reigns and lend a firm, guiding hand in making sure that American values are employed in our real policies toward other nations, and that the leadership of this country is truly committed to the principles of Democracy and willing to accept responsibility for the well-being of all its own citizens, and in consideration of every other nation.
I can certainly understand that what I just said may sound arrogant. I would assert, instead, that I am an individual who is comfortable with himself, confident in his ability to assimilate information with an open mind.
I am a true believer... a believer in American Democracy, the deep-down built-in goodness of people, the concept that people can find ways to get along in responsible and empowering ways... I have modeled my life around the intent and wisdom of our nation's founders, contemplating their words when considering what it means to be a patriot, and someone committed to the American dream.I believe everything is possible, so long as people are willing to work together.
I actually believe in a global peace and integration that can work. I am capable of leading a good debate. I say all that while trying to explain to you that I am a very playful person who jokes around alot, enjoys life, feels deeply and cares even more. Be on the lookout for smile signs :}
I have had an unusual life. I've had incredible opportunites and done things that most people will never have the chance to do. Maybe not monumental things, but things that have a great deal to do with enjoying and understanding people, this beautiful country, and a simple appreciation for simple things. Basic things. The things that matter most.
I grew up in the Corpus Christi, a beautiful Texas city by the Gulf,
At the same time, I remember that when I moved to a new town when I was 19 and people would sincerely want to know more about me, I'd just say "Well, I've seen more stuff in my short 19 years than most people will see in their lives." And I'd say that because I couldn't begin to explain what I'd experienced as a child, as a friend to people.
"some people may think I'm crazy. I'm so objective, I could make the case for you..."
I love following the news, But, mostly, I tend to defy categorization. I don't try to be a non-conformist, I just am. I'm every bit as curious and adventureous as I am cautious. By the time you think you've got me figured out, I'll surprise you. And I have a tendency to find ways to make people think about things that are important to them, even if they don't know it is important to them. It's one more way to make a difference.
I always want to understand how things work, how things and circumstances evolve, how social patterns change and are changed, how the government works and how communications have changed the face of our world. I like to observe the rippling effects... how doing one small thing effects other things, and how all things are related. Yes, I'm an analytical. :}
I'm very open-minded. I actually enjoy speaking to people who disagree with me because I want to understand other points of view, mostly politically.It's rare that I don't learn something valuable when I listen.
I also find it rare when ways can't be found to satisfy or reconcile the differences between people. That may easily be my favorite thing to do.
I especially love it when people tell me that something can't be done. When people say things like that, it tells me it's something they really want, but gave up on. Those are the challenges that are fun.. but making people believe again.
I really believe everything (based in reality) is possible. After that, all you have to do is define reality.} If you know what you want to accomplish, it's easy to define the steps required to cause the result. Working towards a goal, when we can all come together again as Americans, standing together, and not as we stand divided today over Poitical issues.
My America, A Challenge to find the value of American Democracy
I believe that America is at a crossroads, a crossroads that requires us to make many decisions about the future.
Decisions that we must first make as individuals, digging down deep inside ourselves and coming to terms with the differences between a world we imagine is possible and say we desire and live in, and the world that seems to happen to us as we work and live day by day.
What we must realize is that the difference is not determined by the circumstances thrust upon us, but the choices we make based upon our commitment to the standards and princples that we say define us as people and a nation.
When our founders designed the Constitution, they did so based on many of their own experiences, such as their desire to escape from religious tyranny. They understood that part of free will was about a choice to believe, to practice or not, and they respected the divine right of the individual to choose their own beliefs and practices.
I believe that the American Democracy crafted by the founders of this nation is the most perfect human expression of free will as inspired and granted by God.
Democracy can only succeed if the spirit of that same intent and hope is honored.
In my beliefs, separation of church and state is an essential part of government and American Democracy. It allows people to make choices themselves, and relieves them of the burden of having to evaluate political issues interjected as a part of their ritual or discipline in their relationship with God, whatever it is, however they choose to observe it..
Like many Americans, I know we have room for improvement. There's always room for improvement. But the intent of American Democracy allows for all persuasions and beliefs. It allows for co-existence of the Amish and Native Americans, it validates the concerns of members of the Christian Coalition as well as those who describe themselves as atheists.
The question is whether we, the people, will allow it.
American Democracy is like an ongoing conversation. It must consider every opinion and every belief and every concern and honor its validity. Justice is not to be a judgement of right or wrong, but is an agreement of accountability for a code of conduct molded by laws and customs, based on a philosophy of freedom to the exclusion only of that which would do harm to others.
Justice is about agreement to laws easily argued to be derived from the golden rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." For me, if it was observed, no other law would be necessary.
To me, in many ways, American Democracy is like the experiment your teacher did with you many years ago. The one where the teacher lined up 20 children side by side, and then went to one end of the line, and told the first child a story. That child would then tell the story to the next child and so on and so on, until finally, the last child told everyone what they had been told.
The story that last child told had a thread of truth to it. It used the words justice and freedom and choice and rights, but the meaning of the words had somehow been changed, and did not mean the same things anymore.
To me, it means things like how we're told we live in a nation of laws. I say, we live in a nation of loopholes. I don't say that lightly.
Day after day, we hear about court rulings and civil filings that have nothing to do with honoring the intent of the laws that were to provide guidance and remedies for impasses. Instead, we hear of "gray areas", ways to get around things, methods of using technical semantics to evade the intent of the law.
In my mind, the use of those semantics as a defense is an acknowledgement of the offenses being committed, if you took the intent of the law seriously.
To me, it is simpler to say that people have begun using the legal system to prove their righteousness for activities they know are wrong... in a society claiming to be based on moral Christian beliefs.
The ideas of free will and American Democracy come with a number of challenges and responsibilities.
A challenge and responsibility in its constant vigil and commitment to the real intent of justice, as opposed to justice imposed based on bias or persuasion, causing division and hostility.
A challenge and responsibility to provide for the representation of the will and well-being of its entire population above all else
A challenge and responsibility to set a global example as those who exercise their spiritual disciplines and mandates through wisdom and compassion in their actions and policies toward the people of other nations in order to be at cause in generating global cooperation and democratic attitudes.
A challenge and responsibility to prove that tranparency in governing bodies and keeping the citizens informed and participating in the democratic process is desireable and of superior quality.
A challenge and responsibility to generate legislation and a culture that is inclusive.
This is, by no means, a complete list of concerns or considerations. But I believe that in them, you'll find the values of American Democracy that have made it so great for so long. All of them are values we should seek to reclaim on a daily basis, to be better as individuals, better as a nation, and better as a world.
That's what America means to me, that's what it represents. A nation of people always willing to look above the heat of emotions and passions on indivdual issues, and finding ways to allow us all to have the things we need and the freedom we deserve, that we say is granted by God.
Some people think that what I'm calling for is change. I say that what I am calling for is more like a reclamation. I beleive it's time that we take a step back, look at things objectively, and reclaim those things that work, but most importantly, to discard systems and divisory political practices that don't work, so that we can create the future based on what we say we want, and what we know is needed.
I'm calling for a return to an American Democracy that serves all people and interests with responsible legislation and liability. Legislation and judgement realized without bias or coercion,.without granting advantage or favor.
And, applying the values of free will we claim as a people for the people, when considering all limitations and regulations to be enforced.
What America means to me, more than anything else, is a government designed to be in service to the people.
That is not exclusive or biased against business interests, it is inclusive and symbiotic. It also acknowledges that the needs of the people, the citizens, must be met before any other interests, profits or ventures could possibly make any significant contribution to humanity.
To me, America means a nation of people who, when they are informed and welcomed to participate in Democracy, make the right decisions for America, humanity and all beings.
History has proven it time and time again. And I believe we will all prove it again very soon.
Decisions that we must first make as individuals, digging down deep inside ourselves and coming to terms with the differences between a world we imagine is possible and say we desire and live in, and the world that seems to happen to us as we work and live day by day.
What we must realize is that the difference is not determined by the circumstances thrust upon us, but the choices we make based upon our commitment to the standards and princples that we say define us as people and a nation.
When our founders designed the Constitution, they did so based on many of their own experiences, such as their desire to escape from religious tyranny. They understood that part of free will was about a choice to believe, to practice or not, and they respected the divine right of the individual to choose their own beliefs and practices.
I believe that the American Democracy crafted by the founders of this nation is the most perfect human expression of free will as inspired and granted by God.
Democracy can only succeed if the spirit of that same intent and hope is honored.
In my beliefs, separation of church and state is an essential part of government and American Democracy. It allows people to make choices themselves, and relieves them of the burden of having to evaluate political issues interjected as a part of their ritual or discipline in their relationship with God, whatever it is, however they choose to observe it..
Like many Americans, I know we have room for improvement. There's always room for improvement. But the intent of American Democracy allows for all persuasions and beliefs. It allows for co-existence of the Amish and Native Americans, it validates the concerns of members of the Christian Coalition as well as those who describe themselves as atheists.
The question is whether we, the people, will allow it.
American Democracy is like an ongoing conversation. It must consider every opinion and every belief and every concern and honor its validity. Justice is not to be a judgement of right or wrong, but is an agreement of accountability for a code of conduct molded by laws and customs, based on a philosophy of freedom to the exclusion only of that which would do harm to others.
Justice is about agreement to laws easily argued to be derived from the golden rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." For me, if it was observed, no other law would be necessary.
To me, in many ways, American Democracy is like the experiment your teacher did with you many years ago. The one where the teacher lined up 20 children side by side, and then went to one end of the line, and told the first child a story. That child would then tell the story to the next child and so on and so on, until finally, the last child told everyone what they had been told.
The story that last child told had a thread of truth to it. It used the words justice and freedom and choice and rights, but the meaning of the words had somehow been changed, and did not mean the same things anymore.
To me, it means things like how we're told we live in a nation of laws. I say, we live in a nation of loopholes. I don't say that lightly.
Day after day, we hear about court rulings and civil filings that have nothing to do with honoring the intent of the laws that were to provide guidance and remedies for impasses. Instead, we hear of "gray areas", ways to get around things, methods of using technical semantics to evade the intent of the law.
In my mind, the use of those semantics as a defense is an acknowledgement of the offenses being committed, if you took the intent of the law seriously.
To me, it is simpler to say that people have begun using the legal system to prove their righteousness for activities they know are wrong... in a society claiming to be based on moral Christian beliefs.
The ideas of free will and American Democracy come with a number of challenges and responsibilities.
A challenge and responsibility in its constant vigil and commitment to the real intent of justice, as opposed to justice imposed based on bias or persuasion, causing division and hostility.
A challenge and responsibility to provide for the representation of the will and well-being of its entire population above all else
A challenge and responsibility to set a global example as those who exercise their spiritual disciplines and mandates through wisdom and compassion in their actions and policies toward the people of other nations in order to be at cause in generating global cooperation and democratic attitudes.
A challenge and responsibility to prove that tranparency in governing bodies and keeping the citizens informed and participating in the democratic process is desireable and of superior quality.
A challenge and responsibility to generate legislation and a culture that is inclusive.
This is, by no means, a complete list of concerns or considerations. But I believe that in them, you'll find the values of American Democracy that have made it so great for so long. All of them are values we should seek to reclaim on a daily basis, to be better as individuals, better as a nation, and better as a world.
That's what America means to me, that's what it represents. A nation of people always willing to look above the heat of emotions and passions on indivdual issues, and finding ways to allow us all to have the things we need and the freedom we deserve, that we say is granted by God.
Some people think that what I'm calling for is change. I say that what I am calling for is more like a reclamation. I beleive it's time that we take a step back, look at things objectively, and reclaim those things that work, but most importantly, to discard systems and divisory political practices that don't work, so that we can create the future based on what we say we want, and what we know is needed.
I'm calling for a return to an American Democracy that serves all people and interests with responsible legislation and liability. Legislation and judgement realized without bias or coercion,.without granting advantage or favor.
And, applying the values of free will we claim as a people for the people, when considering all limitations and regulations to be enforced.
What America means to me, more than anything else, is a government designed to be in service to the people.
That is not exclusive or biased against business interests, it is inclusive and symbiotic. It also acknowledges that the needs of the people, the citizens, must be met before any other interests, profits or ventures could possibly make any significant contribution to humanity.
To me, America means a nation of people who, when they are informed and welcomed to participate in Democracy, make the right decisions for America, humanity and all beings.
History has proven it time and time again. And I believe we will all prove it again very soon.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Sarah Palin's 'Bridge to Nowhere', and other Palin nonsense
Now come on Sarah, get educated and then maybe you will have a chance to run the National Garbage Association. And now she is siding with Dr.Laura,advising her not to retreat, but to reload..... she seems to be digging herself deeper into the "Ignorance hole of no return". Give us a break, go do what you do best, go fish, and lie about the size of the fish you caught for supper.
"She said she "championed reform of earmark spending by Congress, and I told the Congress thanks but no thanks on that 'Bridge to Nowhere'", she said, ommiting that she'd campaigned for governor supporting the bridge."
I take it most readers of this blog will know that this is a flat-out lie.
When politicians lie -- and here I mean not just putting the best spin on things, but out and out lying -- they might as well walk up to each and every one of us and say: Hello! I have no respect for the value of your time! You might have other things to do -- work, playing with your kids, taking a long hike in the mountains, whatever -- but I don't care. I'm going to put you in a position where you're going to have to research everything I say, or else just give up on your civic duty. You don't get to assume that my words are, if not exactly true, at least somewhere in the general vicinity of the truth, and decide whether or not to vote for me. If you want to be an informed citizen, you'll have to become obsessive, like hilzoy.
They might as well add: I have no respect for democracy. In a democracy, citizens listen to what each side has to say and decide who to vote for. To work, it requires that what each side says bears some resemblance to the truth. If I cared about democracy, I'd respect those limits -- maybe stretching the truth every now and then, but generally maintaining some sort of relationship between what I say and reality. But guess what? I don't care about democracy! If winning requires that I make things up out of whole cloth and hope that I'm successful enough to frustrate the popular will, then that's what I'll do. Don't like it? Think democracy is a good system, one that we should cherish? That's just too bad.
But Palin has gone beyond this. She is not just telling lies; she's telling lies that have been exposed as lies, and that have gotten a lot of attention. Assuming she does not actually want to lose, she must assume that her audience either doesn't know that she's lying, or doesn't care. In either case, it's deeply cynical, and deeply insulting.
I just hope she isn't right.
Sarah Palin a "Pants on Fire" liar for her claim that "Democrats are poised now to cause this largest tax increase in U.S. history." (As it turns out, that's just one of the 10 Republican lies about the Bush tax cuts.) Now, the half-term Alaska Governor is protesting, claiming on Facebook that "no such proposal exists" to "keep the tax cuts for individuals who make less than $200,000 and couples who make less than $250,000." Sadly for Sarah Palin, President Obama not only made that pledge both before and after his inauguration. He also put it in his proposed fiscal year 2011 budget. She dosen't listen....lol.
Former Governor Palin would have been served to read the budget document or, say, the New York Times, before claiming and issuing her challenge:
"Mr. President, publish your proposals, and we’ll duke it out."
As the record shows, he already did. On February 1, 2010, the White House issued the "Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2011." On page 39 of that 192 page document, the proposal states:
Allow the Bush Tax Cuts for Households Earning More Than $250,000 to Expire. In the last Administration, those at the very top enjoyed large tax breaks and income gains while almost everyone else struggled and real income for the middle class declined. Our Nation cannot afford to continue these tax cuts, which is why the President supports allowing those tax cuts that affect families earning more than $250,000 a year to expire and committing these resources to reducing the deficit instead. This step will have no effect on the 98 percent of all households who make less than $250,000.
When asked in September 2008 then vice presidential candidate what newspapers she read, then candidate Palin answered, "all of them." Except, apparently, the New York Times. If she had, Palin would have seen this summary of the President's FY 2011 budget proposal:
Over 10 years, according to the administration, the budget would save an estimated $1.2 trillion, mainly by ending the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans and freezing some domestic spending for three years.
Even the clowns at Fox News, Sarah Palin's own network, got the message:
The budget proposal released Monday would extend Obama's signature Making Work Pay tax credit -- $400 for individuals, $800 for a couple filing jointly -- through 2011. But it would also impose nearly $1 trillion in higher taxes on couples making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000 by not renewing tax cuts enacted under former President George W. Bush. Obama would extend Bush-era tax cuts for families and individuals making less.
If nothing else, Republicans like Sarah Palin deserve a hand for having the chutzpah to pretend Democrats want a $3.8 trillion tax increase over the next decade.
Palin literally wrote that talking point on her hand in an appearance with Chris Wallace of Fox Clown News:
"My palm isn't large enough to have written all my notes down on what this tax increase, what it will result in.... Democrats are poised to cause the largest tax increase in U.S. history, it's a tax increase of $3.8 trillion in the next ten years and it will have an effect on every single American who pays an income tax."
Restoring upper bracket tax rates to their Clinton-era levels will impact only a sliver of American taxpayers.
For one thing, according to the Pew Economic Policy Group, an extension of all of the Bush tax cuts will cost $3.1 trillion over ten years, once the costs of servicing the debt are factored in. But no one has proposed allowing them all expire, and it's incredibly disingenuous of Republicans to claim otherwise, especially since it was a budget gimmick by former President George W. Bush to include the ten-year sunset at all.
Extending just the cuts for the wealthiest two percent of Americans will cost $830 billion over ten years.
So,in rejecting Palin's myth restated today about "a multi-trillion dollar tax hike":
ABC's Mike Wallace's question was about letting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire. President Barack Obama's plan would increase income taxes for individuals making more than $200,000 and for couples making more than $250,000, with indexing for inflation. Wallace mentions that the Republican proposal to retain the tax cuts for the wealthy is "$678 billion you're not going to pay for." That's a reasonable estimate of how much increasing taxes on top earners would generate over 10 years.
Palin, however, responded as if the Democrats intend to allow all the Bush tax cuts to expire for everyone. If that were to happen, it would increase tax revenues by approximately $3.8 trillion over ten years.
But that's not what Democrats are proposing; they want to leave tax rates untouched for people who make less.
As for Sarah Palin, her pants are still on fire. And unless you're Rich Lowry, that's not a not a good thing
Going back to 2008, below are some observations of the then McCain/Palin Campaign history.
The Senate has voted only once that year on legislation that would change bankruptcy laws to help distressed homeowners. John McCain was absent for that vote. Contrary to what Palin says, the McCain campaign acknowledges that he does not support those changes to bankruptcy laws.
Palin on Troop Levels in Iraq
During an exchange on Iraq, Palin erroneously claimed the United States is down to presurge levels in Iraq. Palin said, "We have got to win Iraq. And with the surge that has worked we're now down to presurge numbers in Iraq. That's where we could be." Palin is incorrect.
FACT: The Alaska governor is wrong because the number of troops on the ground is still higher and the number of combat brigades is the same as at the start of the surge in January 2007, according to Pentagon figures. Iraq troop levels before the surge were at 133,500. While U.S. troop levels in Iraq have been in the 142,000 range recently, today they are at around 150,000 because of an ongoing troop rotation.
Palin misidentified Army Gen. David D. McKiernan, commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, as "McClellan" several times during the debate.
Claims made by the candidates during the vice presidential debate.
At one point Palin said, "First, McClellan did not say definitively that the surge principles would not work in Afghanistan. Certain accounting for different conditions in that country and conditions are certainly different."
FACT: The general commanding troops in Afghanistan is McKiernan.
Obama's Statements About Meeting President of Iran
When Palin criticized Barack Obama for saying he would be willing to meet with the president of Iran, a nation with whom the United States does not currently have formal diplomatic relations, Biden reacted and said, "Can, can I clarify this? That's just simply not true about Barack Obama. He did not say he'd sit down with [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad."
FACT: While the Illinois senator has clarified this statement several times with further explanation about the conditions that would have to be met before a presidential-level meeting, Biden is incorrect that Obama "did not say" it. let's tell it like it is.
"She said she "championed reform of earmark spending by Congress, and I told the Congress thanks but no thanks on that 'Bridge to Nowhere'", she said, ommiting that she'd campaigned for governor supporting the bridge."
I take it most readers of this blog will know that this is a flat-out lie.
When politicians lie -- and here I mean not just putting the best spin on things, but out and out lying -- they might as well walk up to each and every one of us and say: Hello! I have no respect for the value of your time! You might have other things to do -- work, playing with your kids, taking a long hike in the mountains, whatever -- but I don't care. I'm going to put you in a position where you're going to have to research everything I say, or else just give up on your civic duty. You don't get to assume that my words are, if not exactly true, at least somewhere in the general vicinity of the truth, and decide whether or not to vote for me. If you want to be an informed citizen, you'll have to become obsessive, like hilzoy.
They might as well add: I have no respect for democracy. In a democracy, citizens listen to what each side has to say and decide who to vote for. To work, it requires that what each side says bears some resemblance to the truth. If I cared about democracy, I'd respect those limits -- maybe stretching the truth every now and then, but generally maintaining some sort of relationship between what I say and reality. But guess what? I don't care about democracy! If winning requires that I make things up out of whole cloth and hope that I'm successful enough to frustrate the popular will, then that's what I'll do. Don't like it? Think democracy is a good system, one that we should cherish? That's just too bad.
But Palin has gone beyond this. She is not just telling lies; she's telling lies that have been exposed as lies, and that have gotten a lot of attention. Assuming she does not actually want to lose, she must assume that her audience either doesn't know that she's lying, or doesn't care. In either case, it's deeply cynical, and deeply insulting.
I just hope she isn't right.
Sarah Palin a "Pants on Fire" liar for her claim that "Democrats are poised now to cause this largest tax increase in U.S. history." (As it turns out, that's just one of the 10 Republican lies about the Bush tax cuts.) Now, the half-term Alaska Governor is protesting, claiming on Facebook that "no such proposal exists" to "keep the tax cuts for individuals who make less than $200,000 and couples who make less than $250,000." Sadly for Sarah Palin, President Obama not only made that pledge both before and after his inauguration. He also put it in his proposed fiscal year 2011 budget. She dosen't listen....lol.
Former Governor Palin would have been served to read the budget document or, say, the New York Times, before claiming and issuing her challenge:
"Mr. President, publish your proposals, and we’ll duke it out."
As the record shows, he already did. On February 1, 2010, the White House issued the "Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2011." On page 39 of that 192 page document, the proposal states:
Allow the Bush Tax Cuts for Households Earning More Than $250,000 to Expire. In the last Administration, those at the very top enjoyed large tax breaks and income gains while almost everyone else struggled and real income for the middle class declined. Our Nation cannot afford to continue these tax cuts, which is why the President supports allowing those tax cuts that affect families earning more than $250,000 a year to expire and committing these resources to reducing the deficit instead. This step will have no effect on the 98 percent of all households who make less than $250,000.
When asked in September 2008 then vice presidential candidate what newspapers she read, then candidate Palin answered, "all of them." Except, apparently, the New York Times. If she had, Palin would have seen this summary of the President's FY 2011 budget proposal:
Over 10 years, according to the administration, the budget would save an estimated $1.2 trillion, mainly by ending the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans and freezing some domestic spending for three years.
Even the clowns at Fox News, Sarah Palin's own network, got the message:
The budget proposal released Monday would extend Obama's signature Making Work Pay tax credit -- $400 for individuals, $800 for a couple filing jointly -- through 2011. But it would also impose nearly $1 trillion in higher taxes on couples making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000 by not renewing tax cuts enacted under former President George W. Bush. Obama would extend Bush-era tax cuts for families and individuals making less.
If nothing else, Republicans like Sarah Palin deserve a hand for having the chutzpah to pretend Democrats want a $3.8 trillion tax increase over the next decade.
Palin literally wrote that talking point on her hand in an appearance with Chris Wallace of Fox Clown News:
"My palm isn't large enough to have written all my notes down on what this tax increase, what it will result in.... Democrats are poised to cause the largest tax increase in U.S. history, it's a tax increase of $3.8 trillion in the next ten years and it will have an effect on every single American who pays an income tax."
Restoring upper bracket tax rates to their Clinton-era levels will impact only a sliver of American taxpayers.
For one thing, according to the Pew Economic Policy Group, an extension of all of the Bush tax cuts will cost $3.1 trillion over ten years, once the costs of servicing the debt are factored in. But no one has proposed allowing them all expire, and it's incredibly disingenuous of Republicans to claim otherwise, especially since it was a budget gimmick by former President George W. Bush to include the ten-year sunset at all.
Extending just the cuts for the wealthiest two percent of Americans will cost $830 billion over ten years.
So,in rejecting Palin's myth restated today about "a multi-trillion dollar tax hike":
ABC's Mike Wallace's question was about letting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire. President Barack Obama's plan would increase income taxes for individuals making more than $200,000 and for couples making more than $250,000, with indexing for inflation. Wallace mentions that the Republican proposal to retain the tax cuts for the wealthy is "$678 billion you're not going to pay for." That's a reasonable estimate of how much increasing taxes on top earners would generate over 10 years.
Palin, however, responded as if the Democrats intend to allow all the Bush tax cuts to expire for everyone. If that were to happen, it would increase tax revenues by approximately $3.8 trillion over ten years.
But that's not what Democrats are proposing; they want to leave tax rates untouched for people who make less.
As for Sarah Palin, her pants are still on fire. And unless you're Rich Lowry, that's not a not a good thing
Going back to 2008, below are some observations of the then McCain/Palin Campaign history.
The Senate has voted only once that year on legislation that would change bankruptcy laws to help distressed homeowners. John McCain was absent for that vote. Contrary to what Palin says, the McCain campaign acknowledges that he does not support those changes to bankruptcy laws.
Palin on Troop Levels in Iraq
During an exchange on Iraq, Palin erroneously claimed the United States is down to presurge levels in Iraq. Palin said, "We have got to win Iraq. And with the surge that has worked we're now down to presurge numbers in Iraq. That's where we could be." Palin is incorrect.
FACT: The Alaska governor is wrong because the number of troops on the ground is still higher and the number of combat brigades is the same as at the start of the surge in January 2007, according to Pentagon figures. Iraq troop levels before the surge were at 133,500. While U.S. troop levels in Iraq have been in the 142,000 range recently, today they are at around 150,000 because of an ongoing troop rotation.
Palin misidentified Army Gen. David D. McKiernan, commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, as "McClellan" several times during the debate.
Claims made by the candidates during the vice presidential debate.
At one point Palin said, "First, McClellan did not say definitively that the surge principles would not work in Afghanistan. Certain accounting for different conditions in that country and conditions are certainly different."
FACT: The general commanding troops in Afghanistan is McKiernan.
Obama's Statements About Meeting President of Iran
When Palin criticized Barack Obama for saying he would be willing to meet with the president of Iran, a nation with whom the United States does not currently have formal diplomatic relations, Biden reacted and said, "Can, can I clarify this? That's just simply not true about Barack Obama. He did not say he'd sit down with [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad."
FACT: While the Illinois senator has clarified this statement several times with further explanation about the conditions that would have to be met before a presidential-level meeting, Biden is incorrect that Obama "did not say" it. let's tell it like it is.
The Truth About George W. Bush Exposed: Drugs?
Convicted of Drunk Driving, and Lied to Cover It Up
George Bush now admits that he was convicted of drunk driving. On September 4, 1976, a state trooper saw Bush's car swerve onto the shoulder, then back onto the road. [The Bush camp spin that he was driving too slowly is simply a lie.] Bush failed a road sobriety test and blew a .10 blood alcohol, plead guilty, and was fined and had his driver's license suspended. His spokesman says that he had drunk "several beers" at a local bar before the arrest. Bush was 30 at the time. He now says that he stopped drinking when he turned 40 because it was a problem.
More troubling, Bush lied in denying such an arrest, and still won't take responsibility for his actions. His first reaction was to blame Democrats and Fox News -- the only openly conservative TV network -- for reporting the story. "Why [was this reported] now, four days before the election? I've got my suspicions." He refused to say what his suspicions are, though. Bush admits covering up the story, but seems to think he has no responsibility for the failure of his cover up.
In fact, just like Clinton with Monica Lewinsky, Bush has brazenly and repeatedly lied to cover up and minimize this arrest.
1. Bush Lied at his Press Conference, 11/3/2000
Bush said he paid a fine on the spot and never went to court. That is clearly a lie, as you can see on this court document showing his court hearing a month later. In fact, it was a man also in court for DUI the same day who revealed Bush' arrest. Here is exactly what Bush said in his press conference:
Bush: "I told the guy I had been drinking and what do I need to do? And he said, "Here's the fine." I paid the fine and did my duty...."
Reporter: "Governor, was there any legal proceeding of any kind? Or did you just -- "
Bush: "No. I pled -- you know, I said I was wrong and I ..." Reporter: "In court? "
Bush: No, there was no court. I went to the police station. I said, "I'm wrong."
2. Bush Lied in Court, 1978
Bush got a court hearing to get his driving suspension lifted early, even though he had not completed a required driver rehabilitation course. He told the hearings officer that he drank only once a month, and just had "an occasional beer." The officer granted his request. But Bush continued drinking for 8 years after that date and has said publicly that he drank too much and had a drinking problem during that time. Presumably Bush was under oath during the hearing, though we haven't been able to pin down that detail. The Bush campaign refuses to comment on this contradiction.
3. Bush Lied To "The Dallas Morning News", 1998
"Just after the governor's reelection in 1998, [Dallas Morning News reporter Wayne] Slater pressed Bush about whether he had ever been arrested. 'He said, 'After 1968? No.'" Dallas Morning News, 11/03/2000 [Before 1968, Bush was arrested for theft and vandalism in college.]
4. Bush Lied On 'Meet The Press', 11/21/99
Tim Russert: "If someone came to you and said, 'Governor, I'm sorry, I'm going to go public with some information.' What do you do?"
Bush: "If someone was willing to go public with information that was damaging, you'd have heard about it by now. You've had heard about it now. My background has been scrutinized by all kinds of reporters. Tim, we can talk about this all morning."
5. Bush Lied to CBS, 1999.
"Bush has often acknowledged past mistakes, but CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan reports that in a 1999 interview with CBS station WBZ in Boston, he denied there was any so-called smoking gun." CBS TV news
Bush also evaded countless questions and gave Clintonesque half-truths. For example, while struggling with how to answer charges of drug abuse, he said that he would have been able to pass FBI background checks during his father's administration. But those checks include the question "Have you ever been arrested for any crime?" So either he was directly lying, or he has some Slick explanation like "I could have explained the circumstances of the arrest and still passed the FBI check."
In another evasion, Bush decided to serve jury duty in 1996, during his first year as governor. On his questionairre, he simply left blank the questions about prior arrests and trials. Then he found himself on a trial for drunk driving, where every juror is eventually asked about prior convictions for drunk driving. The night before the trial, Bush's lawyer asked the defense attorney to dismiss him, because "it would be improper for a governor to sit on a criminal case in which he could later be asked to grant clemency." It's a silly argument, because that problem exists with any criminal trial and Bush had already decided to serve on a jury, but the defense attorney obliged and excused him before direct questioning of jurors began.
Bush now justifies covering up his arrest "to be a good role model for his daughters." How does he figure that? Lying to cover up your crimes is not what I call being a good role model. Taking responsibility for your actions, admitting fault honestly and warning people of the consequences you suffered, THAT would be a good example. But Bush prefers the Clinton route of bald-faced lying, then blaming your enemies and the press when you get caught.
Bush is now the first person to be elected president after being convicted of a crime.
Bush had several other drunken incidents, as well. In December, 1972, Bush challenged his dad (the ex-president) to a fist fight, during an argument about Bush's drunk driving. He had taken his little brother out drinking, and ran over a neighbor's garbage cans on the way home. Bush's atypical public service job, working with inner city Houston kids, appears to have been an unofficial community service stint set up by Bush, Sr. Apparently the governor didn't learn his lesson, because his drunk driving conviction occured almost four years later.
In another incident, he started screaming obscenities at a Wall Street Journal reporter, just because that reporter predicted that Bush's father would not be the 1988 Republican nominee. The reporter obviously was wrong, but a drunken Bush Jr. walked up to him at a restaurant and started yelling "You fucking son of a bitch. I won't forget what you said and you're going to pay a price for it."
In fact, Bush' running mate Dick Cheney now admits he had two drunk driving offenses in 1962 and 1963, giving the Bush -- Cheney ticket a new world record of 3 DUI's on one ticket. No wonder they seem so relaxed.
The conviction is bad enough, but the real question is, what other revelations are going to come later, about his drug use (which he won't deny), failing to show up for a year of his National Guard service, or sexual escapades in his swinging single days?
There is evidence that Bush has more to hide involving his Texas driving record. Soon after he became governor, he had a new driver's license issued with the unusual ID number of "000000005", an action that destroyed the records of his previous license. His staff could only say, weakly, that this was done for "security reasons" but there is no record of any previous Texas governor having done so. Now we have at least of hint of why Bush wanted his records obscured, and a dark foreboding that more might be lurking, still covered up.
Drunk Driving Sources
His Character: The Prodigal Son
George W. Bush, Jr. is touted as the savior of the Republican Party by the national press, because he pulls votes from minority voters and has his dad's name and fundraising connections to run on. But before we anoint him as the next president, let's look at what he's done with his life. In a nutshell, Junior
1) grew up as a very rich child of powerful parents,
2) partied from high school until he was 40,
3) made millions off of sweet insider business deals from political allies of his dad, who happened to be the President,
and 4) got elected governor of Texas mostly because of his name.
Bush Junior has done some good work as governor of Texas. He has crossed the partisan divide, reached out to minorities, and tackled at least one tough, thankless issue (school financing; his plan was voted down in the legislature.)
But 4 years -- even 4 good ones -- is a pretty short resume for the leader of the free world. No one doubts Bill Clinton's ability to handle punishment and come back for more. But Bush Junior's stamina and attention span are very real concerns. Furthermore, Bush's term as governor has also been markedly corrupt, although possibly in legal ways. What we mean is, he has taken millions in campaign contributions from certain big businessmen -- many of whom were in on the insider business deals that made him rich -- and those same businessman have received billions in sweet deals from the Texas state government during Bush's term.
Specifics: Like Al Gore, Bush Jr. attended Eastern elitist schools, in this case Andover Prep, and Yale. According to a Newsweek profile, he "went to Yale but seems to have majored in drinking at the Deke House." He joined the secretive "Skull and Bones" club in 1968, as any good conspiracy buff can tell you.
His business career was marked by mediocrity or failure which nonetheless resulted in him getting lots of money from his father's political allies. And his political career has been handed to him on a platter by his famous name, and by his dad's cronies.
Bill Kristol, conservative pundit and Dan Quayle's former chief of staff, says "The Bush network is the only genuine network in the Republican Party. It is the establishment." Junior and Jeb Bush (elected in Florida in 1998) are the first brothers to be simultaneous governors since the Rockefellers.
To give you an idea of how rarefied his upbringing was, George Junior had an argument with his mom at one point about whether non-Christians could go to Heaven. (Barbara Bush felt they could; George didn't.) To settle the dispute, they phoned up Billy Graham on the spot. (He sided with Junior, but warned him not to play God.).)
More recently, Bush's performance during the 2000 South Carolina primary shows that he received the worst trait common to the famous Bush family -- a vicious competitiveness that shows no compunction about dirty tricks (such as the phone calls by his surrogates calling McCain, of all people, "the fag candidate") and utterly shameless flipflops (like Bush Sr.'s "read my lips, no new taxes", and Junior's very public refusal to meet with the gay Log Cabin Republicans group until right before the California primary, when he claimed he was fine with them all along. Not to mention him suddenly becoming "a reformer" after he got shellacked in the New Hampshire primary.)
Not only does this trait demonstrate a lack of integrity -- which I define as having standards and things you believe in that you won't violate, even to win the presidency -- but there is an incredible arrogance in thinking that voters will accept and believe a candidate who blatantly changes his positions from week to week, saying whatever the local primary voters want to hear.
Unfortunately, Bush Jr. has inherited this negative family trait without receiving any of the graciousness, diligence, and bravery of his father and grandfather (a Senator who lost his seat over a principled vote in favor of birth control, back in the 1940s.)
Thin skinned: Bush tries to stifle his critics
One of the most disturbing things about Bush is that he consistently works to silence his critics using his money and power, including state police and expensive lawyers. Not since Richard Nixon has a major presidential candidate been so quick to prevent his opponents from free speech. At the very least, this shows he doesn't understand big-league politics and may not be tough enough to handle more serious opponents, such as hostile foreign countries and terrorists. At worst, it may be a sign of Nixon-like paranoia; that president's thin-skin started out with similar small potatos and grew to bring down his presidency amid enemies' lists, illegal break-ins of his opponent's offices, and forcing the IRS to audit his enemies.
Bush can't blame this on his staff, either; it comes from the top. When asked about one critical web site, he told the press "There ought to be limits to freedom. We're aware of this site, and this guy is just a garbage man, that's all he is."
As governor of Texas, for example, Bush Junior has sent the state police to arrest peaceful demonstrators outside the governors mansion. While previous governors allowed peaceful pickets on the public sidewalk outside the mansion, Bush has claimed that they are blocking public access, and had them arrested. Not all protestors, either -- just the ones he doesn't want the press to see.
In the 2000 primaries, Bush supporters including NY Governor Pataki sued to keep John McCain and Steve Forbes off the New York primary ballot in several congressional districts. Bush denied any involvement, fooling no one, but after McCain's decisive New Hampshire victory made the move look ridiculous, Bush and his top strategist Karl Rove called up his establishment minions, after which they instantly announced that they were stopping their efforts to keep McCain off the ballot. Ironically, all of the attention to ballot rules revealed that a number of Bush delegates and alternates used fraudulent signatures to qualify for the ballot. As a result, it appears that McCain and Forbes will be on the ballot statewise, but George Bush Jr. won't be in one Bronx congressional district.
Bush also can't stand criticism on the Internet. His campaign quietly -- and probably illegally -- bought up over 200 anti-Bush domain names including "bushsucks.com", "bushbites.com", and "bushblows.com" over a year ago. (Illegally because he had refused to register as a candidate, as part of his effort to make it look like people were begging him to run, so spending money for his campaign was not allowed.) If you type in any of these URLs, you end up at Bush's official web site. His campaign refuses to say whether this means that they admit that he bites, blows and sucks. (Maybe he used to be a White House intern?)
If you wanted to set up one of those sites, breathe easy because many good names are still available. The Bush camp somehow neglected to purchase "bushisaprick.com", "bushisweak.com", or "bushsucksdonkeydicks.com", so $70 makes them yours.
Even worse, Bush and his high-priced lawyers have tried twice to shut down a web site -- www.gwbush.com -- that parodies the Bush campaign, in particular his "no comment" answers on drug use in his past. You will recall that Bush has said it doesn't matter what he did "in his youth," because the question is "have you grown up" and "have you learned from your mistakes." The parody site presents a new program called "Amnesty 2000", in which Bush "proposes" pardoning all drug convicts who have "grown up."
The Bush campaign filed one complaint about the site in April 1999, after which the parody site's owners changed it to look less like the real Bush site. That wasn't good enough though, and Bush lawyers filed against the site again in May 1999. So far, it remains in business. Sources
Lying Under Oath. Bush & Co. Squelch Investigation of Contributor's Funeral Homes
In a (so far successful) attempt to stop a scandal, Bush perjured himself under oath, according to the sworn testimony of two of his political allies. The situation is amazingly similar to Clinton's Lewinsky problem: a potentially damaging lawuit arose (see below) that threatened to involve him. Just like Clinton, Bush swore an affidavit that he had no involvement in the case, which got him excused from testifying. And just like Clinton, the affidavit was proven false months later by new evidence. In this case, it's the recent sworn testimony of Robert MacNeil, a Bush appointee, that he had discussed the case with Bush at a fundraiser.
This scandal isn't as sexy as Monica's, but perjury is perjury, and this scandal actually involves the governor's job, not his sex life. Texas' state commission on funeral homes (the TFSC) started an investigation of SCI, the world's largest funeral home company (with 3,442 homes, plus 433 cemeteries) after complaints that unlicensed apprenctices were embalming corpses at 2 SCI embalming centers. The commission visited a couple of these, and ended up fining SCI $450,000.
But SCI pulled strings with the commission and with Bush himself. Shortly thereafter, the investigation was shut down and the agency's investigator was fired. She sought to question Bush for her lawsuit, and that's when he swore his admittedly false affidavit. In fact, that affidavit has been proven false twice now.
DETAILS: SCI has long cultivated Bush and his allies. They gave governor Bush $35,000 in the last election and $10K in 1994, gave $100,000 to the George Bush, Sr. library, and hired the ex-president to give a speech last year for $70,000. They also spread money around the Texas legislature and the Texas Attorney General's office.
After the investigation got serious, SCI's boss, Robert Waltrip, called the funeral commission's chairman and told him to "back off." If not, Waltrip said, "I'm going to take this to the governor."
Still, the investigation continued. So Waltrip and his lawyer/lobbyist, Johnnie B. Rogers, went to the governor's office and dropped off a letter demanding a halt to the investigation. Rogers told Newsweek that he and Waltrip were ushered in to see Joe Allbaugh, Bush's chief of staff (who is now Bush's campaign manager.) Rogers goes on to say that Bush Jr. popped his head in and said to Waltrip, "Hey, Bobby, are those people still messing with you?" Waltrip said yeah. Then the governor turned to Rogers and said, "Hey, Johnnie B. Are you taking care of him?" Rogers said "I'm doing my best, Governor."
The problem for Bush is that he swore under oath, in a July 20th 1999 affidavit, that he "had no conversations with [SCI] officials, agents, or represenatives concerning the investigation or any dispute arising from it." If Rogers is telling the truth, than Bush Jr. lied directly under oath. He filed the affidavit in an attempt to avoid testifying in a whistleblower lawsuit concerning this investigation and it's alleged squashing by Bush's administration.
Back in August of 1999, Bush himself admitted that he spoke with Waltrip and Rogers -- in other words, that he lied under oath -- but used Clintonesque denials to claim that it was nothing substantial. Bush told the Associated Press that "It's a 20-second conversation. I had no substantive conversation with the guy. Twenty seconds. That's hardly enough time to even say hello, much less sit down and have a substantive discussion. All I know is it lasted no time. And that hardly constitutes a serious discussion. I did not have any knowledge at all of Waltrip's problem with this case."
Of course, nothing Bush says here contradicts what Rogers said. In fact, his careful explanation of why this is not perjury is incredibly similar to Bill Clinton's weaseling about what the meaning of "is" is. And now MacNeil's sworn statement further confirms Bush's lie.
Whatever Bush said out loud, Waltrip's complaints to the governor got quick results. Eliza May -- the investigator for the funeral services commission -- says that after Waltrip visited the governor, she received phone calls from three senior Bush aides asking if she could wrap up her proble quickly. She says she was also summoned to another meeting in Allbaugh's office, one month after the first one, and found Waltrip already there. The governor's top aide, she says, demanded that she turn over a list of all of the documents that she needed "to close the SCI investigation."
Since then, investigator Eliza May has been fired, 6 or 10 staff members on the commission have been fired or resigned and not been replaced, and the Texas legislature -- led by members receiving substantial contributions from SCI -- passed a bill to reorganize the agency and remove it's head. On August 16, 199, Bush ordered his Comptroller to take over the agency and run it. May -- who, it should be noted, is a Democrat and was even state Democratic Treasurer at one point -- has filed a whistleblower lawsuit alleging she was fired because she persisted with the investigation.
Bush simply didn't show up for his scheduled deposition on July 1st, 1999 in the case. (He isn't a defendant in the case, because Governors are immune from lawsuits in Texas, but is being called as a material witness.) He filed his affidavit on July 20th to indicate that he had nothing to add.
Now Robert MacNeil -- who was the chairman of the Texas funeral commission at the time, a Bush appointee -- confirms that he also discussed the case with Bush, at a 1998 Texas fundraiser. In a sworn deposition, MacNeil says that Bush asked him: �Have you and Mr. Waltrip got your problems worked out?� Replied McNeil: �We�re still trying to work on that, governor.� Bush then said, �Do your job.� Bush's campaign says that MacNeil's statement is false. But the language MacNeil says Bush used is almost identical to what he admits saying to Johnnie Rodgers in the governor's office. Sources
Corruption in Texas Government; State $ to Big Contributors
Bush's administration has consistenly shoveled large amounts of state controlled money to men who have either contributed large amounts to Bush's campaign, or who have made Junior personally rich through sweet insider business deals, or both.
For example, the University of Texas' Investment Management Company (UTIMCO) invests $1.7 billion of state money. Most of this comes from profits from oil discovered on Texas state land. Bush's cronies dominate this board, and in return investment funds controlled by these very cronies or their friends have received nearly a third -- $457 million -- of that massive investment pool. There may even be more, but this obscure group -- created under Bush -- cloaks its operations in a thick veil of secrecy.
UTIMCO's chairman, Tom Hicks, now owns the Texas Rangers; his purchase of the team made Governor Bush a very rich man. Furthermore, Hicks and his brother gave $146,000 to the Bush campaign. In return, $252 million of the invested money went to funds run by Hicks' business associates or friends, according to the Houston Chronicle. Hicks even insisted that UTIMCO increase by $10 million an investment with a fund that he had an indirect financial interest in, but UTIMCO staff halted funding after they discovered the conflict.
Then there's Sam and Charles Wyly, the billionaire brothers who secretly bought $2.5 million of "independent" TV ads slamming McCain just before the critical Super Tuesday primaries. (They have also given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Bush Jr.'s governor and presidential campaigns.) They control Maverick Capital, an investment fund that received $90 million of UTIMCO money. The brothers earn nearly $1 million in fees alone from that money, along with a share of any profits.
Henry Kravis of Kohlberg, Kravis & Roberts -- a longtime Bush contributor -- received a $50 million investment deal in 1996. And there are many more Bush supporters who have received millions from UTIMCO, including the Bass family and Adele Hall of the Hallmark Cards family.
Another key player in the Bush world is Richard Rainwater, the billionaire Texas investor who made Bush Jr.'s original involvement in the Texas Rangers deal possible. That's the deal that made Jr. rich, of course. Bush had several other personal investments in Rainwater controlled companies. But Rainwater has received much from Bush and the state of Texas' treasury, too. UTIMCO invested at least $20 million in Rainwater companies.
And UTIMCO is not the only Bush administration agency funneling money and favors to his supporters and cronies. T he state teacher retirement fund sold three office buildings to Rainwater's real estate company at bargain prices, and without bids in 2 of the cases. The fund invested $90 million in the Frost Bank Plaza in Austin, and sold it to Rainwater's Crescent Real Estate for $35 million. Bush signed a law that will give his former baseball team co-owners -- including Rainwater -- a $10 million bonus payment when a new Dallas arena is built. Bush also proposed a cap on business real estate taxes that would have saved Rainwater millions on his various properties (but it lost in the legislature).
In another example, Bush's state Housing department has been investigated for kickbacks, and Florita Bell Griffin, who Bush appointed to the state Housing Board, was just convicted of bribery, theft, money-laundering and mail fraud for trading her influence for cash. She faces 55 years in prison. And Larry Paul Manley, Bush's director of the Department of Housing until he resigned in January 1999, is under police investigation for steering federal tax credits to cronies. Texas' top auditor discovered in 1997 that 60% of department contracts went to Manley's former colleagues at local savings and loans, but refused to make the findings public until long after the criminal probes began.
Bush may or may not have violated state ethics laws with all of this big money backscratching, but there is no doubt that he and these businessman are operating corruptly -- funneling large amounts of state money to the businessmen's companies, and large amounts of their personal and business money into George Bush Jr.'s pocket and political campaigns.
Sources
Avoided the Vietnam War
Most people have heard something about George W. Bush pulling strings to get into the Texas Air Guard. But the press, while reporting lots of details, has done a poor job of communicating how consistently and shamelessly Bush Jr. sought and received favorable treatment while he avoided Vietnam.
Furthermore, his story has repeatedly changed -- he has weaseled like Clinton at his worst and even flat-out lied when explaining what happened.
To put it in perspective, here are 9 ways Bush got favored treatment in the service due to his political connections (he was then son of a Congressman and grandson of a former Senator):
1) He got into the Guard by pulling strings, avoiding the year and a half waiting list;
2) He took a 2-month vacation in Florida after just 8 weeks, (1 of 3 leaves), to work on a political campaign;
3) Bush skipped Officer Candidate School and got a special commission as a 2nd Lieutenant, without qualifications;
4) He was assigned to a safe plane (being phased out of active service), the F-102 ;
5) During flight school, he was flown on a government jet to Washington for a date with President Nixon's daughter Tricia ;
6) Bush got an illegal transfer (later overruled) to a base with no work;
7) He simply didn't show up for a YEAR, with no penalty;
8) George W. skipped all his medical exams after they started drug tests, and was removed from flight status;
9) He ended his service 10 months early to go to Harvard Business School;
Here are the details:
1. Pulled Strings to Get In.
On May 27, 1968, George Bush Jr. was 12 days away from losing his student draft deferment, at a time when 350 Americans a week were dying in combat. The National Guard, seen by many as the most respectable way to avoid Vietnam, had a huge waiting list -- a year and a half in Texas, over 100,000 men nationwide. Yet Bush and his family friends pulled strings, and the young man was admitted the same day he applied, regardless of any waiting list.
Bush's unit commander, Col. "Buck" Staudt, was so excited about his VIP recruit that he staged a special ceremony for the press so he could have his picture taken administering the oath (even though the official oath had been given by a captain earlier.)
Bush and his allies have tried to deny this with several changing stories, but Bush himself admits lobbying commander Staudt, who approved him, and court documents confirm that close family friend and oil magnate Sid Adger called Texas Speaker of the House Ben Barnes, who called General James Rose, the head of the Texas Air National Guard, to get Bush in. Rose, who is now dead, told his friend and former legislator Jake Johnson that "I got that Republican congressman's son from Houston into the Guard."
Staudt's unit, the 147th, was infamous as a nesting place for politically connected and celebrity draft avoiders. Democratic Senator Lloyd Bentsen's son was in the unit, as were both of Sid Adger's sons and at least 7 members of the Dallas Cowboys.
2. Took a 2 month vacation in Florida after 8 weeks in the Guard.
Just 8 weeks after joining, Bush was granted 2 months leave to go to Florida and work on a political campaign, the Senate race of Republican Edward Gurney. Bush took a leave every election season, in 1970 to work on his dad's campaign, and in 1972 to work in Alabama.
3. Skipped Officer Candidate School and got a special commission as 2nd Lt.
As soon as Bush completed basic training, his commander approved him for a "direct appointment", which made him an officer without having to go through the usual (and difficult) Officer Candidate School. This special procedure also got Bush into flight school, despite his very low scores on aptitude tests -- he scored 25% on a pilot aptitude test, the absolute lowest acceptable grade, and 50% for navigator aptitude. (Bush did score 95% on the easier officer quality test, but then again the average is 88%).
What made Bush's appointment doubly unusual was his total lack of special qualifications. This procedure was generally reserved for applicants with exceptional experience or skills, such as ROTC training or engineering, medical or aviation skills. Tom Hail, a historian for the Texas Air National Guard, reviewed the Guard's records on Bush for a special exhibit on his service after Bush became governor. Asked about Bush's direct appointment without special skills, Hail said "I've never heard of that. Generally they did that for doctors only, mostly because we needed extra flight surgeons."
Charles Shoemake, an Air Force veteran who later joined the Texas Air National Guard and retired as a full colonel, said that direct appointments were rare and hard to get, and required extensive credentials. Asked about Bush, he said "His name didn't hurt, obviously. But it was a commander's decision in those days."
Despite Bush Jr.'s weak qualifications, Col. Staudt was so excited about the direct appointment that he saged another special ceremony for the press, this time with Bush's father the congressman standing prominently in the background.
The direct appointment process was discontinued in the 1970s.
4. Assigned to a safe plane -- the F-102 -- that was being phased out.
As Bush has been quick to note, National Guard members do face the chance of being called up for active duty, though few actually did during the Vietnam war. So what a lucky break for Bush that he was assigned to fly the F-102 Delta Dagger, a plane already being phased out. In fact, the Air Force had ordered all overseas F-102 units shut down as of June 30, 1970 -- just 3 months after Bush finished his training. Since training is so airplane specific, Bush was guaranteed from the beginning to be safe from combat.
Bush's campaign has even used his training on the obsolete plane to justify his early discharge, almost a year before his scheduled discharge, since other F-102 pilots were also being released early. But they can't answer the obvious question -- why spend so much money to train a National Guardsman for 2 years on a plane that was already being phased out, at a time when the Guard was letting F102 pilots leave early due to oversupply?
5. Celebrity Political Date.
During his flight training, Bush's celebrity showed in a couple of ways. Most famously, President Nixon sent a jet to pick up the young flight student for a date with his daughter Tricia. Alas, the potential political marriage and dynasty was not to be. Also, the commencement speaker at Bush's graduation ceremony was -- his dad, Congressman George Bush Sr.
6. Illegal, overruled transfer to a base with no work.
In 1972, Bush once again wanted to work on a political campaign, this time in Alabama. He applied for a transfer to a nearly defunct base with no active training or work, the 9921st Air Reserve Squadrom at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. Bush's supervisors approved, but a higher headquarters overruled them, noting that the unit had no regular drills.
Lt. Col. Reese Bricken, the unit's commander, told the Boston Globe "We met just one weeknight a month. We were only a postal unit. We had no airplanes. We had no pilots. We had no nothing." Even Albert Lloyd Jr., a retired Air Guard colonel who is helping the Bush campaign clarify the candidate's service, told the Globe he was mystified why Bush's superiors at the time would approve duty at such a unit. Lloyd was personnel director of the Texas Air Guard from 1969 to 1995.
Now, the officer who did that has stepped forward and very directly admitted that he tried to get the easiest possible assignment for Bush. The personnel officer in charge of Bush's 147th Fighter Group, now-retired Col. Rufus G. Martin, says he tried to give Bush a light load when he told him to apply to the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron in Montgomery, Ala. Martin said in an interview that he knew Bush wasn't eligible for the 9921st, an unpaid, general training squadron that met once a week to hear lectures on first aid and the like. "However," he said, "I thought it was worth a try. . . . It was the least participation of any type of unit."
7. Just didn't show up for a year -- with no punishment.
National Guard records and Bush's own supervisor's and friends show no sign of him attending any drills or performing any service for nearly a year, from May 1972 until May 1973. This period began with Bush moving to Alabama for a political campaign.
He later applied to transfer to a base that had no work; the transfer was first approved, then cancelled. Bush did nothing for several months; then in September he applied to transfer to Alabama's 187th Tactical Recon group for 3 months. This was approved, but the unit's commander, General William Turnipseed, and his then admnistrative officer, Kenneth Lott, have both said that Bush never showed up. "Had he reported in, I would have had some recall, and I do not," said Turnipseed. "I had been in Texas, done my flight training there. If we had had a first lieutenant from Texas, I would have remembered."
Bush claims that he did some work in Alabama, but can't remember any details. �I can�t remember what I did,� he said. �I just�I fulfilled my obligation." Despite 2 years of searching through hundreds of records, his campaign has been unable to find any record of Bush's service there, nor could they find a single fellow serviceman who remembers his presence. The best they could produce was an ex-girlfriend from Alabama -- Emily Marks --who said George told her he would have to do some Guard duty later that year (1972) in Montgomery. But all that confirms is that he knew of his obligation.
In December 1972, Bush returned to Houston and was scheduled to resume duty there. But in May 1973, Bush's supervising pilots wrote in his annual efficiency report: "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of the report" (i.e. through April 30, 1972). Bush described one of the supervisors, the late Col. Jerry Killian, as a personal friend, so it's likely he would have noticed Bush and given him the benefit of the doubt. Later that month, two special orders commanded Bush to appear for active duty. He served 36 days of active duty during May, June and July before leaving the Guard early.
Amazingly, Bush was not disciplined in any way for his absence, and received an honorable discharge. Under Air National Guard rules at that time, guardsmen who missed duty could be reported to their Selective Service Board and inducted into the Army as draftees.
8. Skipped all his medical exams after they started drug tests.
In April 1972, the military started including routine drug tests in servicemen's annual physical exam, including urinalysis, questions about drugs and "a close examination of the nasal cavities" (for cocaine). According to the regulation, the medical took place in the month after the serviceman's birthday. For George W. Bush, this meant August 1972.
It was May, 1972 -- one month after the drug testing was announced -- that Bush stopped attending Guard duty. In August 1972, he was suspended from flight duty for failing to take his physical. (Click here to see the document.) A Bush campaign spokesman confirmed to the London Sunday Times that Bush knew he would be suspended. "He knew the suspension would have to take place." Bush never flew again, even though he returned to his Houston base where Guard pilots flew thousands of hours in the F-102 during 1973. The only barrier to him flying again was a medical exam (and his lack of attendance).
Careful readers will recall that when Bush issued his partial denial of drug use, he said (or implied) that he hadn't used them since 1974, but he pointedly refused to deny drug use before then, i.e. during his military service. Several sources have also indicated that it was in December, 1972 -- 4 months after his medical suspension -- that a drunk Bush Jr. challenged his father to a fist fight during an argument over the son's drunk driving. (He had run over a neighbor's garbage cans.) Shortly thereafter, Bush Sr. arranged for his son to do community service at an inner city Houston charity.
Bush's campaign aides first said he did not take the physical because he was in Alabama and his personal physician was in Houston. But flight physicals can be administered only by certified Air Force flight surgeons, and some were assigned at the time to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, where Bush was living. The staff now admits that this explanation was wrong.
9. Left service 10 months early.
Even after that easy stint, Bush couldn't fulfill his obligation. He quickly made up the missed days he had to and applied for an early release, before he had to take his next annual physical exam (with drug test.) While the official discharge date was October 1, 1973, Bush's last day in uniform was actually July 31 -- a full 10 months before the end of his 6-year, part time commitment. Al Gore also requested and received an early discharge (from the Army, in his case) to go to school.
Weasel words; his story keeps changing.
When asked about his service, Bush has lied, changed his story repeatedly, and weaseled in a manner eerily reminiscent of Bill Clinton. First of all, he has flat-out lied. In his official autobiography, ''A Charge to Keep,'' Bush said he flew with his unit for ''several years'' after finishing flight training in June 1970. His campaign biography states that he flew with the unit until he won release from the service in September 1973, nine months early, for graduate school. Both statements are lies. Bush only flew with the 111th for one year and 10 months, until April 1972 when he was suspended for failing to take his medical exam (and drug test), and never flew again.
Then there is his Clintonesque weaseling and word choice. Bush and his campaign claimed that no Bush family or friends pulled strings. Under pressure, this changed to "All I know is anybody named George Bush did not ask him [Ben Barnes] for help." By that he meant, himself or his dad. Of course, it later came out in court that a close Bush friend, Simon Adger, had asked Barnes to get Bush Jr. into the Guard, and that Barnes did so, via General Rose.
Now's it's not even clear that a George Bush didn't ask for help. When pressed, the former president's spokeswoman (Jean Becker) said he is "almost positive" that he and Mr. Adger never discussed the Guard matter. "He [Bush Sr.] he is fairly certain - I mean he doesn't remember everything that happened in the 1960s..." In any case, Bush Sr. and Adger were very close. Ms. Becker acknowledged that "President Bush knew Sid Adger well. He loved him." Adger may have needed only a hint.
Furthermore, George Bush Jr. admits that he knew Adger socially at the time, and further admits that he lobbied Col. "Buck" Staudt, the commander of the VIP unit Bush joined. Staudt claims that he, not General Rose (who he later replaced), was the one who made the decision on admissions anyway. Bush Jr. admits that he met Staudt in late 1967, during Christmas vacation of his senior year, called him later, and -- in Bush's words -- "found out what it took to apply."
When asked how Bush came to call Staudt, his spokeswoman Karen Hughes said he "heard from friends while he was home over the Christmas break that ... Colonel Staudt was the person to contact." She says that Bush doesn't recall who those "friends" were. But we know that Sid Adger was also a friend of Staudt's, served with him on the Houston Chamber of Commerce's Aviation Committee, and in 1967 held a luncheon honoring Gen. Staudt and his unit for winning an Air Force commendation. In fact, both of Adger's sons also joined General Staudt's unit, in 1966 and 1968 respectively.
Bush and his staff also claim that he vaulted ahead of the Air Guard waiting list because he was willing to fly an airplane, and there were openings. There is nothing to support this claim, however. For one thing, the F-102 was being phased out at the time and F-102 pilots were being released from service early, as indeed Bush himself was. And Tom Hail, a historian for the Texas Air National Guard, says flatly that there was no pilot shortage in the Guard squadron at that time. Bush's unit had 27 pilots at the time he applied; while they were authorized for 29 pilots, there were two more already in training and one awaiting a transfer.
Bush also weasels on whether he was avoiding combat or not. He has stated on several occasions that he did not want to be an infantryman, and acknowledges that he came to oppose the war itself. He claims that he joined the guard to fly planes, and would have been happy to go to Vietnam, but ignores the obvious choice of the Air Force or the Navy -- which his dad, a genuine war hero, joined. Furthermore, when he signed up for the Guard, he checked a box saying "Do not volunteer for overseas service." Later, he made a perfunctory application to transfer to a program called "Palace Alert", which dispatched F-102 pilots to Europe or the Far East -- and just occasionally Vietnam -- for 3 or 6 month assignments. But Bush was not nearly qualified, as he must have known, and was immediately turned down, and the F-102 not used overseas after June, 1970 in any case.
And, as noted above, his story also changed on why he refused to take a medical exam -- including a drug test - in 1972. (The refusal ended Bush's flying career.) His staff first claimed that he didn't take the physical because he was in Alabama and his personal physician was in Houston. But flight physicals can be administered only by certified Air Force flight surgeons, and there were surgeons assigned at the time to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, where Bush was living. His staff now admits that that explanation was "wrong", without saying where it came from or what the real reason was. Draft & National Guard Sources
Insider Business Deals
Bush Jr. has made a lot of money off of three business deals. In each one, his contribution is hard to perceive, yet he walked off with hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in deals arranged by his father's political cronies. The deals were
1. the sale of Junior's struggling oil company,
2. Junior's sale of oil stock just before the Gulf War, and
3. getting a cheap slice of the Texas Rangers baseball team, which he sold in 1999 for a huge profit (he paid $600,000, and sold for $14 million).
The general pattern here is just as important as the details. Bush did no work in his business career that can clearly be called "excellent" or even "solid." The money he made is tangential to his efforts at best -- the oil companies lost a great deal of money during his tenure, and the Rangers cut a lot of corners -- which makes the cronyism that much more suspicious.
It's not just that one or two of Bush's deals look funky; every major business deal he has been involved with included wealthy supporters of his father, and many of those investors later received favorable treatment from either the federal government under Bush, Sr. or the current Texas administration of Junior.
Deal #1: The Oil Business: Rewarded for Losing Money
Like his dad, Junior struck out in Texas and founded an oil company, Arbusto Energy, Inc., with $20,000 of his own money. (Arbusto is the Spanish word for bush.) The company foundered in the early 1980s when oil prices dropped (and his dad was Vice President.)
The 50 investors, who were "mainly friends of my uncle" in Junior's own words, put in $4.7 million and lost most of it. Junior claims that investors "did pretty good," but Bush family friend Russell Reynolds told the Dallas Morning News: "The bottom line was there were problems, and it didn't work out very well. I think we got maybe 20 cents on the dollar."
As Arbusto neared collapse, Spectrum 7 Energy Corporation bought it in September 1984. Despite his poor track record, the owners made Bush, Jr. the president and gave him 13.6% of the parent company's stock.
Spectrum 7 was a small oil firm owned by two staunch Reagan/Bush Sr. supporters -- William DeWitt and Mercer Reynolds. These two were also owners of the Texas Rangers and allowed Bush Jr. to purchase a chunk of the team cheaply; he later sold it for over 24 times what he paid.
Within two years of purchasing Arbusto and making Bush Jr. president, Spectrum 7 was itself in trouble; it lost $400,000 in its last 6 months of operation. That ended in 1986, when Harken Energy Corporation bought Spectrum 7's 180-well operation.
Junior got $227,000 worth of Harken stock, and a lot more. He was named to the board of directors, made $80,000 to $100,000 a year well into the 1990s as a "consultant" to Harken, and was allowed to buy Harken stock at 40% below face value.
He also borrowed $180,375 from Harken at very low rates; the company's 1989 and 1990 SEC filings said it "forgave" $341,000 in loans to unspecified executives.
So what did Junior do for all this money? It's hard to say exactly, but things happened for Harken after Junior came on board:
it got a $25 million stock offering from an unusual bank with CIA ties,
it won a surprise exclusive drilling contract with Bahrain, a small Mideast country, and
an Arab member of its Board of Directors was invited to White House policy meetings with President George Bush and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft.
Easy Money From Odd Sources
The firm's $25 million stock offering was underwritten by Stephens, Inc., an Arkansas bank whose head, Jackson Stephens, was on President Bush's "Team 100." (That was a group of 249 rich persons who gave at least $100,000 each to his presidential campaign committee). Stephens placed the offering with the London subsidiary of Union Bank of Switzerland, which (according to the Wall Street Journal) was not known as an investor in small American companies.
Union Bank did have other connections; it was a joint-venture partner with the notorious BCCI in a Geneva-based bank, and was involved in a scandal surrounding the Nugan Hand Bank, a CIA operation in Australia whose executives were advised by William Quasha, the father of Harken's chairman (Alan Quasha.) Union Bank was also involved in scandals surrounding Panamanian money laundering by BCCI, and Ferdinand Marcos' movement of 325 tons of gold out of the Phillipines.
That wasn't the only financing connection Junior brought; after the company won its Bahrain deal (see next item), the billionaire Bass brothers of Texas offered to underwrite the drilling operation. Robert Bass is also a member of Bush's Team 100, and he and his kin gave $226,000 to Bush Senior between 1988 and 1992.
The Bahrain Contract
In January 1990, Harken was chosen out of the blue by the small Mideast country Bahrain for an exclusive offshore oil drilling contract. They beat out Amoco, an experienced and major international conglomerate, despite having no offshore oil drilling experience at all. As of March 1995, the most recent report we could find, they had found no oil.
Junior has denied that he was involved in the deal, and even told the Wall Street Journal that he opposed it. But a company insider told Mother Jones Magazine "Like any member of the board, he was thrilled. His attitude was 'Holy shit, what a great deal!'"
If he did oppose it, he wasn't much of a consultant. Charles Strain, an energy company analyst in Houston, told Mother Jones: "Harken is not hard to understand -- it's easy. The company has only one real asset -- its Bahrain contract. If that field turns out to be dry, Harken's stock is worth, at the most, 25 cents a share. If they hit it big over there, the stock could be worth $30 to $40 dollars a share." As of December 1998, Harken Energy Corp. (HEC on Amex) is trading at $2.69 a share.
Access to the President For Bush's Foreign Business Partner
The most troubling thing that happened to Harken after it bought George Bush Junior in, was that one of its Board of Directors members was suddenly admitted to the highest levels of United States foreign policy meetings. These were not Clintonesque meet-and-greet fundraisers, but actual working policy meetings during a critical period.
After the Harken-Bahrain deal was signed, Palestinian businessman Talat Othman was added to a group of Arabs who met with George Bush and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft three times in 1990 -- once just two days after Iraq invaded Kuwait.
Othman was the representative of Sheikh Abdullah Bakhsh, who purchased 10% of Harken stock. (More on Baksh in a second.) Othman has continued a fruitful relationship with Bush. He has visited Bush in the White House, and gave an Islamic benediction at the 2000 Republican convention. More recently, several Islamic charities and businesses run by Othman's business partner Yaqub Mirza were raided on March 20, 2002 by Treasury investigators, investigating ties between them and Osama Bin Laden, al Qaeda and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Just two weeks later, Othman was able to get a luncheon meeting with President Bush's Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill (since fired), to complain about the raids.
Backsh, Othman's patron, had several ties to the infamous BCCI bank according to the Wall Street Journal. Bakhsh was a co-investor in Saudi Arabia with alleged BCCI front man Ghaith Pharaon. Bakhsh's banker, Khalid bin Mahfouz, was another BCCI figure and head of the largest bank in Saudi Arabia. Sheikh Kalifah, the prime minister of Bahrain, was a BCCI shareholder and played the key role in selecting Harken for the oil contract.
This is the crowd that gained entry to the President and the National Security Adviser of the United States after George Junior made his deal with Harken.
Deal #2: Selling Oil Stock Just Before Iraq Invaded
George Bush, Junior sold 60% of his stock in Harken Oil in June, 1990 for $848,560. That was brilliant timing; in August, Iraq invaded Kuwait and Harken's stock dropped 25%. Soon after, a big quarterly loss caused it to drop further.
A secret State Deparment memo in May of that year had warned that Saddam was out of control, and listed options for responding to him, including an oil ban that might affect US oil prices.
We can't be sure that the President or an aide mentioned these developments to his son, or that Harken's representative who was admitted to meetings with the President picked up something and reported back to Junior. But it is the simplest and most logical explanation. The Bushes acknowledge that George Senior and his sons consult on political strategy and other matters constantly.
Furthermore, Harken's internal financial advisers at Smith Barney had issued a report in May warning of the company's deteriorating finances. Harken owed more than $150 million to banks and other creditors at the time. George Bush, Jr. was a member of the board and also of Harken's restructuring committee, which met in May and worked directly with the Smith Barney consultants. He must have known of these warnings.
These are pretty clear-cut indications of illegal insider trading. The Securities and Exchange Commission, controlled at the time by President George Bush, investigated but chose not to press charges.
Junior also violated another SEC rule explicitly. He was required to register his sale as an insider trade by July 10, 1990, but didn't until March 1991, after the Gulf War was over. He was not punished or cited.
Deal #3: A Big Slice of the Texas Rangers for a Little Money (and a Big Profit)
The third unusually easy deal for George Bush Junior was his involvement in the Texas Rangers baseball team. In a nutshell, he was offered a piece of this valuable franchise for only $600,000, by supporters of his dad who also bailed out his failing oil company. He sold his stake for $14 million - while Texas governor -- to a Texas millionaire with lots of businesses regulated by his administration. "When all it is all said and done, I will have made more money than I ever dreamed I would make," Bush told the Forth Worth Star-Telegram.
Bush was allowed to buy 1.8% of the team for $600,000 of borrowed money, and was even made one of the two general managers. His qualifications for partial ownership? Several years working at failing oil companies, and his political connections through his father. It's hard to be sure, but we're guessing that latter was probably more important.
Junior tripled his investment, like the other owners, with the help of massive government intervention and subsidies. But his real wealth came from simply being given 10% of the team as a "bonus" for "putting together the investment team."
Even if he really had done that work, it's an absurd bonus ($12.2 million), but the fact is that he didn't add much. Cincinatti financier William DeWitt brought Bush in, not vice versa, shortly after George Bush Sr. was elected president. (DeWitt had also invested in Junior's oil companies.). The only investor Bush actually brought in was Roland Betts, a Yale fraternity brother, and that wasn't good enough.
Under Junior's management, the deal was about to fall apart until baseball commissioner Peter Uebberoth brought in another investment group led by Fort Worth Billionaire Richard Rainwater and Dallas investor "Rusty" Rose. Since the deal, both men have profited greatly from business with the Texas administration of George Bush, Jr. Rose personally invested $3.2 million and became the other general manager of the team. Under the team partnership agreement, Bush Junior couldn't take any "material actions" wihtout Rose's prior approval. There was also a method for removing Junior as a general partner, but no way to remove Rose. Yet Rose's "bonus" for his role in setting up the deal was less than half of Junior's.
What kind of owners would approve such a big payoff to Bush? In addition to Rose and Rainwater, men with business pending before Texas government, the owners included William DeWitt and Mercer Reynolds, major contributors to President Bush who had also purchased Junior's failing oil company through their Spectrum 7 Energy company.
If this deal doesn't smell bad enough already, consider Bush's blatant hypocrisy. The main value of the team is its new stadium (ranked by Financial World as the most profitable in baseball) and 300 acres of vacant land the team owns between the stadium and 6 Flags of Texas, which is next door.
Putting Tax Money into Bush's Pocket
The hypocritical part is, the private owners of this very valuable land didn't want to sell. Bush and his partners gave them only a lowball offer, and when it was rejected they arranged for a new government agency (the Arlington Sports Facility Development Authority, or ASFDA) to condemn it for them.
The agency foreclosed the land and paid the owners a very low price, later judged by a jury to be only 1/6th of its actual value. The agency also floated bonds, guaranteed and repaid by taxpayers, to finance the purchase. This amounted to a $135 million subsidy for Bush and partners, compared with the $80 million they paid for the franchise. Since they sold the entire franchise for $250 million, it's easy to see whose money Bush and friends pocketed.
The next time Junior talks about tax cuts, remember this: Arlinton had to impose a new 1/2 cent sales tax just to pay for the subsidy Bush and his partners received.
To add insult to injury, Bush and his partners continue to stiff the taxpayers for $7.5 million they owe under the terms of the agreement. It held that the team would pay all expenses over $135 million. The original owners of just 13 of the acres sued the City of Arlington, saying that the ASFDA had not paid a fair price for the land. The jury awarded them $7.5 million, but even though the project exceeded the $135 million limit, the partners have refused to pay. Given their huge taxpayer subsidy and $170 million profits, it seems absurdly selfish.
George Bush, Jr. has said in campaign speeches "I will do everything I can to defend the power of private property and private property rights when I am the governor of this state." Apparently this deal was not covered by that statement, since he wasn't governor yet.
He claims that he "wasn't aware of the details" of the land condemnations, even though he was the team's managing general partner and has bragged about personally getting the stadium built. But he told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in October 1990 that "The idea of making a land play, absolutely, to plunk the field down in the middle of a big piece of land, that's kind of always been the strategy."
And the key to their land play was always the strong arm of government. A memo from Arlington real estate broker Mike Reilly to Rangers President Tom Schieffer dated October 26, 1990 - the day before Bush's comment about the land play - said "In this particular situation our first offer should be our final offer ... If this fails, we will probably have to initiate condemnation proceedings after the bond election passes."
On the first day of the 1993 campaign, Bush said "The best way to allocate resources in our society is through the marketplace. Not through a governing elite." Not through a private sports team buying in the President's son cheap, and then getting the government to hand them extremely valuable land.
Party Hearty: Sex, Drugs, And Rock 'N Roll?
For almost half his life, Junior was distinguished mainly by his hearty appetite for partying. A Newsweek profile by Evan Thomas, describing his college years, says he "seems to have majored in beer drinking at the Deke House." After he formed his first company (which failed), Thomas writes, "By his own account, Bush spent a lot of time in bars, trying to sort out who he was. He had a kind of ragged nervous energy in that period, and he could be a bully."
The Bush family spin is that the governor quit drinking cold turkey on his 40th birthday, straightened out by the love of a good woman (his wife, Laura.) They even pull out their secret weapon, lovable Barbara Bush, with anecdotes about what a rascal little George Junior was.
But the explosive element here is not booze. It's sex, drugs and hypocrisy. Frankly, it doesn't bother us if candidates have partied, even a lot. Who wants a bunch of namby-pamby boy scouts running the country? But George Bush Jr. makes a big point of travelling around the country and lecturing students on staying celibate, sober and drug free. He does not permit the option of partying hard until you're 40 and then stopping.
And as governor, he attacked his predecessor for allowing leniency toward first-time drug users, and pushed a "no tolerance" policy that has sent casual cocaine users -- who's dads aren't rich, or president -- to prison for years. He even has the gall to proclaim that such users "need to know that drug use has consequences." At least if you're from the wrong neighborhood.
No Handcuffs or Dwarf Orgies
Junior is so worried about his past that he hired a private detective to investigate himself. (I guess he can't remember what he did at those parties, which tells you something right there.)
According to an unnamed insider quoted on MSNBC, Bush "isn't terribly thrilled" about what they found, though no one is spilling the details (yet). "No handcuffs or dwarf orgies, but he was a handsome, rich playboy and lived that life," the insider said.
W is For Women: Bush volunteers to reporters that he has been faithful to his wife. However, he was married at 31 and makes no claim of virginity before that point, even as he lectures the youth of today to remain celibate. A Clinton aide who was in Bush's class at Yale has already warned him that "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."
We have received two credible reports from women who say they had affairs with George Bush, Jr. One alleged affair took place after Bush was married, on business trips to Los Angeles; in the other case, Bush was single but the woman was married at the time. Neither woman is willing to go public with further details, including their names, which is why we aren't publicizing these incidents more, but in our editorial opinion they are credible, and the details that these woman have provided check out.
Furthermore, porn publisher Larry Flynt has alleged that one Bush affair led his then-girlfriend to have an abortion, and claims to have 5 affidavits from friends of the woman and others supporting the claim. Again the woman does not want to be named, which makes it hard to prove the claim, but you can't really blame a lady for not wanting to be known as the "Bush abortion girl." Flynt made this allegation on CNN. The host of the program actually said "Now we at CNN don't want to be accused of censoring anybody...", yet that is exactly what CNN did. They removed the show's transcript and links from their web site days after the broadcast. You can still get details on the incident at the Bush Watch web site. They have more details here.
COCAINE:
According to a new book, three independent sources close to the Bush family report that Governor Bush was arrested in 1972 for cocaine possession, and taken to Harris County Jail, but avoided jail or formal charges through an informal diversion plan involving community service with Project P.U.L.L., an inner city Houston program for troubled youths at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in Houston's dirt-poor Third Ward. (In another new book, reporter Bill Minutaglio, writes that the year of community service was arranged by the Governor's father, ex-president Bush, after he caught Bush Jr. driving drunk.)
That year certainly is out of character with the rest of Bush Jr.'s life. Before and after 1972, he was a rich, hard drinking playboy. Suddenly, and only that one time in his life, he worked for a liberal charity in an inner city ghetto. As soon as the year was over, he resumed his previous pattern and has done no charity work since.
The author of this book, J. H. Thompson, has some interesting scandals of his own. Of course, his own flaws don't disprove what Bush did or didn't do, but the way Thompson has responded certainly undercuts his credibility. First, he admitted to a reporter from Slate Magazine that he made up at least one detail, that one of his informants spat tobacco into a styrofoam cup during their (phone!) interview.
Then, reporters -- or perhaps Bush campaign operatives -- found that the author apparently is an ex-convict, on parole for hiring a hit man to kill a former boss. That doesn't mean he can't research, of course, but Thompson's credibility suffered greatly as he claimed it was someone else, despite incredible similarities between his resume -- including unexplained job gaps during the prison years -- and confirmation from his parole officer that indeed, the author named J. H. Thompson is the one who did time.
Bush Jr.'s Evasive Responses:
Bush has essentially admitted that he used cocaine in his Clintonesque, carefully worded partial denials. He won't deny using cocaine or marijuana, though under persistent questioning he said that he hadn't used cocaine in the last 7 years. Most newspapers report that he denies using cocaine since 1974, but that's not exactly true.
That is the most favorable interpretation of what Bush said, but since Bush and his campaign have already made Clintonesque denials on other issues, we need to look at his words carefully.
What Bush actually said was ""I could have passed the [FBI] background check on the standards applied on the most stringent conditions when my dad was president of the United States - a 15-year period," Mr. Bush said. This is ambiguous because background forms ask slightly different questions, depending on the position. Drug questions can go back one year, seven years or 10 years. Bush Jr. didn't have any formal position in his father's administration, so which one applies is unclear. And 15-years is not one of the choices.
Since Bush Sr.'s presidency began in January 1989, reporters assumed that Jr. was denying drug use for 15 years before that, to 1974. But that is not at all clear. His only direct statement was for seven years before today. He could easily have been denying drug use only for 15 years before today, based on 7 or 10 years dating back from the END of his dad's term. 10 years before 1993, the end of Bush Sr.'s term, is pretty close to 15 years before today.
The Clinton administration actually has a stricter standard than Bush did -- the FBI now asks about any drug use after age 18. But Governor Bush has refused to say whether he would pass that standard, even though that is what he will be asked if he wins. Bush also has refused to answer whether he could have passed the FBI test when his father was vice president, during the 8 years from 1981-1989.
As for the arrest and diversion charge, Governor Bush admits working at the center in 1972. When asked for comment, Bush's campaign spokesman reportedly said "Oh shit... no comment." McLellan denies saying that.
Bush's father, ex-president George Bush, denies the cocaine arrest charge, and in yet another carefully worded denial, Bush said ""It's totally ridiculous what he suggested and it's not true."
You'll recall that President Clinton made a very similar statement about Gennifer Flower's allegations of an affair, during the 1992 campaign. Later, when he had to testify under oath, it turned out that he was denying that all of the details of the story were true, not whether an affair had occurred or any specific details (many of which were accurate).
Similarly, Bush himself does not deny being caught with cocaine, or having performed community service. Bush's campaign spokesman has now denied that Bush was ever arrested on any drug charge.
The director of the center, Madgelean Bush (no relation), also denies the reports. However, her center is dependent on Texas state money, and the director, who grew up poor but has amassed several houses around the center while running it, allowed Governor Bush to use the center for a photo opportunity earlier this year.
The Bush campaign also produced Carol Vance, who was the Democratic District Attorney in Harris County in 1972, to say that there was no diversion program in that year, nor were there any Republican judges (as Hatfield's book states.)
Rock and Roll: Bush keeps a picture of himself with two members of ZZ Top, but does not play the song "Tube Snake Boogie" during his celibacy lectures. We have found no evidence to support the the most explosive allegation so far; that Bush played air guitar to a Foghat record at a party in the late 1970s. But he won't deny it, either.
When pressed on the hypocrisy issue, he speaks to hypocritical baby boomer parents everywhere: "If I were you, I wouldn't tell your kids that you smoked pot unless you want 'em to smoke pot. I think it's important for leaders, and parents, not to send mixed signals. I don't want some kid saying, 'Well, Governor Bush tried it.'"
It's amazing enough that he openly defends hypocrisy, but his own signals are very mixed. When allowed to imply that he is just another manly, hard-drinking rapscallion, Bush seizes the opportunity. "When I was young and irresponsible, I was really young and irresponsible," he often says. He even hints at pot smoking, as in the above quote, and why not? Everyone from his likely opponent Al Gore to Newt Gingrich has admitted smoking pot.
But Junior wants it both ways. When the deadly rumor of cocaine use surfaces, he retreats to his high-minded rhetoric about not giving mixed messages. If he thinks he can skate to the presidency without either his right-wing foes or embittered Clintonistas pushing his past into the limelight, then he really IS on drugs.
George Bush now admits that he was convicted of drunk driving. On September 4, 1976, a state trooper saw Bush's car swerve onto the shoulder, then back onto the road. [The Bush camp spin that he was driving too slowly is simply a lie.] Bush failed a road sobriety test and blew a .10 blood alcohol, plead guilty, and was fined and had his driver's license suspended. His spokesman says that he had drunk "several beers" at a local bar before the arrest. Bush was 30 at the time. He now says that he stopped drinking when he turned 40 because it was a problem.
More troubling, Bush lied in denying such an arrest, and still won't take responsibility for his actions. His first reaction was to blame Democrats and Fox News -- the only openly conservative TV network -- for reporting the story. "Why [was this reported] now, four days before the election? I've got my suspicions." He refused to say what his suspicions are, though. Bush admits covering up the story, but seems to think he has no responsibility for the failure of his cover up.
In fact, just like Clinton with Monica Lewinsky, Bush has brazenly and repeatedly lied to cover up and minimize this arrest.
1. Bush Lied at his Press Conference, 11/3/2000
Bush said he paid a fine on the spot and never went to court. That is clearly a lie, as you can see on this court document showing his court hearing a month later. In fact, it was a man also in court for DUI the same day who revealed Bush' arrest. Here is exactly what Bush said in his press conference:
Bush: "I told the guy I had been drinking and what do I need to do? And he said, "Here's the fine." I paid the fine and did my duty...."
Reporter: "Governor, was there any legal proceeding of any kind? Or did you just -- "
Bush: "No. I pled -- you know, I said I was wrong and I ..." Reporter: "In court? "
Bush: No, there was no court. I went to the police station. I said, "I'm wrong."
2. Bush Lied in Court, 1978
Bush got a court hearing to get his driving suspension lifted early, even though he had not completed a required driver rehabilitation course. He told the hearings officer that he drank only once a month, and just had "an occasional beer." The officer granted his request. But Bush continued drinking for 8 years after that date and has said publicly that he drank too much and had a drinking problem during that time. Presumably Bush was under oath during the hearing, though we haven't been able to pin down that detail. The Bush campaign refuses to comment on this contradiction.
3. Bush Lied To "The Dallas Morning News", 1998
"Just after the governor's reelection in 1998, [Dallas Morning News reporter Wayne] Slater pressed Bush about whether he had ever been arrested. 'He said, 'After 1968? No.'" Dallas Morning News, 11/03/2000 [Before 1968, Bush was arrested for theft and vandalism in college.]
4. Bush Lied On 'Meet The Press', 11/21/99
Tim Russert: "If someone came to you and said, 'Governor, I'm sorry, I'm going to go public with some information.' What do you do?"
Bush: "If someone was willing to go public with information that was damaging, you'd have heard about it by now. You've had heard about it now. My background has been scrutinized by all kinds of reporters. Tim, we can talk about this all morning."
5. Bush Lied to CBS, 1999.
"Bush has often acknowledged past mistakes, but CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan reports that in a 1999 interview with CBS station WBZ in Boston, he denied there was any so-called smoking gun." CBS TV news
Bush also evaded countless questions and gave Clintonesque half-truths. For example, while struggling with how to answer charges of drug abuse, he said that he would have been able to pass FBI background checks during his father's administration. But those checks include the question "Have you ever been arrested for any crime?" So either he was directly lying, or he has some Slick explanation like "I could have explained the circumstances of the arrest and still passed the FBI check."
In another evasion, Bush decided to serve jury duty in 1996, during his first year as governor. On his questionairre, he simply left blank the questions about prior arrests and trials. Then he found himself on a trial for drunk driving, where every juror is eventually asked about prior convictions for drunk driving. The night before the trial, Bush's lawyer asked the defense attorney to dismiss him, because "it would be improper for a governor to sit on a criminal case in which he could later be asked to grant clemency." It's a silly argument, because that problem exists with any criminal trial and Bush had already decided to serve on a jury, but the defense attorney obliged and excused him before direct questioning of jurors began.
Bush now justifies covering up his arrest "to be a good role model for his daughters." How does he figure that? Lying to cover up your crimes is not what I call being a good role model. Taking responsibility for your actions, admitting fault honestly and warning people of the consequences you suffered, THAT would be a good example. But Bush prefers the Clinton route of bald-faced lying, then blaming your enemies and the press when you get caught.
Bush is now the first person to be elected president after being convicted of a crime.
Bush had several other drunken incidents, as well. In December, 1972, Bush challenged his dad (the ex-president) to a fist fight, during an argument about Bush's drunk driving. He had taken his little brother out drinking, and ran over a neighbor's garbage cans on the way home. Bush's atypical public service job, working with inner city Houston kids, appears to have been an unofficial community service stint set up by Bush, Sr. Apparently the governor didn't learn his lesson, because his drunk driving conviction occured almost four years later.
In another incident, he started screaming obscenities at a Wall Street Journal reporter, just because that reporter predicted that Bush's father would not be the 1988 Republican nominee. The reporter obviously was wrong, but a drunken Bush Jr. walked up to him at a restaurant and started yelling "You fucking son of a bitch. I won't forget what you said and you're going to pay a price for it."
In fact, Bush' running mate Dick Cheney now admits he had two drunk driving offenses in 1962 and 1963, giving the Bush -- Cheney ticket a new world record of 3 DUI's on one ticket. No wonder they seem so relaxed.
The conviction is bad enough, but the real question is, what other revelations are going to come later, about his drug use (which he won't deny), failing to show up for a year of his National Guard service, or sexual escapades in his swinging single days?
There is evidence that Bush has more to hide involving his Texas driving record. Soon after he became governor, he had a new driver's license issued with the unusual ID number of "000000005", an action that destroyed the records of his previous license. His staff could only say, weakly, that this was done for "security reasons" but there is no record of any previous Texas governor having done so. Now we have at least of hint of why Bush wanted his records obscured, and a dark foreboding that more might be lurking, still covered up.
Drunk Driving Sources
His Character: The Prodigal Son
George W. Bush, Jr. is touted as the savior of the Republican Party by the national press, because he pulls votes from minority voters and has his dad's name and fundraising connections to run on. But before we anoint him as the next president, let's look at what he's done with his life. In a nutshell, Junior
1) grew up as a very rich child of powerful parents,
2) partied from high school until he was 40,
3) made millions off of sweet insider business deals from political allies of his dad, who happened to be the President,
and 4) got elected governor of Texas mostly because of his name.
Bush Junior has done some good work as governor of Texas. He has crossed the partisan divide, reached out to minorities, and tackled at least one tough, thankless issue (school financing; his plan was voted down in the legislature.)
But 4 years -- even 4 good ones -- is a pretty short resume for the leader of the free world. No one doubts Bill Clinton's ability to handle punishment and come back for more. But Bush Junior's stamina and attention span are very real concerns. Furthermore, Bush's term as governor has also been markedly corrupt, although possibly in legal ways. What we mean is, he has taken millions in campaign contributions from certain big businessmen -- many of whom were in on the insider business deals that made him rich -- and those same businessman have received billions in sweet deals from the Texas state government during Bush's term.
Specifics: Like Al Gore, Bush Jr. attended Eastern elitist schools, in this case Andover Prep, and Yale. According to a Newsweek profile, he "went to Yale but seems to have majored in drinking at the Deke House." He joined the secretive "Skull and Bones" club in 1968, as any good conspiracy buff can tell you.
His business career was marked by mediocrity or failure which nonetheless resulted in him getting lots of money from his father's political allies. And his political career has been handed to him on a platter by his famous name, and by his dad's cronies.
Bill Kristol, conservative pundit and Dan Quayle's former chief of staff, says "The Bush network is the only genuine network in the Republican Party. It is the establishment." Junior and Jeb Bush (elected in Florida in 1998) are the first brothers to be simultaneous governors since the Rockefellers.
To give you an idea of how rarefied his upbringing was, George Junior had an argument with his mom at one point about whether non-Christians could go to Heaven. (Barbara Bush felt they could; George didn't.) To settle the dispute, they phoned up Billy Graham on the spot. (He sided with Junior, but warned him not to play God.).)
More recently, Bush's performance during the 2000 South Carolina primary shows that he received the worst trait common to the famous Bush family -- a vicious competitiveness that shows no compunction about dirty tricks (such as the phone calls by his surrogates calling McCain, of all people, "the fag candidate") and utterly shameless flipflops (like Bush Sr.'s "read my lips, no new taxes", and Junior's very public refusal to meet with the gay Log Cabin Republicans group until right before the California primary, when he claimed he was fine with them all along. Not to mention him suddenly becoming "a reformer" after he got shellacked in the New Hampshire primary.)
Not only does this trait demonstrate a lack of integrity -- which I define as having standards and things you believe in that you won't violate, even to win the presidency -- but there is an incredible arrogance in thinking that voters will accept and believe a candidate who blatantly changes his positions from week to week, saying whatever the local primary voters want to hear.
Unfortunately, Bush Jr. has inherited this negative family trait without receiving any of the graciousness, diligence, and bravery of his father and grandfather (a Senator who lost his seat over a principled vote in favor of birth control, back in the 1940s.)
Thin skinned: Bush tries to stifle his critics
One of the most disturbing things about Bush is that he consistently works to silence his critics using his money and power, including state police and expensive lawyers. Not since Richard Nixon has a major presidential candidate been so quick to prevent his opponents from free speech. At the very least, this shows he doesn't understand big-league politics and may not be tough enough to handle more serious opponents, such as hostile foreign countries and terrorists. At worst, it may be a sign of Nixon-like paranoia; that president's thin-skin started out with similar small potatos and grew to bring down his presidency amid enemies' lists, illegal break-ins of his opponent's offices, and forcing the IRS to audit his enemies.
Bush can't blame this on his staff, either; it comes from the top. When asked about one critical web site, he told the press "There ought to be limits to freedom. We're aware of this site, and this guy is just a garbage man, that's all he is."
As governor of Texas, for example, Bush Junior has sent the state police to arrest peaceful demonstrators outside the governors mansion. While previous governors allowed peaceful pickets on the public sidewalk outside the mansion, Bush has claimed that they are blocking public access, and had them arrested. Not all protestors, either -- just the ones he doesn't want the press to see.
In the 2000 primaries, Bush supporters including NY Governor Pataki sued to keep John McCain and Steve Forbes off the New York primary ballot in several congressional districts. Bush denied any involvement, fooling no one, but after McCain's decisive New Hampshire victory made the move look ridiculous, Bush and his top strategist Karl Rove called up his establishment minions, after which they instantly announced that they were stopping their efforts to keep McCain off the ballot. Ironically, all of the attention to ballot rules revealed that a number of Bush delegates and alternates used fraudulent signatures to qualify for the ballot. As a result, it appears that McCain and Forbes will be on the ballot statewise, but George Bush Jr. won't be in one Bronx congressional district.
Bush also can't stand criticism on the Internet. His campaign quietly -- and probably illegally -- bought up over 200 anti-Bush domain names including "bushsucks.com", "bushbites.com", and "bushblows.com" over a year ago. (Illegally because he had refused to register as a candidate, as part of his effort to make it look like people were begging him to run, so spending money for his campaign was not allowed.) If you type in any of these URLs, you end up at Bush's official web site. His campaign refuses to say whether this means that they admit that he bites, blows and sucks. (Maybe he used to be a White House intern?)
If you wanted to set up one of those sites, breathe easy because many good names are still available. The Bush camp somehow neglected to purchase "bushisaprick.com", "bushisweak.com", or "bushsucksdonkeydicks.com", so $70 makes them yours.
Even worse, Bush and his high-priced lawyers have tried twice to shut down a web site -- www.gwbush.com -- that parodies the Bush campaign, in particular his "no comment" answers on drug use in his past. You will recall that Bush has said it doesn't matter what he did "in his youth," because the question is "have you grown up" and "have you learned from your mistakes." The parody site presents a new program called "Amnesty 2000", in which Bush "proposes" pardoning all drug convicts who have "grown up."
The Bush campaign filed one complaint about the site in April 1999, after which the parody site's owners changed it to look less like the real Bush site. That wasn't good enough though, and Bush lawyers filed against the site again in May 1999. So far, it remains in business. Sources
Lying Under Oath. Bush & Co. Squelch Investigation of Contributor's Funeral Homes
In a (so far successful) attempt to stop a scandal, Bush perjured himself under oath, according to the sworn testimony of two of his political allies. The situation is amazingly similar to Clinton's Lewinsky problem: a potentially damaging lawuit arose (see below) that threatened to involve him. Just like Clinton, Bush swore an affidavit that he had no involvement in the case, which got him excused from testifying. And just like Clinton, the affidavit was proven false months later by new evidence. In this case, it's the recent sworn testimony of Robert MacNeil, a Bush appointee, that he had discussed the case with Bush at a fundraiser.
This scandal isn't as sexy as Monica's, but perjury is perjury, and this scandal actually involves the governor's job, not his sex life. Texas' state commission on funeral homes (the TFSC) started an investigation of SCI, the world's largest funeral home company (with 3,442 homes, plus 433 cemeteries) after complaints that unlicensed apprenctices were embalming corpses at 2 SCI embalming centers. The commission visited a couple of these, and ended up fining SCI $450,000.
But SCI pulled strings with the commission and with Bush himself. Shortly thereafter, the investigation was shut down and the agency's investigator was fired. She sought to question Bush for her lawsuit, and that's when he swore his admittedly false affidavit. In fact, that affidavit has been proven false twice now.
DETAILS: SCI has long cultivated Bush and his allies. They gave governor Bush $35,000 in the last election and $10K in 1994, gave $100,000 to the George Bush, Sr. library, and hired the ex-president to give a speech last year for $70,000. They also spread money around the Texas legislature and the Texas Attorney General's office.
After the investigation got serious, SCI's boss, Robert Waltrip, called the funeral commission's chairman and told him to "back off." If not, Waltrip said, "I'm going to take this to the governor."
Still, the investigation continued. So Waltrip and his lawyer/lobbyist, Johnnie B. Rogers, went to the governor's office and dropped off a letter demanding a halt to the investigation. Rogers told Newsweek that he and Waltrip were ushered in to see Joe Allbaugh, Bush's chief of staff (who is now Bush's campaign manager.) Rogers goes on to say that Bush Jr. popped his head in and said to Waltrip, "Hey, Bobby, are those people still messing with you?" Waltrip said yeah. Then the governor turned to Rogers and said, "Hey, Johnnie B. Are you taking care of him?" Rogers said "I'm doing my best, Governor."
The problem for Bush is that he swore under oath, in a July 20th 1999 affidavit, that he "had no conversations with [SCI] officials, agents, or represenatives concerning the investigation or any dispute arising from it." If Rogers is telling the truth, than Bush Jr. lied directly under oath. He filed the affidavit in an attempt to avoid testifying in a whistleblower lawsuit concerning this investigation and it's alleged squashing by Bush's administration.
Back in August of 1999, Bush himself admitted that he spoke with Waltrip and Rogers -- in other words, that he lied under oath -- but used Clintonesque denials to claim that it was nothing substantial. Bush told the Associated Press that "It's a 20-second conversation. I had no substantive conversation with the guy. Twenty seconds. That's hardly enough time to even say hello, much less sit down and have a substantive discussion. All I know is it lasted no time. And that hardly constitutes a serious discussion. I did not have any knowledge at all of Waltrip's problem with this case."
Of course, nothing Bush says here contradicts what Rogers said. In fact, his careful explanation of why this is not perjury is incredibly similar to Bill Clinton's weaseling about what the meaning of "is" is. And now MacNeil's sworn statement further confirms Bush's lie.
Whatever Bush said out loud, Waltrip's complaints to the governor got quick results. Eliza May -- the investigator for the funeral services commission -- says that after Waltrip visited the governor, she received phone calls from three senior Bush aides asking if she could wrap up her proble quickly. She says she was also summoned to another meeting in Allbaugh's office, one month after the first one, and found Waltrip already there. The governor's top aide, she says, demanded that she turn over a list of all of the documents that she needed "to close the SCI investigation."
Since then, investigator Eliza May has been fired, 6 or 10 staff members on the commission have been fired or resigned and not been replaced, and the Texas legislature -- led by members receiving substantial contributions from SCI -- passed a bill to reorganize the agency and remove it's head. On August 16, 199, Bush ordered his Comptroller to take over the agency and run it. May -- who, it should be noted, is a Democrat and was even state Democratic Treasurer at one point -- has filed a whistleblower lawsuit alleging she was fired because she persisted with the investigation.
Bush simply didn't show up for his scheduled deposition on July 1st, 1999 in the case. (He isn't a defendant in the case, because Governors are immune from lawsuits in Texas, but is being called as a material witness.) He filed his affidavit on July 20th to indicate that he had nothing to add.
Now Robert MacNeil -- who was the chairman of the Texas funeral commission at the time, a Bush appointee -- confirms that he also discussed the case with Bush, at a 1998 Texas fundraiser. In a sworn deposition, MacNeil says that Bush asked him: �Have you and Mr. Waltrip got your problems worked out?� Replied McNeil: �We�re still trying to work on that, governor.� Bush then said, �Do your job.� Bush's campaign says that MacNeil's statement is false. But the language MacNeil says Bush used is almost identical to what he admits saying to Johnnie Rodgers in the governor's office. Sources
Corruption in Texas Government; State $ to Big Contributors
Bush's administration has consistenly shoveled large amounts of state controlled money to men who have either contributed large amounts to Bush's campaign, or who have made Junior personally rich through sweet insider business deals, or both.
For example, the University of Texas' Investment Management Company (UTIMCO) invests $1.7 billion of state money. Most of this comes from profits from oil discovered on Texas state land. Bush's cronies dominate this board, and in return investment funds controlled by these very cronies or their friends have received nearly a third -- $457 million -- of that massive investment pool. There may even be more, but this obscure group -- created under Bush -- cloaks its operations in a thick veil of secrecy.
UTIMCO's chairman, Tom Hicks, now owns the Texas Rangers; his purchase of the team made Governor Bush a very rich man. Furthermore, Hicks and his brother gave $146,000 to the Bush campaign. In return, $252 million of the invested money went to funds run by Hicks' business associates or friends, according to the Houston Chronicle. Hicks even insisted that UTIMCO increase by $10 million an investment with a fund that he had an indirect financial interest in, but UTIMCO staff halted funding after they discovered the conflict.
Then there's Sam and Charles Wyly, the billionaire brothers who secretly bought $2.5 million of "independent" TV ads slamming McCain just before the critical Super Tuesday primaries. (They have also given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Bush Jr.'s governor and presidential campaigns.) They control Maverick Capital, an investment fund that received $90 million of UTIMCO money. The brothers earn nearly $1 million in fees alone from that money, along with a share of any profits.
Henry Kravis of Kohlberg, Kravis & Roberts -- a longtime Bush contributor -- received a $50 million investment deal in 1996. And there are many more Bush supporters who have received millions from UTIMCO, including the Bass family and Adele Hall of the Hallmark Cards family.
Another key player in the Bush world is Richard Rainwater, the billionaire Texas investor who made Bush Jr.'s original involvement in the Texas Rangers deal possible. That's the deal that made Jr. rich, of course. Bush had several other personal investments in Rainwater controlled companies. But Rainwater has received much from Bush and the state of Texas' treasury, too. UTIMCO invested at least $20 million in Rainwater companies.
And UTIMCO is not the only Bush administration agency funneling money and favors to his supporters and cronies. T he state teacher retirement fund sold three office buildings to Rainwater's real estate company at bargain prices, and without bids in 2 of the cases. The fund invested $90 million in the Frost Bank Plaza in Austin, and sold it to Rainwater's Crescent Real Estate for $35 million. Bush signed a law that will give his former baseball team co-owners -- including Rainwater -- a $10 million bonus payment when a new Dallas arena is built. Bush also proposed a cap on business real estate taxes that would have saved Rainwater millions on his various properties (but it lost in the legislature).
In another example, Bush's state Housing department has been investigated for kickbacks, and Florita Bell Griffin, who Bush appointed to the state Housing Board, was just convicted of bribery, theft, money-laundering and mail fraud for trading her influence for cash. She faces 55 years in prison. And Larry Paul Manley, Bush's director of the Department of Housing until he resigned in January 1999, is under police investigation for steering federal tax credits to cronies. Texas' top auditor discovered in 1997 that 60% of department contracts went to Manley's former colleagues at local savings and loans, but refused to make the findings public until long after the criminal probes began.
Bush may or may not have violated state ethics laws with all of this big money backscratching, but there is no doubt that he and these businessman are operating corruptly -- funneling large amounts of state money to the businessmen's companies, and large amounts of their personal and business money into George Bush Jr.'s pocket and political campaigns.
Sources
Avoided the Vietnam War
Most people have heard something about George W. Bush pulling strings to get into the Texas Air Guard. But the press, while reporting lots of details, has done a poor job of communicating how consistently and shamelessly Bush Jr. sought and received favorable treatment while he avoided Vietnam.
Furthermore, his story has repeatedly changed -- he has weaseled like Clinton at his worst and even flat-out lied when explaining what happened.
To put it in perspective, here are 9 ways Bush got favored treatment in the service due to his political connections (he was then son of a Congressman and grandson of a former Senator):
1) He got into the Guard by pulling strings, avoiding the year and a half waiting list;
2) He took a 2-month vacation in Florida after just 8 weeks, (1 of 3 leaves), to work on a political campaign;
3) Bush skipped Officer Candidate School and got a special commission as a 2nd Lieutenant, without qualifications;
4) He was assigned to a safe plane (being phased out of active service), the F-102 ;
5) During flight school, he was flown on a government jet to Washington for a date with President Nixon's daughter Tricia ;
6) Bush got an illegal transfer (later overruled) to a base with no work;
7) He simply didn't show up for a YEAR, with no penalty;
8) George W. skipped all his medical exams after they started drug tests, and was removed from flight status;
9) He ended his service 10 months early to go to Harvard Business School;
Here are the details:
1. Pulled Strings to Get In.
On May 27, 1968, George Bush Jr. was 12 days away from losing his student draft deferment, at a time when 350 Americans a week were dying in combat. The National Guard, seen by many as the most respectable way to avoid Vietnam, had a huge waiting list -- a year and a half in Texas, over 100,000 men nationwide. Yet Bush and his family friends pulled strings, and the young man was admitted the same day he applied, regardless of any waiting list.
Bush's unit commander, Col. "Buck" Staudt, was so excited about his VIP recruit that he staged a special ceremony for the press so he could have his picture taken administering the oath (even though the official oath had been given by a captain earlier.)
Bush and his allies have tried to deny this with several changing stories, but Bush himself admits lobbying commander Staudt, who approved him, and court documents confirm that close family friend and oil magnate Sid Adger called Texas Speaker of the House Ben Barnes, who called General James Rose, the head of the Texas Air National Guard, to get Bush in. Rose, who is now dead, told his friend and former legislator Jake Johnson that "I got that Republican congressman's son from Houston into the Guard."
Staudt's unit, the 147th, was infamous as a nesting place for politically connected and celebrity draft avoiders. Democratic Senator Lloyd Bentsen's son was in the unit, as were both of Sid Adger's sons and at least 7 members of the Dallas Cowboys.
2. Took a 2 month vacation in Florida after 8 weeks in the Guard.
Just 8 weeks after joining, Bush was granted 2 months leave to go to Florida and work on a political campaign, the Senate race of Republican Edward Gurney. Bush took a leave every election season, in 1970 to work on his dad's campaign, and in 1972 to work in Alabama.
3. Skipped Officer Candidate School and got a special commission as 2nd Lt.
As soon as Bush completed basic training, his commander approved him for a "direct appointment", which made him an officer without having to go through the usual (and difficult) Officer Candidate School. This special procedure also got Bush into flight school, despite his very low scores on aptitude tests -- he scored 25% on a pilot aptitude test, the absolute lowest acceptable grade, and 50% for navigator aptitude. (Bush did score 95% on the easier officer quality test, but then again the average is 88%).
What made Bush's appointment doubly unusual was his total lack of special qualifications. This procedure was generally reserved for applicants with exceptional experience or skills, such as ROTC training or engineering, medical or aviation skills. Tom Hail, a historian for the Texas Air National Guard, reviewed the Guard's records on Bush for a special exhibit on his service after Bush became governor. Asked about Bush's direct appointment without special skills, Hail said "I've never heard of that. Generally they did that for doctors only, mostly because we needed extra flight surgeons."
Charles Shoemake, an Air Force veteran who later joined the Texas Air National Guard and retired as a full colonel, said that direct appointments were rare and hard to get, and required extensive credentials. Asked about Bush, he said "His name didn't hurt, obviously. But it was a commander's decision in those days."
Despite Bush Jr.'s weak qualifications, Col. Staudt was so excited about the direct appointment that he saged another special ceremony for the press, this time with Bush's father the congressman standing prominently in the background.
The direct appointment process was discontinued in the 1970s.
4. Assigned to a safe plane -- the F-102 -- that was being phased out.
As Bush has been quick to note, National Guard members do face the chance of being called up for active duty, though few actually did during the Vietnam war. So what a lucky break for Bush that he was assigned to fly the F-102 Delta Dagger, a plane already being phased out. In fact, the Air Force had ordered all overseas F-102 units shut down as of June 30, 1970 -- just 3 months after Bush finished his training. Since training is so airplane specific, Bush was guaranteed from the beginning to be safe from combat.
Bush's campaign has even used his training on the obsolete plane to justify his early discharge, almost a year before his scheduled discharge, since other F-102 pilots were also being released early. But they can't answer the obvious question -- why spend so much money to train a National Guardsman for 2 years on a plane that was already being phased out, at a time when the Guard was letting F102 pilots leave early due to oversupply?
5. Celebrity Political Date.
During his flight training, Bush's celebrity showed in a couple of ways. Most famously, President Nixon sent a jet to pick up the young flight student for a date with his daughter Tricia. Alas, the potential political marriage and dynasty was not to be. Also, the commencement speaker at Bush's graduation ceremony was -- his dad, Congressman George Bush Sr.
6. Illegal, overruled transfer to a base with no work.
In 1972, Bush once again wanted to work on a political campaign, this time in Alabama. He applied for a transfer to a nearly defunct base with no active training or work, the 9921st Air Reserve Squadrom at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. Bush's supervisors approved, but a higher headquarters overruled them, noting that the unit had no regular drills.
Lt. Col. Reese Bricken, the unit's commander, told the Boston Globe "We met just one weeknight a month. We were only a postal unit. We had no airplanes. We had no pilots. We had no nothing." Even Albert Lloyd Jr., a retired Air Guard colonel who is helping the Bush campaign clarify the candidate's service, told the Globe he was mystified why Bush's superiors at the time would approve duty at such a unit. Lloyd was personnel director of the Texas Air Guard from 1969 to 1995.
Now, the officer who did that has stepped forward and very directly admitted that he tried to get the easiest possible assignment for Bush. The personnel officer in charge of Bush's 147th Fighter Group, now-retired Col. Rufus G. Martin, says he tried to give Bush a light load when he told him to apply to the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron in Montgomery, Ala. Martin said in an interview that he knew Bush wasn't eligible for the 9921st, an unpaid, general training squadron that met once a week to hear lectures on first aid and the like. "However," he said, "I thought it was worth a try. . . . It was the least participation of any type of unit."
7. Just didn't show up for a year -- with no punishment.
National Guard records and Bush's own supervisor's and friends show no sign of him attending any drills or performing any service for nearly a year, from May 1972 until May 1973. This period began with Bush moving to Alabama for a political campaign.
He later applied to transfer to a base that had no work; the transfer was first approved, then cancelled. Bush did nothing for several months; then in September he applied to transfer to Alabama's 187th Tactical Recon group for 3 months. This was approved, but the unit's commander, General William Turnipseed, and his then admnistrative officer, Kenneth Lott, have both said that Bush never showed up. "Had he reported in, I would have had some recall, and I do not," said Turnipseed. "I had been in Texas, done my flight training there. If we had had a first lieutenant from Texas, I would have remembered."
Bush claims that he did some work in Alabama, but can't remember any details. �I can�t remember what I did,� he said. �I just�I fulfilled my obligation." Despite 2 years of searching through hundreds of records, his campaign has been unable to find any record of Bush's service there, nor could they find a single fellow serviceman who remembers his presence. The best they could produce was an ex-girlfriend from Alabama -- Emily Marks --who said George told her he would have to do some Guard duty later that year (1972) in Montgomery. But all that confirms is that he knew of his obligation.
In December 1972, Bush returned to Houston and was scheduled to resume duty there. But in May 1973, Bush's supervising pilots wrote in his annual efficiency report: "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of the report" (i.e. through April 30, 1972). Bush described one of the supervisors, the late Col. Jerry Killian, as a personal friend, so it's likely he would have noticed Bush and given him the benefit of the doubt. Later that month, two special orders commanded Bush to appear for active duty. He served 36 days of active duty during May, June and July before leaving the Guard early.
Amazingly, Bush was not disciplined in any way for his absence, and received an honorable discharge. Under Air National Guard rules at that time, guardsmen who missed duty could be reported to their Selective Service Board and inducted into the Army as draftees.
8. Skipped all his medical exams after they started drug tests.
In April 1972, the military started including routine drug tests in servicemen's annual physical exam, including urinalysis, questions about drugs and "a close examination of the nasal cavities" (for cocaine). According to the regulation, the medical took place in the month after the serviceman's birthday. For George W. Bush, this meant August 1972.
It was May, 1972 -- one month after the drug testing was announced -- that Bush stopped attending Guard duty. In August 1972, he was suspended from flight duty for failing to take his physical. (Click here to see the document.) A Bush campaign spokesman confirmed to the London Sunday Times that Bush knew he would be suspended. "He knew the suspension would have to take place." Bush never flew again, even though he returned to his Houston base where Guard pilots flew thousands of hours in the F-102 during 1973. The only barrier to him flying again was a medical exam (and his lack of attendance).
Careful readers will recall that when Bush issued his partial denial of drug use, he said (or implied) that he hadn't used them since 1974, but he pointedly refused to deny drug use before then, i.e. during his military service. Several sources have also indicated that it was in December, 1972 -- 4 months after his medical suspension -- that a drunk Bush Jr. challenged his father to a fist fight during an argument over the son's drunk driving. (He had run over a neighbor's garbage cans.) Shortly thereafter, Bush Sr. arranged for his son to do community service at an inner city Houston charity.
Bush's campaign aides first said he did not take the physical because he was in Alabama and his personal physician was in Houston. But flight physicals can be administered only by certified Air Force flight surgeons, and some were assigned at the time to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, where Bush was living. The staff now admits that this explanation was wrong.
9. Left service 10 months early.
Even after that easy stint, Bush couldn't fulfill his obligation. He quickly made up the missed days he had to and applied for an early release, before he had to take his next annual physical exam (with drug test.) While the official discharge date was October 1, 1973, Bush's last day in uniform was actually July 31 -- a full 10 months before the end of his 6-year, part time commitment. Al Gore also requested and received an early discharge (from the Army, in his case) to go to school.
Weasel words; his story keeps changing.
When asked about his service, Bush has lied, changed his story repeatedly, and weaseled in a manner eerily reminiscent of Bill Clinton. First of all, he has flat-out lied. In his official autobiography, ''A Charge to Keep,'' Bush said he flew with his unit for ''several years'' after finishing flight training in June 1970. His campaign biography states that he flew with the unit until he won release from the service in September 1973, nine months early, for graduate school. Both statements are lies. Bush only flew with the 111th for one year and 10 months, until April 1972 when he was suspended for failing to take his medical exam (and drug test), and never flew again.
Then there is his Clintonesque weaseling and word choice. Bush and his campaign claimed that no Bush family or friends pulled strings. Under pressure, this changed to "All I know is anybody named George Bush did not ask him [Ben Barnes] for help." By that he meant, himself or his dad. Of course, it later came out in court that a close Bush friend, Simon Adger, had asked Barnes to get Bush Jr. into the Guard, and that Barnes did so, via General Rose.
Now's it's not even clear that a George Bush didn't ask for help. When pressed, the former president's spokeswoman (Jean Becker) said he is "almost positive" that he and Mr. Adger never discussed the Guard matter. "He [Bush Sr.] he is fairly certain - I mean he doesn't remember everything that happened in the 1960s..." In any case, Bush Sr. and Adger were very close. Ms. Becker acknowledged that "President Bush knew Sid Adger well. He loved him." Adger may have needed only a hint.
Furthermore, George Bush Jr. admits that he knew Adger socially at the time, and further admits that he lobbied Col. "Buck" Staudt, the commander of the VIP unit Bush joined. Staudt claims that he, not General Rose (who he later replaced), was the one who made the decision on admissions anyway. Bush Jr. admits that he met Staudt in late 1967, during Christmas vacation of his senior year, called him later, and -- in Bush's words -- "found out what it took to apply."
When asked how Bush came to call Staudt, his spokeswoman Karen Hughes said he "heard from friends while he was home over the Christmas break that ... Colonel Staudt was the person to contact." She says that Bush doesn't recall who those "friends" were. But we know that Sid Adger was also a friend of Staudt's, served with him on the Houston Chamber of Commerce's Aviation Committee, and in 1967 held a luncheon honoring Gen. Staudt and his unit for winning an Air Force commendation. In fact, both of Adger's sons also joined General Staudt's unit, in 1966 and 1968 respectively.
Bush and his staff also claim that he vaulted ahead of the Air Guard waiting list because he was willing to fly an airplane, and there were openings. There is nothing to support this claim, however. For one thing, the F-102 was being phased out at the time and F-102 pilots were being released from service early, as indeed Bush himself was. And Tom Hail, a historian for the Texas Air National Guard, says flatly that there was no pilot shortage in the Guard squadron at that time. Bush's unit had 27 pilots at the time he applied; while they were authorized for 29 pilots, there were two more already in training and one awaiting a transfer.
Bush also weasels on whether he was avoiding combat or not. He has stated on several occasions that he did not want to be an infantryman, and acknowledges that he came to oppose the war itself. He claims that he joined the guard to fly planes, and would have been happy to go to Vietnam, but ignores the obvious choice of the Air Force or the Navy -- which his dad, a genuine war hero, joined. Furthermore, when he signed up for the Guard, he checked a box saying "Do not volunteer for overseas service." Later, he made a perfunctory application to transfer to a program called "Palace Alert", which dispatched F-102 pilots to Europe or the Far East -- and just occasionally Vietnam -- for 3 or 6 month assignments. But Bush was not nearly qualified, as he must have known, and was immediately turned down, and the F-102 not used overseas after June, 1970 in any case.
And, as noted above, his story also changed on why he refused to take a medical exam -- including a drug test - in 1972. (The refusal ended Bush's flying career.) His staff first claimed that he didn't take the physical because he was in Alabama and his personal physician was in Houston. But flight physicals can be administered only by certified Air Force flight surgeons, and there were surgeons assigned at the time to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, where Bush was living. His staff now admits that that explanation was "wrong", without saying where it came from or what the real reason was. Draft & National Guard Sources
Insider Business Deals
Bush Jr. has made a lot of money off of three business deals. In each one, his contribution is hard to perceive, yet he walked off with hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in deals arranged by his father's political cronies. The deals were
1. the sale of Junior's struggling oil company,
2. Junior's sale of oil stock just before the Gulf War, and
3. getting a cheap slice of the Texas Rangers baseball team, which he sold in 1999 for a huge profit (he paid $600,000, and sold for $14 million).
The general pattern here is just as important as the details. Bush did no work in his business career that can clearly be called "excellent" or even "solid." The money he made is tangential to his efforts at best -- the oil companies lost a great deal of money during his tenure, and the Rangers cut a lot of corners -- which makes the cronyism that much more suspicious.
It's not just that one or two of Bush's deals look funky; every major business deal he has been involved with included wealthy supporters of his father, and many of those investors later received favorable treatment from either the federal government under Bush, Sr. or the current Texas administration of Junior.
Deal #1: The Oil Business: Rewarded for Losing Money
Like his dad, Junior struck out in Texas and founded an oil company, Arbusto Energy, Inc., with $20,000 of his own money. (Arbusto is the Spanish word for bush.) The company foundered in the early 1980s when oil prices dropped (and his dad was Vice President.)
The 50 investors, who were "mainly friends of my uncle" in Junior's own words, put in $4.7 million and lost most of it. Junior claims that investors "did pretty good," but Bush family friend Russell Reynolds told the Dallas Morning News: "The bottom line was there were problems, and it didn't work out very well. I think we got maybe 20 cents on the dollar."
As Arbusto neared collapse, Spectrum 7 Energy Corporation bought it in September 1984. Despite his poor track record, the owners made Bush, Jr. the president and gave him 13.6% of the parent company's stock.
Spectrum 7 was a small oil firm owned by two staunch Reagan/Bush Sr. supporters -- William DeWitt and Mercer Reynolds. These two were also owners of the Texas Rangers and allowed Bush Jr. to purchase a chunk of the team cheaply; he later sold it for over 24 times what he paid.
Within two years of purchasing Arbusto and making Bush Jr. president, Spectrum 7 was itself in trouble; it lost $400,000 in its last 6 months of operation. That ended in 1986, when Harken Energy Corporation bought Spectrum 7's 180-well operation.
Junior got $227,000 worth of Harken stock, and a lot more. He was named to the board of directors, made $80,000 to $100,000 a year well into the 1990s as a "consultant" to Harken, and was allowed to buy Harken stock at 40% below face value.
He also borrowed $180,375 from Harken at very low rates; the company's 1989 and 1990 SEC filings said it "forgave" $341,000 in loans to unspecified executives.
So what did Junior do for all this money? It's hard to say exactly, but things happened for Harken after Junior came on board:
it got a $25 million stock offering from an unusual bank with CIA ties,
it won a surprise exclusive drilling contract with Bahrain, a small Mideast country, and
an Arab member of its Board of Directors was invited to White House policy meetings with President George Bush and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft.
Easy Money From Odd Sources
The firm's $25 million stock offering was underwritten by Stephens, Inc., an Arkansas bank whose head, Jackson Stephens, was on President Bush's "Team 100." (That was a group of 249 rich persons who gave at least $100,000 each to his presidential campaign committee). Stephens placed the offering with the London subsidiary of Union Bank of Switzerland, which (according to the Wall Street Journal) was not known as an investor in small American companies.
Union Bank did have other connections; it was a joint-venture partner with the notorious BCCI in a Geneva-based bank, and was involved in a scandal surrounding the Nugan Hand Bank, a CIA operation in Australia whose executives were advised by William Quasha, the father of Harken's chairman (Alan Quasha.) Union Bank was also involved in scandals surrounding Panamanian money laundering by BCCI, and Ferdinand Marcos' movement of 325 tons of gold out of the Phillipines.
That wasn't the only financing connection Junior brought; after the company won its Bahrain deal (see next item), the billionaire Bass brothers of Texas offered to underwrite the drilling operation. Robert Bass is also a member of Bush's Team 100, and he and his kin gave $226,000 to Bush Senior between 1988 and 1992.
The Bahrain Contract
In January 1990, Harken was chosen out of the blue by the small Mideast country Bahrain for an exclusive offshore oil drilling contract. They beat out Amoco, an experienced and major international conglomerate, despite having no offshore oil drilling experience at all. As of March 1995, the most recent report we could find, they had found no oil.
Junior has denied that he was involved in the deal, and even told the Wall Street Journal that he opposed it. But a company insider told Mother Jones Magazine "Like any member of the board, he was thrilled. His attitude was 'Holy shit, what a great deal!'"
If he did oppose it, he wasn't much of a consultant. Charles Strain, an energy company analyst in Houston, told Mother Jones: "Harken is not hard to understand -- it's easy. The company has only one real asset -- its Bahrain contract. If that field turns out to be dry, Harken's stock is worth, at the most, 25 cents a share. If they hit it big over there, the stock could be worth $30 to $40 dollars a share." As of December 1998, Harken Energy Corp. (HEC on Amex) is trading at $2.69 a share.
Access to the President For Bush's Foreign Business Partner
The most troubling thing that happened to Harken after it bought George Bush Junior in, was that one of its Board of Directors members was suddenly admitted to the highest levels of United States foreign policy meetings. These were not Clintonesque meet-and-greet fundraisers, but actual working policy meetings during a critical period.
After the Harken-Bahrain deal was signed, Palestinian businessman Talat Othman was added to a group of Arabs who met with George Bush and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft three times in 1990 -- once just two days after Iraq invaded Kuwait.
Othman was the representative of Sheikh Abdullah Bakhsh, who purchased 10% of Harken stock. (More on Baksh in a second.) Othman has continued a fruitful relationship with Bush. He has visited Bush in the White House, and gave an Islamic benediction at the 2000 Republican convention. More recently, several Islamic charities and businesses run by Othman's business partner Yaqub Mirza were raided on March 20, 2002 by Treasury investigators, investigating ties between them and Osama Bin Laden, al Qaeda and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Just two weeks later, Othman was able to get a luncheon meeting with President Bush's Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill (since fired), to complain about the raids.
Backsh, Othman's patron, had several ties to the infamous BCCI bank according to the Wall Street Journal. Bakhsh was a co-investor in Saudi Arabia with alleged BCCI front man Ghaith Pharaon. Bakhsh's banker, Khalid bin Mahfouz, was another BCCI figure and head of the largest bank in Saudi Arabia. Sheikh Kalifah, the prime minister of Bahrain, was a BCCI shareholder and played the key role in selecting Harken for the oil contract.
This is the crowd that gained entry to the President and the National Security Adviser of the United States after George Junior made his deal with Harken.
Deal #2: Selling Oil Stock Just Before Iraq Invaded
George Bush, Junior sold 60% of his stock in Harken Oil in June, 1990 for $848,560. That was brilliant timing; in August, Iraq invaded Kuwait and Harken's stock dropped 25%. Soon after, a big quarterly loss caused it to drop further.
A secret State Deparment memo in May of that year had warned that Saddam was out of control, and listed options for responding to him, including an oil ban that might affect US oil prices.
We can't be sure that the President or an aide mentioned these developments to his son, or that Harken's representative who was admitted to meetings with the President picked up something and reported back to Junior. But it is the simplest and most logical explanation. The Bushes acknowledge that George Senior and his sons consult on political strategy and other matters constantly.
Furthermore, Harken's internal financial advisers at Smith Barney had issued a report in May warning of the company's deteriorating finances. Harken owed more than $150 million to banks and other creditors at the time. George Bush, Jr. was a member of the board and also of Harken's restructuring committee, which met in May and worked directly with the Smith Barney consultants. He must have known of these warnings.
These are pretty clear-cut indications of illegal insider trading. The Securities and Exchange Commission, controlled at the time by President George Bush, investigated but chose not to press charges.
Junior also violated another SEC rule explicitly. He was required to register his sale as an insider trade by July 10, 1990, but didn't until March 1991, after the Gulf War was over. He was not punished or cited.
Deal #3: A Big Slice of the Texas Rangers for a Little Money (and a Big Profit)
The third unusually easy deal for George Bush Junior was his involvement in the Texas Rangers baseball team. In a nutshell, he was offered a piece of this valuable franchise for only $600,000, by supporters of his dad who also bailed out his failing oil company. He sold his stake for $14 million - while Texas governor -- to a Texas millionaire with lots of businesses regulated by his administration. "When all it is all said and done, I will have made more money than I ever dreamed I would make," Bush told the Forth Worth Star-Telegram.
Bush was allowed to buy 1.8% of the team for $600,000 of borrowed money, and was even made one of the two general managers. His qualifications for partial ownership? Several years working at failing oil companies, and his political connections through his father. It's hard to be sure, but we're guessing that latter was probably more important.
Junior tripled his investment, like the other owners, with the help of massive government intervention and subsidies. But his real wealth came from simply being given 10% of the team as a "bonus" for "putting together the investment team."
Even if he really had done that work, it's an absurd bonus ($12.2 million), but the fact is that he didn't add much. Cincinatti financier William DeWitt brought Bush in, not vice versa, shortly after George Bush Sr. was elected president. (DeWitt had also invested in Junior's oil companies.). The only investor Bush actually brought in was Roland Betts, a Yale fraternity brother, and that wasn't good enough.
Under Junior's management, the deal was about to fall apart until baseball commissioner Peter Uebberoth brought in another investment group led by Fort Worth Billionaire Richard Rainwater and Dallas investor "Rusty" Rose. Since the deal, both men have profited greatly from business with the Texas administration of George Bush, Jr. Rose personally invested $3.2 million and became the other general manager of the team. Under the team partnership agreement, Bush Junior couldn't take any "material actions" wihtout Rose's prior approval. There was also a method for removing Junior as a general partner, but no way to remove Rose. Yet Rose's "bonus" for his role in setting up the deal was less than half of Junior's.
What kind of owners would approve such a big payoff to Bush? In addition to Rose and Rainwater, men with business pending before Texas government, the owners included William DeWitt and Mercer Reynolds, major contributors to President Bush who had also purchased Junior's failing oil company through their Spectrum 7 Energy company.
If this deal doesn't smell bad enough already, consider Bush's blatant hypocrisy. The main value of the team is its new stadium (ranked by Financial World as the most profitable in baseball) and 300 acres of vacant land the team owns between the stadium and 6 Flags of Texas, which is next door.
Putting Tax Money into Bush's Pocket
The hypocritical part is, the private owners of this very valuable land didn't want to sell. Bush and his partners gave them only a lowball offer, and when it was rejected they arranged for a new government agency (the Arlington Sports Facility Development Authority, or ASFDA) to condemn it for them.
The agency foreclosed the land and paid the owners a very low price, later judged by a jury to be only 1/6th of its actual value. The agency also floated bonds, guaranteed and repaid by taxpayers, to finance the purchase. This amounted to a $135 million subsidy for Bush and partners, compared with the $80 million they paid for the franchise. Since they sold the entire franchise for $250 million, it's easy to see whose money Bush and friends pocketed.
The next time Junior talks about tax cuts, remember this: Arlinton had to impose a new 1/2 cent sales tax just to pay for the subsidy Bush and his partners received.
To add insult to injury, Bush and his partners continue to stiff the taxpayers for $7.5 million they owe under the terms of the agreement. It held that the team would pay all expenses over $135 million. The original owners of just 13 of the acres sued the City of Arlington, saying that the ASFDA had not paid a fair price for the land. The jury awarded them $7.5 million, but even though the project exceeded the $135 million limit, the partners have refused to pay. Given their huge taxpayer subsidy and $170 million profits, it seems absurdly selfish.
George Bush, Jr. has said in campaign speeches "I will do everything I can to defend the power of private property and private property rights when I am the governor of this state." Apparently this deal was not covered by that statement, since he wasn't governor yet.
He claims that he "wasn't aware of the details" of the land condemnations, even though he was the team's managing general partner and has bragged about personally getting the stadium built. But he told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in October 1990 that "The idea of making a land play, absolutely, to plunk the field down in the middle of a big piece of land, that's kind of always been the strategy."
And the key to their land play was always the strong arm of government. A memo from Arlington real estate broker Mike Reilly to Rangers President Tom Schieffer dated October 26, 1990 - the day before Bush's comment about the land play - said "In this particular situation our first offer should be our final offer ... If this fails, we will probably have to initiate condemnation proceedings after the bond election passes."
On the first day of the 1993 campaign, Bush said "The best way to allocate resources in our society is through the marketplace. Not through a governing elite." Not through a private sports team buying in the President's son cheap, and then getting the government to hand them extremely valuable land.
Party Hearty: Sex, Drugs, And Rock 'N Roll?
For almost half his life, Junior was distinguished mainly by his hearty appetite for partying. A Newsweek profile by Evan Thomas, describing his college years, says he "seems to have majored in beer drinking at the Deke House." After he formed his first company (which failed), Thomas writes, "By his own account, Bush spent a lot of time in bars, trying to sort out who he was. He had a kind of ragged nervous energy in that period, and he could be a bully."
The Bush family spin is that the governor quit drinking cold turkey on his 40th birthday, straightened out by the love of a good woman (his wife, Laura.) They even pull out their secret weapon, lovable Barbara Bush, with anecdotes about what a rascal little George Junior was.
But the explosive element here is not booze. It's sex, drugs and hypocrisy. Frankly, it doesn't bother us if candidates have partied, even a lot. Who wants a bunch of namby-pamby boy scouts running the country? But George Bush Jr. makes a big point of travelling around the country and lecturing students on staying celibate, sober and drug free. He does not permit the option of partying hard until you're 40 and then stopping.
And as governor, he attacked his predecessor for allowing leniency toward first-time drug users, and pushed a "no tolerance" policy that has sent casual cocaine users -- who's dads aren't rich, or president -- to prison for years. He even has the gall to proclaim that such users "need to know that drug use has consequences." At least if you're from the wrong neighborhood.
No Handcuffs or Dwarf Orgies
Junior is so worried about his past that he hired a private detective to investigate himself. (I guess he can't remember what he did at those parties, which tells you something right there.)
According to an unnamed insider quoted on MSNBC, Bush "isn't terribly thrilled" about what they found, though no one is spilling the details (yet). "No handcuffs or dwarf orgies, but he was a handsome, rich playboy and lived that life," the insider said.
W is For Women: Bush volunteers to reporters that he has been faithful to his wife. However, he was married at 31 and makes no claim of virginity before that point, even as he lectures the youth of today to remain celibate. A Clinton aide who was in Bush's class at Yale has already warned him that "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."
We have received two credible reports from women who say they had affairs with George Bush, Jr. One alleged affair took place after Bush was married, on business trips to Los Angeles; in the other case, Bush was single but the woman was married at the time. Neither woman is willing to go public with further details, including their names, which is why we aren't publicizing these incidents more, but in our editorial opinion they are credible, and the details that these woman have provided check out.
Furthermore, porn publisher Larry Flynt has alleged that one Bush affair led his then-girlfriend to have an abortion, and claims to have 5 affidavits from friends of the woman and others supporting the claim. Again the woman does not want to be named, which makes it hard to prove the claim, but you can't really blame a lady for not wanting to be known as the "Bush abortion girl." Flynt made this allegation on CNN. The host of the program actually said "Now we at CNN don't want to be accused of censoring anybody...", yet that is exactly what CNN did. They removed the show's transcript and links from their web site days after the broadcast. You can still get details on the incident at the Bush Watch web site. They have more details here.
COCAINE:
According to a new book, three independent sources close to the Bush family report that Governor Bush was arrested in 1972 for cocaine possession, and taken to Harris County Jail, but avoided jail or formal charges through an informal diversion plan involving community service with Project P.U.L.L., an inner city Houston program for troubled youths at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in Houston's dirt-poor Third Ward. (In another new book, reporter Bill Minutaglio, writes that the year of community service was arranged by the Governor's father, ex-president Bush, after he caught Bush Jr. driving drunk.)
That year certainly is out of character with the rest of Bush Jr.'s life. Before and after 1972, he was a rich, hard drinking playboy. Suddenly, and only that one time in his life, he worked for a liberal charity in an inner city ghetto. As soon as the year was over, he resumed his previous pattern and has done no charity work since.
The author of this book, J. H. Thompson, has some interesting scandals of his own. Of course, his own flaws don't disprove what Bush did or didn't do, but the way Thompson has responded certainly undercuts his credibility. First, he admitted to a reporter from Slate Magazine that he made up at least one detail, that one of his informants spat tobacco into a styrofoam cup during their (phone!) interview.
Then, reporters -- or perhaps Bush campaign operatives -- found that the author apparently is an ex-convict, on parole for hiring a hit man to kill a former boss. That doesn't mean he can't research, of course, but Thompson's credibility suffered greatly as he claimed it was someone else, despite incredible similarities between his resume -- including unexplained job gaps during the prison years -- and confirmation from his parole officer that indeed, the author named J. H. Thompson is the one who did time.
Bush Jr.'s Evasive Responses:
Bush has essentially admitted that he used cocaine in his Clintonesque, carefully worded partial denials. He won't deny using cocaine or marijuana, though under persistent questioning he said that he hadn't used cocaine in the last 7 years. Most newspapers report that he denies using cocaine since 1974, but that's not exactly true.
That is the most favorable interpretation of what Bush said, but since Bush and his campaign have already made Clintonesque denials on other issues, we need to look at his words carefully.
What Bush actually said was ""I could have passed the [FBI] background check on the standards applied on the most stringent conditions when my dad was president of the United States - a 15-year period," Mr. Bush said. This is ambiguous because background forms ask slightly different questions, depending on the position. Drug questions can go back one year, seven years or 10 years. Bush Jr. didn't have any formal position in his father's administration, so which one applies is unclear. And 15-years is not one of the choices.
Since Bush Sr.'s presidency began in January 1989, reporters assumed that Jr. was denying drug use for 15 years before that, to 1974. But that is not at all clear. His only direct statement was for seven years before today. He could easily have been denying drug use only for 15 years before today, based on 7 or 10 years dating back from the END of his dad's term. 10 years before 1993, the end of Bush Sr.'s term, is pretty close to 15 years before today.
The Clinton administration actually has a stricter standard than Bush did -- the FBI now asks about any drug use after age 18. But Governor Bush has refused to say whether he would pass that standard, even though that is what he will be asked if he wins. Bush also has refused to answer whether he could have passed the FBI test when his father was vice president, during the 8 years from 1981-1989.
As for the arrest and diversion charge, Governor Bush admits working at the center in 1972. When asked for comment, Bush's campaign spokesman reportedly said "Oh shit... no comment." McLellan denies saying that.
Bush's father, ex-president George Bush, denies the cocaine arrest charge, and in yet another carefully worded denial, Bush said ""It's totally ridiculous what he suggested and it's not true."
You'll recall that President Clinton made a very similar statement about Gennifer Flower's allegations of an affair, during the 1992 campaign. Later, when he had to testify under oath, it turned out that he was denying that all of the details of the story were true, not whether an affair had occurred or any specific details (many of which were accurate).
Similarly, Bush himself does not deny being caught with cocaine, or having performed community service. Bush's campaign spokesman has now denied that Bush was ever arrested on any drug charge.
The director of the center, Madgelean Bush (no relation), also denies the reports. However, her center is dependent on Texas state money, and the director, who grew up poor but has amassed several houses around the center while running it, allowed Governor Bush to use the center for a photo opportunity earlier this year.
The Bush campaign also produced Carol Vance, who was the Democratic District Attorney in Harris County in 1972, to say that there was no diversion program in that year, nor were there any Republican judges (as Hatfield's book states.)
Rock and Roll: Bush keeps a picture of himself with two members of ZZ Top, but does not play the song "Tube Snake Boogie" during his celibacy lectures. We have found no evidence to support the the most explosive allegation so far; that Bush played air guitar to a Foghat record at a party in the late 1970s. But he won't deny it, either.
When pressed on the hypocrisy issue, he speaks to hypocritical baby boomer parents everywhere: "If I were you, I wouldn't tell your kids that you smoked pot unless you want 'em to smoke pot. I think it's important for leaders, and parents, not to send mixed signals. I don't want some kid saying, 'Well, Governor Bush tried it.'"
It's amazing enough that he openly defends hypocrisy, but his own signals are very mixed. When allowed to imply that he is just another manly, hard-drinking rapscallion, Bush seizes the opportunity. "When I was young and irresponsible, I was really young and irresponsible," he often says. He even hints at pot smoking, as in the above quote, and why not? Everyone from his likely opponent Al Gore to Newt Gingrich has admitted smoking pot.
But Junior wants it both ways. When the deadly rumor of cocaine use surfaces, he retreats to his high-minded rhetoric about not giving mixed messages. If he thinks he can skate to the presidency without either his right-wing foes or embittered Clintonistas pushing his past into the limelight, then he really IS on drugs.
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