WHAT ARE BUSH'S MAJOR DECEPTIONS AND OUTRIGHT
LIES LEADING UP TO HIS INITIAL ELECTION AS PRESIDENT?
 During
the three years before he took office, we became aware of moral lapses on the part of
George W. We can only wonder why the news media didn't pick up on it or investigate
George in the beginning, we probably would not have had to go through the hell this
president has put us through. We have lited them here and still wonder why he was
elected president.
There are other pages on this web site with his lies and
deceptions after he was elected president and even up until a few months ago when the
American people are finally beginning to understand the depth of moral decay this
administration has created.
A Moral leader (and we place all politicians and
ministers in this category) should be above reproach and never make untrue statements.
After all we look to these people for guidance and help. Clinton Disappointed us,
Larry Falwell disappointed us, Jessie Jackson disappointed us, Pat Robertson disappointed
us, etc. How can you trust people if they lie and then try to cover it up?
This makes them a danger directly to truth and indirectly to Freedom of Religion.
At first we were reluctant to call the public's attention
to these events because all people who aspire to public office tend to bend the truth to
suit their own purposes, but since George W. has shown by his continuing actions that he
does not support religious freedom, we feel that one must know if a leader is truthful or
dishonest in order to evaluate whether they should be listened to.
LIES AS PRESIDENT:
Lie, as President: The Bush administration told an outrageous lie that the president was a
target of terrorists -- and Americans deserve an explanation.
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By Joe Conason - Salon on-line Magazine
Oct. 5, 2001
Falsehoods uttered at the White House press podium always
matter, if only because they injure the reputation of the Presidency, but some are more
important than others. Under the present administration, which vowed to restore
"honor and integrity" to Washington, the credibility of the people who speak for
George W. Bush has decayed, week by week, beginning with their promotion last winter of
bogus accusations against their predecessors.
That ugly episode, however, wasn't nearly as troubling as what now appears to have been
the promulgation by the nation's highest officials of a false story about the events of
Sept. 11.
For two weeks following the terror attack, White House officials, including Vice President
Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Presidential Assistant Karl Rove
and Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, repeatedly insisted that a "credible threat"
-- involving code-word confirmation -- had convinced the Secret Service that terrorists
were trying to hit Air Force One and the White House. Only when those assertions were shot
down by CBS News and the Associated Press did the spinners back down, claiming that it had
all been a "misunderstanding" by staffers, with little elaboration.
AS PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE:
Major Lie No.1 as Presidential Candidate: "Every federal worker is offered a
personal account to help improve their retirement 1.3 million have these accounts. Al Gore
, who calls these bipartisan proposals risky, has a substantial amount of his money
invested in the stock market. If he is building his own retirement security in the market,
why does he object to young Americans doing the same?"
-- George W. Bush, May 15, 2000
Some lies are rooted in incompetence; others are based in boasting that's gone too far
(see Gore on the Internet or Love Canal or "Love Story"); and still others are
intended to confuse and deceive.
George W. Bush got some unwelcome attention last week for a untruth from the incompetence
category. After announcing his support for the partial privatization of Social Security,
Bush told an audience of senior citizens that it was hypocritical for Gore to oppose
privatization, since the vice president himself had a good deal of his own money in the
stock market.
Whoops! Turns out Gore has
no money in the stock market. That left the Bush team
struggling to cobble together a convoluted argument that Gore really did own stocks, since
he is the executor of the trust his late father left his mother, and that trust owns
stocks.
But Bush is also getting attention for another untruth that fits clearly into category of
lies meant to deceive and confuse.
Does George W. Bush want you to invest in the
stock market so his friends can make a lot of money on the commissions and you will be
lucky if you break even?
Major Lie No. 2:
The Texas governor told reporters with some glee that only now that he has proposed
allowing younger workers to invest a portion of their 12.4 percent Social Security tax in
private investment accounts is Gore saying that such investments are risky.
"He's changed his tune," Bush said. "I believe it's important to be
consistent. I believe it's important to have somebody who's willing to take a stand. I
believe it's important to have somebody who's willing to have the same message all of the
time in the course of a campaign."
-- The Washington Post, quoting George W. Bush, May 17, 2000
Bush accused the vice president of flip-flopping on the privatization issue because the
administration once proposed placing some general revenue funds into the stock market in
order to get a higher rate of return, and thus extend Social Security's solvency further
into the future.
But this is comparing apples and oranges. The debate over Social Security reform is fairly
well-established and its terms pretty clear. Many conservatives argue that all, or a
portion, of Social Security should be transformed from an entitlement into private,
individually owned accounts whose values would rise or fall on the vicissitudes of the
stock market. That's the privatization argument. Liberals and others who support the
current system say that Social Security should remain a guaranteed entitlement for all
Americans who pay into the system. That's the anti-privatization argument.
There is a possible common ground. The Clinton administration proposed something called
"USA accounts." These would be individual retirement accounts -- partially
subsidized by the government using money from the surplus. The key difference is that
these accounts would be set up in addition to the current Social Security program -- not
using money from Social Security. That would give individual workers a way to start
building wealth of their own without endangering the bedrock, guaranteed retirement
benefits provided by Social Security.
The whole debate is about security and guarantees and additional benefits directed toward
those who get dealt particularly hard knocks in life (orphans, widows, etc.) versus
another idea which makes Social Security into something more like a 401(k) plan.
What made the Clinton administration proposal different was that there was no assumption
of gain or loss by individual Social Security recipients. You may agree with Gore or Bush
on the question of how best to save Social Security. And you may think the Social Security
reform debate itself is screwy.
But here Bush is just playing fast and loose with the facts and hoping no one will notice.
Gore has enough real flip-flops (anybody for gays in the military? medical marijuana?
Elian?) that Bush shouldn't need to fabricate them.
Salon Magazine - May 22, 2000
Is George W. Bush a Right Wing Bigot?
Major Deception # 1 Bush’s appearance at Bob Jones University was low: the Texas
governor gave a campaign speech, but refused to address the university’s offensive
interracial dating ban. But he stooped even lower when he appeared with the leader of a
fringe veterans’ group, and allowed its leader to attack McCain’s commitment to
veterans. It’s no wonder McCain lashed Bush, saying:
"One of the more disgraceful chapters in this campaign in South Carolina was when
Governor Bush had a bogus veterans organization guy stand next to him at a campaign event
that he paid for. And this bogus individual said that John McCain had abandoned the, the
veterans, and Governor Bush did not repudiate that. That’s shameful. That’s
shameful."
John McCain, February 20, 2000 Grand Rapids, MI
One Year Gap in Bush's Guard Duty
Major Deception # 2 The Boston Globe reports: "After George W. Bush became
governor in 1995, the Houston Air National Guard unit he had served with during the
Vietnam War years honored him for his work, noting that he flew an F-102
fighter-interceptor until his discharge in October 1973. And Bush himself, in his 1999
autobiography, "A Charge to Keep," recounts the thrills of his pilot training,
which he completed in June 1970. 'I continued flying with my unit for the next
several years,' the governor wrote. But both accounts are contradicted by copies of Bush's
military records, obtained by the Globe.
In his final 18 months of military service in 1972 and
1973, Bush did not fly at all. And for much of that time, Bush was all but unaccounted
for: For a full year, there is no record that he showed up for the periodic drills
required of part-time guardsmen. Bush, who declined to be interviewed on the issue, said
through a spokesman that he has 'some recollection' of attending drills that year, but
maybe not consistently. From May to November 1972, Bush was in Alabama working in a US
Senate campaign, and was required to attend drills at an Air National Guard unit in
Montgomery. But there is no evidence in his record that he did so. And William Turnipseed,
the retired general who commanded the Alabama unit back then, said in an interview last
week that Bush never appeared for duty there. After the election, Bush returned to
Houston.
Seven months later, in May 1973, his two superior
officers at Ellington Air Force Base could not perform his annual evaluation covering the
year from May 1, 1972 to April 30, 1973 because, they wrote, 'Lt. Bush has not been
observed at this unit during the period of this report.' Bush, they mistakenly concluded,
had been training with the Alabama unit for the previous 12 months. Both men have since
died. But Ellington's top personnel officer at the time, retired Colonel Rufus G. Martin,
said he had believed that First Lieutenant Bush completed his final year of service in
Alabama. A Bush spokesman, Dan Bartlett, said after talking with the governor that Bush
recalls performing some duty in Alabama and 'recalls coming back to Houston and doing
[Guard] duty, though he does not recall if it was on a consistent basis.' Noting that
Bush, by that point, was no longer flying, Bartlett added, 'It's possible his presence and
role became secondary.' Last night, Mindy Tucker, another Bush campaign aide, asserted
that the governor 'fulfilled all of his requirements in the Guard.' If he missed any
drills, she said, he made them up later on. Under Air National Guard rules at the time,
guardsmen who missed duty could be reported to their Selective Service Board and inducted
into the Army as draftees. If Bush's interest in Guard duty waned, as spokesman Bartlett
hinted, the records and former Guard officials suggest that Bush's unit was lackadaisical
in holding him to his commitment.
Many states, Texas among them, had a record during the
Vietnam War of providing a haven in the Guard for the sons of the well-connected, and a
tendency to excuse shirking by those with political connections.... Still, the puzzling
gap in Bush's military service is likely to heighten speculation about the conspicuous
underachievement that marked the period between his 1968 graduation from Yale University
and his 1973 entry into Harvard Business School. It is speculation that Bush has helped to
fuel: For example, he refused for months last year to say whether he had ever used illegal
drugs. Subsequently, however, Bush amended his stance, saying that he had not done so
since 1974.
The period in 1972 and 1973 when Bush sidestepped his
military obligation coincides with a well-publicized incident
during the 1972 Christmas holidays: Bush had a confrontation with his father after he took
his younger brother, Marvin, out drinking and returned to the family's Washington home
after knocking over some garbage cans on the ride home.... But 160 pages of his records,
assembled by the Globe from a variety of sources and supplemented by interviews with
former Guard officials, paint a picture of an Air Guardsman who enjoyed favored treatment
on several occasions. The ease of Bush's entry into the Air Guard was widely reported last
year. At a time when such billets were coveted and his father was a Houston congressman,
Bush vaulted to the top of a waiting list of 500. Bush and his father have denied that he
received any preferential treatment. But last year, Ben Barnes, who was speaker of the
Texas House in 1968, said in a sworn deposition in a civil lawsuit that he called Guard
officials seeking a Guard slot for Bush after a friend of Bush's father asked him to do
so.
Before he went to basic training, Bush was approved for
an automatic commission as a second lieutenant and assignment to flight school despite a
score of just 25 percent on a pilot aptitude test. Such commissions were not uncommon,
although most often they went to prospective pilots who had college ROTC courses or prior
Air Force experience. Bush had neither.... On May 24, 1972, after he moved to Alabama,
Bush made a formal request to do his equivalent training at the 9921st Air Reserve
Squadron at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. Two days later, that unit's commander,
Lieutenant Colonel Reese H. Bricken, agreed to have Bush join his unit temporarily. In
Houston, Bush's superiors approved. But a higher headquarters disapproved, noting that
Bricken's unit did not have regular drills. '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,' Bricken
said in an interview.
Last week, Lloyd said he is mystified why Bush's
superiors at the time approved duty at such a unit. Inexplicably, months went by with no
resolution to Bush's status - and no Guard duty. Bush's evident disconnection from his
Guard duties was underscored in August, when he was removed from flight status for failing
to take his annual flight physical. Finally, on Sept. 5, 1972, Bush requested permission
to do duty for September, October, and November at the 187th Tactical Recon Group in
Montgomery. Permission was granted, and Bush was directed to report to Turnipseed, the
unit's commander. In interviews last week, Turnipseed and his administrative officer at
the time, Kenneth K. Lott, said they had no memory of Bush ever reporting. 'Had he
reported in, I would have had some recall, and I do not,' Turnipseed said. 'I had been in
Texas, done my flight training there. If we had had a first lieutenant from Texas, I would
have remembered.' Lloyd, the retired Texas Air Guard official, said he does not know
whether Bush performed duty in Alabama. 'If he did, his drill attendance should have been
certified and sent to Ellington, and there would have been a record. We cannot find the
records to show he fulfilled the requirements in Alabama,' he said.
Indeed, Bush's discharge papers list his service and duty
station for each of his first four years in the Air Guard. But there is no record of
training listed after May 1972, and no mention of any service in Alabama. On that
discharge form, Lloyd said, 'there should have been an entry for the period between May
1972 and May 1973.' Said Lloyd, 'It appeared he had a bad year. He might have lost
interest, since he knew he was getting out.' In an effort last year to solve the puzzle,
Lloyd said he scoured Guard records, where he found two 'special orders' commanding Bush
to appear for active duty on nine days in May 1973. That is the same month that Lieutenant
Colonel William D. Harris Jr. and Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian effectively declared
Bush missing from duty.
In Bush's annual efficiency report, dated May 2, 1973,
the two supervising pilots did not rate Bush for the prior year, writing, 'Lt. Bush has
not been observed at this unit during the period of report. A civilian occupation made it
necessary for him to move to Montgomery, Alabama. He cleared this base on 15 May 1972 and
has been performing equivalent training in a non-flying status with the 187 Tac Recon Gp,
Dannelly ANG Base, Alabama.' Asked about that declaration, campaign spokesman Bartlett
said Bush told him that since he was no longer flying, he was doing 'odds and ends' under
different supervisors whose names he could not recall. But retired colonel Martin, the
unit's former administrative officer, said he too thought Bush had been in Alabama for
that entire year. Harris and Killian, he said, would have known if Bush returned to duty
at Ellington. And Bush, in his autobiography, identifies the late colonel Killian as a
friend, making it even more likely that Killian knew where Bush was.
Lieutenant Bush, to be sure, had gone off flying status
when he went to Alabama. But had he returned to his unit in November 1972, there would
have been no barrier to him flying again, except passing a flight physical. Although the
F-102 was being phased out, his unit's records show that Guard pilots logged thousands of
hours in the F-102 in 1973. During his search, Lloyd said, the only other paperwork he
discovered was a single torn page bearing Bush's social security number and numbers
awarding some points for Guard duty. But the partial page is undated. If it represents the
year in question, it leaves unexplained why Bush's two superior officers would have
declared him absent for the full year.
There is no doubt that Bush was in Houston in late 1972
and early 1973. During that period, according to Bush's autobiography, he held a civilian
job working for an inner-city, antipoverty program in the city. Lloyd, who has studied the
records extensively, said he is an admirer of the governor and believes ''the governor
honestly served his country and fulfilled his commitment.' But Lloyd said it is possible
that since Bush had his sights set on discharge and the unit was beginning to replace the
F-102s, Bush's superiors told him he was not 'in the flow chart. Maybe George Bush took
that as a signal and said, "Hell, I'm not going to bother going to drills."
'Well, then it comes rating time, and someone says, "Oh...he hasn't fulfilled his
obligation." I'll bet someone called him up and said, "George, you're in a
pickle. Get your ass down here and perform some duty." And he did,' Lloyd said. That
would explain, Lloyd said, the records showing Bush cramming so many drills into May,
June, and July 1973. During those three months, Bush spent 36 days on duty."
[Robinson, Boston Globe, 5/23/00]
WBZ/CBS News: Bush Served Only Four Years Of A Six-Year Commitment To The National Guard:
"Questions are being raised tonight about George W. Bush's military service to his
country. The Boston Globe reports Bush signed up for a six-year commitment to the Houston
Air National Guard in 1968, but reporter Walter Robinson writes Bush served little more
than four years. The governor in his own autobiography said he flew with his unit for
several years after he finished flight training. In fact, the
records show he only flew for 22 months, and then gave up flight status and didn't show up
for drills for about a year.... He served a little more than
four, and he was released early. Now, when asked about the 12-month lapse, a Bush campaign
spokesperson says the candidate does not remember whether his service was on a consistent
basis." [Boston, WBZ/CBS News, 5/22/00]
Major Lie # 3
Dubya's atomic fib - Instead of stopping an
arms race, George W. Bush's Star Wars plan could help fuel one.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Joshua Micah Marshall
June 9, 2000 | WASHINGTON -- Sometimes, lies just don't come in clean, fact-checkable
sound bites. Instead, they come from a willfully misleading statement or a deceptively
faulty premise that, stripped clean of its fancy dressing, resembles nothing more than a
simple fib. Which brings us to the now hotly debated topic of whether or not the United
States should deploy a so-called national missile defense.
On May 23, George W. Bush announced that he, in line with most other Republicans, supports
the deployment of a robust national missile defense. As everyone agrees, what the governor
proposes is quite different from the type of missile defense program the Clinton
administration is considering.
Clinton proposes a limited system designed to shoot down,
at most, a handful of missiles launched from so-called "rogue states" like North
Korea, Iran or Iraq. The projected price tag for this is $60 billion. Bush, on the other
hand, calls for a far more ambitious and (it is only fair to say) almost incalculably more
expensive blanket missile shield that would protect all 50 states from an all-out nuclear
attack presumably from a major nuclear power.
Bush first made the announcement a few weeks ago, and has recently elaborated on it, with
three clear intentions: first, to soothe any doubts about his foreign policy expertise;
second, to inspire traditionally Republican voters who positively swoon at the thought of
erecting a missile defense; and, third, to reassure middle-of-the-road voters that his
plan is not a move toward confrontation but rather a step in the direction of further
disarmament and reduced nuclear confrontation.
A tall order. To do this Bush made three additional proposals, which seemed to cast the
idea of missile defense in a wholly new light. Bush said he would 1) extend his missile
shield to include America's European allies; 2) unilaterally reduce the number of U.S.
nuclear warheads and invite the Russians to do the same; and 3) "remove as many
weapons as possible from high-alert, hair-trigger status," and invite the Russians to
do the same. (Yeah - Sure!!! - The Russians
are really going to reduce the numbers of warheads they have when they see our actions as
weakness and launch their ICBM's at our defenseless cities because it will take a minimum
of ten years to develop a program as Bush describes!!!)
Does this sound very reassuring? Bush, like all
modern politicians is trying to pitch ideas which have the most appeal to a variety of
different constituencies with very divergent views.
But wait a minute. What you wouldn't know from Bush's statement is that our European
allies haven't asked to be included within the U.S. missile defense system. Actually, they
are mounting a vociferous campaign to persuade us not to deploy even the limited missile
defense plan the Clinton administration proposes. In fact, few issues unite the Europeans
more than their opposition to our missile defense plans.
Then there's the matter of coupling missile defense with further reductions in American
and Russian nuclear arsenals. What the Russians (and the Chinese, for that matter) fear
about an American missile defense program is that it will make us invulnerable to their
missiles. Thus, as they've repeatedly told us, their logical reaction will be for them
(especially the Chinese) to increase their stockpile of weapons in order to overwhelm our
defenses. (In fact, one of the main points made by missile defense opponents is that it
will prompt the Chinese to vastly expand their own nuclear arsenal, which currently
contains roughly two dozen missiles.) No one thinks they will reduce them further.
Similarly, the likelihood of removing missiles from their "high-alert, hair-trigger
status" seems low. Facing an American missile defense would almost unquestionably
make the Chinese and Russians want to keep their nuclear arsenals on just such a
"high-alert, hair-trigger" status. If they won't, it's tough to imagine that the
Pentagon will.
There surely is a consistent, honest argument for a
national missile defense. Proponents argue that it will free the United States from
depending on arms control agreements, which of course come only after relentlessly
frustrating negotiations. After all, if missile defense really works, it won't
matter what these other countries do since their missiles can't hit us.
So what's going on here? Doesn't Bush know the Europeans are against the whole idea of a
missile defense? Doesn't he know that a robust missile defense will likely make it
difficult to make further reductions to nuclear stockpiles?
It's possible Bush doesn't grasp any of this. But his advisors do. And they know full well
that the Bush proposal -- well-tailored for domestic political consumption -- is premised
on a series of dubious or simply improbable scenarios and is, therefore, at best a
deception and at worst, a LIE.
Bush and big oil - Did George W. Bush get
it wrong when he blamed high gas prices on OPEC?
Major Lie # 4 -
June 23, 2000 | Both Al Gore and George W. Bush are pointing fingers at each other,
blaming the other, or his political allies, for the price of super-unleaded gasoline
hitting $2.50 per gallon in Chicago. Gore has attacked the oil companies and, naturally,
gone out of his way to point out that Bush is a former oilman who is kowtowing to his
buddies in the oil industry.
"He's doing everything he can to take the heat off his close friends in the oil
industry," said Gore spokesman Doug Hattaway. "He's a Texas oil man through and
through and is joined at the hip with big oil."
Bush and other Republicans, meanwhile, are blaming Gore, OPEC and environmentalists.
Specifically, Bush blames Gore and the Clinton administration for mishandling OPEC, which
controls the majority of the world's oil supply. OPEC sets limits on how much oil it will
produce, which affects the price of oil worldwide. Bush says that the Clinton
administration should be cashing in chits the United States earned during the Gulf War to
convince our oil-producing allies like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to advocate for higher OPEC
thresholds.
"The administration should be working to get our friends in OPEC to increase their
oil production," Bush said Wednesday. "That's what diplomacy is all about. It's
called earning capital in the foreign arena."
But Thursday, for the second time in three months, our buddies in the Middle East did just
that. OPEC agreed to boost output by 708,000 barrels a day.
And industry analysts said the increase would have no effect on the price Americans pay at
the pump.
Bush's charges that OPEC can solve the problem were also roundly refuted by industry
analysts. The Associated Press reported Thursday OPEC's decision would do "almost
nothing" to offer relief at the gas pump for American drivers. "Throwing crude
oil at the gasoline problem in the U.S. is not going to solve it, Leo Drollas, chief
economist for the London-based Centre for Global Energy Studies, told the AP.
"Refineries are already producing as fast as they can to meet existing demand."
So by blaming the administration's relationship to OPEC, was Bush falsely informed, or
just spinning a falsehood?
When asked about this apparent mistake, Bush spokesman Scott McClellan only expanded
Bush's criticism. "But the governor's point is that we need a president to convince
OPEC to open up their spigots and we need to reduce dependency on foreign crude,"
McClellan said. "Again, Al Gore is doing everything he can to mask his
administration's failed leadership on this issue. He takes credit for the current economic
prosperity, but refuses to shoulder any responsibility."
Hattaway did concede that "OPEC has been part of the problem," but pointed to
today's actions and comments from analysts to show that the bulk of the blame belongs on
the shoulders of the oil companies.
Obviously, we're going to see more of this to come: Gore pegs Bush for running as
oilman-in-chief waiting to gouge the American gas consumer, while Bush criticizes Gore for
lacking the leadership to find his way out of a cardboard box. All that is well and good,
but it seems on this one specific -- and significant point this week -- Bush was wrong,
and willfully promulgated the deceptively faulty premise that a quick call to our
"friends at OPEC," could have solved this problem. It didn't, and
couldn't. That's Lie # 4 Mr. Bush.
Whose lie is it, anyway?
Major Lie Lie #5 - June 30, 2000 | WASHINGTON -- At the height of a campaign swing in which
Gov. George W. Bush proposed a sweeping "New Freedom Initiative" to benefit
people with disabilities, the campaign of Vice President Al Gore was rude enough to say
that Bush's Texas record on disabilities was wanting. And the Bush people got PO'ed pretty
quick.
What had Gore said?
That "Bush fought against a U.S. Supreme Court decision favoring people with
disabilities who want to live in their own communities rather than institutions."
That "protesters in wheelchairs demonstrated outside Bush's mansion against his
support of Texas Attorney General John Cornyn's position" on the Supreme Court case
Olmstead vs. L.C., in which the state of Georgia was sued by two disabled women who wanted
to live in communities rather than in an institution.
The Gore campaign also noted that in February 1999, "fifteen protesters, most in
wheelchairs, were arrested for trespassing as they protested Texas' decision" to side
with Georgia in the case.
Harsh rhetoric indeed against a man who had spent the week declaring that "Our goal
now is clear: to remove the last barriers to full and independent lives for all Americans
with disabilities." The Gore camp charged that just over a year ago, Bush was
fighting to keep barriers for two disabled women to have full and independent lives.
So on Wednesday, Team Bush sent out a press release hammering Gore for having
"blatantly misrepresented Governor Bush's record on improving access and independence
for Texans with disabilities."
Gore was just lying again, the Bush campaign said. "Texas is recognized as a leader
in responding to the Supreme Court decision. ... Shortly after the Supreme Court ruled on
the Olmstead case, Governor Bush gave an executive order explicitly calling for a review
of the Texas system in light of the Supreme Court ruling and changes to comply with the
ruling."
So which is it? Bush's father, President George Bush, was a leader in the fight for the
groundbreaking Americans with Disabilities Act, after all. Surely this was another example
of Gore's shaky alliance with the truth.
Not so fast. For one thing, the Bushies don't deny Gore's claim that their man supported
his attorney general's decision to file a brief siding with the state of Georgia -- and
against disability rights advocates -- in the Olmstead decision.
Nor are the Bushies disputing that 15 protesters -- most of whom were in wheelchairs --
were arrested outside the back gates of the Governor's mansion, where they'd congregated
to protest what the disability rights organization ADAPT called "the intent of the
state to keep people with disabilities warehoused in nursing homes and other institutions
-- against their will."
According to Clay Robison, the Houston Chronicle's Austin bureau chief, "the
demonstrators hardly posed a threat to public safety, much less to the governor, who
wasn't even home at the time. But they had ignored officers' orders to clear the
exit." So they were arrested, many of them spilling from their wheelchairs.
Bush's response at the time? "They criminally trespassed. They were given due
warning."
So if the Bushies don't deny any of these facts, what was the Gore camp lying about? Maybe
they were hoping that no one would read past the headline on their press release.
Because here, Bush was lying about what Gore was accusing
him of. More than that, Bush was lying about his own record -- which is understandable,
considering what his record is.
It's hard to imagine any candidate would want to own up to disabled protesters spilling
out of their wheelchairs in his backyard as his security force arrests them, after all.
It's not a shot you'll see in a campaign brochure anytime soon.
Bush says he's a champion of children in Texas.
Roughly 200,000 of them might disagree.
Major Lie # 6 -
July 7, 2000 | CHIPs, the State Child Health Insurance Program, is a program that was
passed with bipartisan support in 1997 and that aimed to provide coverage for children
whose parents couldn't afford private insurance but made too much money to
qualify for Medicaid.
In Bush's press release it says: "When the CHIPs program was first implemented,
Governor Bush embraced it as an opportunity to help deliver health coverage to thousands
of uninsured children, and signed legislation providing health insurance for more than
423,000 children."
Well, not exactly. Bush, who while campaigning loves to promise crowds that "we'll
love the babies," did eventually "sign" a bill that provided health
insurance to roughly that number of kids. That’s not the whole story.
First, a few details: The CHIPs program involves a mixture of federal and state money. The
federal government will pay for health coverage for children whose parents make up to
double what is considered the poverty line as long as the state agrees to foot a portion
of the bill (in Texas' case, 26 percent of the tab). A number of Republican governors have
eagerly
embraced the program, most notably John Engler in Michigan, John Rowland in Connecticut,
Christie Todd Whitman in New Jersey and George Pataki in New York.
But in healthcare policy circles, Bush has actually been rather notorious for trying to
make sure the program covers as few kids as possible. Though the program allowed states to
insure kids at up to double the poverty line -- or 200 percent -- Bush first tried to
limit coverage to kids whose parents made up to 133 percent of the poverty line, later
agreeing to bump it up to 150 percent. Bush fought tooth and nail with the state
legislature to keep coverage to 150 percent, rather than the more generous 200 percent. In
human terms, this meant denying coverage to roughly 200,000 Texas children. The
legislature eventually won, and Bush signed the bill. But Bush fought it every step of the
way.
So, signed it? Yes. But "embraced" it? Well, that sounds like a bit of a
stretch. Doesn't it?
To clarify matters according to Bush's press spokesman who covers healthcare policy
matters, the charge that Bush tried to lowball the CHIPs program and keep coverage at 150
percent is just a misleading "snapshot" of the legislative process. Bush
followed the lead of
the legislature's Interim Committee on Children's Health Insurance, which recommended
starting with coverage at 150 percent, and then later eagerly signed the bill when the
full
legislature decided to go with 200 percent. The key point in Bartlett's version of events
is that Bush was basically just following the lead of the interim committee.
That's not how Texas state Rep. Glen Maxey sees it. Maxey, a Democrat, has worked closely
on the CHIPs issue in Texas and was on that interim committee. Maxey calls Bartlett's
version of events a "blatant outright lie, a Texas tall tale." The committee
never recommended the 150 percent coverage level. Not only did Bush push hard for the
lower coverage number, he also slow-rolled the process so that the program wouldn't get up
and running until roughly a year after it could have gone into effect.
"Out of the roughly 500,000 who the program should cover, only 28,000 [have been
enrolled]. Other states have been up and running for a long time. We're turning back money
to the
federal government," he says. (Maxey also notes that one of the reasons Bush resisted
the program so mightily was that the enrollment process could lead to something called
"Medicaid spillover." That means that in the process of signing up for CHIPs,
some parents might discover they were actually eligible for Medicaid. The last thing
candidate Bush wants is rising Medicaid rolls in Texas while he's running for president.)
The bottom line seems to be that Bush worked pretty hard to cover as few kids as possible
under the CHIPs program. To say that he "embraced [the program] as an opportunity to
help
deliver health coverage to thousands of uninsured children" isn't just a stretch.
It’s lie # 6.
Trigger finger Bush slams Clinton for a weak
military. The military begs to differ.
Major Lie # 7 -
August 7, 2000 By Joshua Micah Marshall | "If called on by the commander in
chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report, 'Not ready for duty,
sir.'" -- Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush, Aug. 3, 2000
One of the primary pillars of Bush's campaign is his contention that the Clinton-Gore
administration has let military readiness and morale dip to dangerously low levels.
Over the course of the Republican Convention, a number of
speakers made charges about Clinton administration defense policy that were deceptive at
best. For instance, retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf cited the fact that "6,300
military families are now eligible for food stamps" as a sign of administration
neglect. He neglected to mention that many more were eligible for food stamps during the
Gulf War in 1990. He also asserted that "as of 1999, the
number of fighting Army divisions ready for war had shrunk to less than half of what they
were before Desert Storm." He failed to note that this was a result not of Clinton
administration neglect but of the post-Cold War military restructuring that was organized
by two men you may also have heard bashing the Clinton administration's defense policies
last week: Dick Cheney and Colin Powell.
Both of Schwarzkopf's statements were stingy with the truth, but not exactly what you
could call lies.
Bush took all this a step further when he told the convention audience that two divisions
were currently "not ready for duty." As a factual matter, the statement is
false, as the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Hugh Shelton, was at
pains to point out the following day.
Last October the commanders of the 1st Infantry Division and the 10th Mountain Division
did temporarily downgrade their divisions' readiness. But Bush was guilty of more than
being off by a few months. His clear intent was to create an image of jeeps with fenders
dangling, tanks and helicopters ground to a halt for a lack of spare parts and so forth.
But the reason those two divisions had their readiness downgraded was not because they
were unfit for duty or lacked equipment. It was because portions of each division were on
peacekeeping duty in Bosnia and Kosovo. The military's definition of readiness has to do
with a particular division's ability to go into combat immediately in the hypothetical
case of two major theater conflicts breaking out simultaneously. The commanders doubted
their ability to quickly extricate their troops from their positions in the Balkans.
Bush compounded the problem by refusing to come clean after Shelton made his remarks. In
an interview, Bush told CNN: "Last November, there was a report that said two
divisions
were not ready for combat. If the Army, in fact, changes its tune from that report ...
then they need to let the country know. I am amazed that they would put out a
statement right after our
convention. I'm curious why it took them this long to say they were combat-ready after a
report last November said they weren't."
This kind of answer approaches the "It depends on what the definition of 'is'
is" category. The Army didn't "change its tune"; Bush just got his facts
wrong. And he would have done well to admit it.
The fact that even a temporary downgrading of military readiness was caused by the Kosovo
and Bosnia operations does point up a very legitimate defense policy issue: While America
no longer faces a large-scale threat like the Soviet Union, its downsized military has
been called into action repeatedly for various peacekeeping duties. In a sense, it's doing
more with less. That's a real issue -- a fact the administration has implicitly conceded
by calling for increased military spending in the current budget.
Bush has every right to take up this issue. But the question of military readiness is
about more than troop strength and spare parts. It's also about credibility, specifically
the president's credibility. And for Bush, playing fast and loose with the facts is not a
good start. Results? We have Lie #7
Major Dirty Trick and Lie # 8. There are growing signs of disgust with Dubya. One of his
money-bags, Texas speculator Sam Wyly, has come under major media attack, for running $2.5
million in illegal campaign ads in New York, attacking McCain for not being enough of a
greenie. Not only is Wyly one of the Bush campaign ``Pioneers''--i.e., someone who raised
at least $100,000 for Dubya's Presidential effort. Wyly was the recipient of tens of
millions of dollars from the University of Texas endowment, after Bush privatized the
$13-billion fund and put it in the hands of Tom Hicks, the man who made Dubya a
millionaire by buying the Texas Rangers baseball team from Bush and company at an inflated
price.
When confronted on TV on Sunday over Wyly's ad campaign as a violation of campaign finance
laws, Dubya hit the roof, claiming it was a matter of ``first amendment rights'' for Wyly
to do what he pleases. Dirty Trick and Lie # 8. For two days in a row, Rupert Murdoch's London Times and Sunday
Times ran big features, highlighting FBI probes of some of the Bush linked financial
institutions, including the Carlisle Group, made up of half of George Sr.'s cabinet. An
article by Andrew Sullivan declared Bush unelectable, and the object of growing hatred
among American voters.
WHAT KIND OF STANDARD OF MORALITY DOES GEORGE FOLLOW? George has admitted to partying in his younger days, but
claims he quit drinking 12 years ago and has been "loyal to my wife." His
forthright demeanor cracked when a reporter from a New Hampshire TV station asked the
Governor if he had ever used drugs. "Marijuana? Cocaine?"
George admits that he had once drank too much, but
refused to discuss drugs. "I'm not going to talk about what I did as a child,"
he said. "What's relevant is that I have learned from any mistakes that I
made." But, what about mistakes he has allegedly made selling stocks just
nine years ago? See the Slick W page where we find out
about substantial alleged unethical practices and where he left investors high and dry,
ran off with the money and financed yet another money loser.
There is a rumor that a former love interest is
threatening to come forward and expose George Walker Bush as a philanderer and claim that
he has been somewhat less than candid about his extra marital affairs and drug use.
We will have to wait and see.
Speaking of his Marital Situation. George Dubya
Bush may also be guilty of trying to cover up the fact that his wife, while a teenager
caused a fatal accident which killed a classmate. In every other city in the US,
Mrs. Bush would have been charged and possibly convicted of manslaughter. BUT, not
in Midland texas. It was almost covered up. And when the facts began to see
the light of day, there was an effort on the part of the Bush Campaign to interfere with
attempts to uncover the facts of the case.
A newly released report blames the fatal '63 crash on
Laura Bush. The wife of Gov. George W. Bush was responsible for a traffic accident
that killed a high school classmate in Midland 37 years ago, according to a newly released
accident report.
Investigators said a 1963 Chevrolet driven by Mrs. Bush - then Laura Welch, a high school
senior - ran a stop sign and struck a Chevrolet Corvair driven by Michael Douglas.
Copies of the accident report - parts of which are illegible - were released Wednesday by
Midland City Attorney Keith Stretcher after state Attorney General John Cornyn held that
the information was public.
The Midland Reporter-Telegram reported at the time that Mr. Douglas, 17, died instantly
and that Mrs. Bush, also 17, and a friend riding with her were treated for minor injuries.
Both drivers were Robert E. Lee High School students.
Neither was drinking, and no citations were issued, according to the report. The accident
occurred just after 8 p.m. Nov. 6, 1963.
Andrew Malcolm, a spokesman for Mrs. Bush, said Wednesday that the accident "was very
painful for all involved and for the community, and to this day Mrs. Bush remains unable
to talk about it."
In an earlier interview, Mrs. Bush also described the accident as "very tragic."
"I was 17. . . . It was terrible for everyone involved," she previously told
reporters. "I know this as an adult, and even more as a parent, it was crushing . . .
for the family involved and for me as well."
Mr. Stretcher, the Midland city attorney, initially declined to release any information
about the accident on the grounds that it involved minors and therefore was exempt from
disclosure under the Texas Public Information Act. He also contended that disclosing the
information would violate the parties' privacy rights.
Mr. Cornyn rejected those arguments in a legal opinion issued Wednesday.
In his opinion, Mr. Cornyn said that in this instance the public's need to know outweighs
the parties' individual privacy interests. He also said the information is outside the
"zones of privacy" recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court, which generally are
limited to matters pertaining to marriage, procreation, contraception, family
relationships, child rearing and education.
According to the report, Mrs. Bush' car was traveling east on FM868 and Mr. Douglas was
headed south on State Highway 349 on the night of the accident. Mrs. Bush "did not
see [the] stop sign" or the other vehicle at the intersection, and her car struck the
right front of Mr. Douglas' car, officers said.
The road was dry and the weather clear at the time, police said. They were unable to
determine Mr. Douglas' speed, and their notation of how fast Mrs. Bush was traveling was
illegible.
Police listed two violations as contributing to the accident, both by Mrs. Bush. One
checked box read "disregard stop sign or light," and the other was illegible.
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 (recently elected in
Florida) are 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 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.)
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.
Most recently, 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.
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 has very powerful friends. 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.
The commission continued its investigation. So 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.
In the latest development, Bush himself has admitted that
he spoke with Waltrip and Rogers, but denies that it was anything 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 construction of this and other phrases for reporters -- such as
"When I was young and irresponsible, I was really young and irresponsible.", and
his evasion about whether Jews can go to heaven -- are incredibly similar to Bill
Clinton's weaseling about dope, the draft, what "is" is, etc.
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 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. A hearing is scheduled on August 30th
to determine if that is the case. Since he admitted in the press that he did meet with
Waltrip and Rogers, May has filed a contempt of court motion with the court as well.
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, 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.
Just like Dan Quayle and Steve Forbes, two other
politically-connected rich kids, Bush Junior joined his home state's National Guard. It's
not clear how he got past the waiting list, but his dad was a U.S. Congressman at the
time, and his grandfather was a famous U.S. Senator.
Instead of going to Vietnam, he flew cool jet planes
around Texas, valiantly defending us against the Mexican air force. His political
connections got him a sweet deal -- they not only got him into the National Guard, and got
him the last (rare) training slot for pilots despite the fact that he scored the lowest
allowable score - 25/100 - on a pilot's aptitude test, but he was assigned to fly an older
plane (the F102) which was being phased out at the time, which meant that he had no chance
at all of going to Vietnam.
On this issue, too, Bush has weaseled in a manner eerily
reminiscent of Bill Clinton. He claims that he joined the guard to fly planes, just like
his dad. But George Bush, Senior, a genuine war hero, joined the Navy, not the National
Guard. Both the Navy and Air Force had plenty of openings when Bush Jr. joined, but he
chose the stateside Guard. Furthermore, his enlistment form had a check box to indicate
whether you volunteered to go the Vietnam or not. His was checked NO, but now he claims
that the clerks there often filled that part out and checked NO for you. Once he joined,
Bush was promoted to First Lieutenant in just 4 months, a very short time, and was given
several months off to work on a political campaign. He was also released 6 months early to
work on another campaign.
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 recently sold 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.
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, 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 and had several ties to the infamous BCCI bank. 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.
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 recently sold his stake for $14 million to a Texas millionaire
with lots of businesses regulated by Bush Junior's 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 recently 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.
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.
Sex: 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."
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 new 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 Steak 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.
The Bush Watch (web site), an opinionated,
well-researched and reasonably fair (though blatantly liberal) anti-Bush site. http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3750/bush.htm
"The Sons Also
Rise", by Evan Thomas, Newsweek, November 16, 1998 p44-8
"Like Most, I'm
Amazed" (Bush interview with Howard Fineman), Newsweek, November 16, 1998
"Another Bush Contemplates Run for Presidency",
by Sue Anne Pressley (Washington Post news service), San Francisco Chronicle, May 12, 1997
pA5
"The Bush Brothers", by Howard Fineman,
Newsweek, November 2, 1998 p30-33
NEXT SEE WHAT GEORGE BUSH IS HIDING
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