W

From a rock flipped over somewhere in Texas, George W. Bush has slithered out to stump for his brother in South Carolina. In truth, W’s skin color does not look as hardy and robust as it did when he was in the White House. It looks like “pursuing his muse” has not exposed W to as much sun as he received while holding down the job of, “most important man in the world”.

Now that W is a common citizen, his handlers are not guiding him to outdoor activities as they did while he was President. I suspected all along that someone was keeping W busy during the day while they did the real work behind the scenes. While President, Bush would come home from a hundred mile bike ride feeling tired, and think that he’d put in a hard day at the office. I’m sure it was much easier for Dick Cheney and Karl Rove to run the country by insisting that W keep up with his fitness.

When talking about W, there are so many periods of his life that you could start with, to point out the true nature of his character. The “Texan” was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the home of Yale University. He would later attend Yale. One suspects the fact that his daddy was a legacy played an important part of W’s admission. Although W attended public schools in Texas as a youth, which typically rank in the bottom third nationally, he was able to secure an opening to the exclusive Phillips Academy. It seems there was some “prep” work needed before his matriculation at Yale. While at Yale, W was president of his fraternity, and a member of “Skull and Bones”. It kind of puts me in mind of Otter from Animal House being a CIA agent. Maybe it’s more like Jethro from the “Beverly Hillbillies” being a “double naught” spy.

W’s fine education didn’t seem to prepare him for real life, unless you consider what “real life” was for W. There was always big money available to bail him out of his assorted business failures. Even money to buy into the Texas Rangers baseball team. Money to merge his failed oil company to a bigger player, who then made W chairman of the board. An oil company who would later get almost exclusive offshore drilling rights in Behrain, although W’s company had never done any offshore drilling. The year was 1990, and one George Herbert Walker Bush was President. Coincidence? Please, there are no coincidences.

There are however, people like W, who have had the road paved with gold for them since birth. As Ann Richards once said, “Poor George Bush, he was born on third base, and thinks he hit a triple”. In what appears to be the only “real” job that Bush has had, Air Force pilot, he repeatedly chose to follow his own path, rather than the prescribed military procedures. It is hard to over look the fact that there were a few hundred thousand American GI’s during this period, who would have traded their souls for W’s “gift” military assignment. These GI’s would have given anything to swap their place in the jungles of South East Asia for a cushy Air National Guard job protecting the U.S. from invasion from Mexico.

As good as W had it, he was oblivious to his good fortune. In 1972, W was suspended from flying for failing to take a required physical exam. There is talk that W’s blood work would not have been favorable to a combat pilot, much less to the son of the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and a former congressman. W was honorably discharged from the Air Force Reserve in 1974, in spite of his spotty record for attendance. Apparently honorable discharges are easy to get if your daddy and granddaddy know the right people.