By Kevin Foley
Growing up on the wrong side of the tracks in New Canaan, Conn., I met guys like George W. Bush all the time when I was a teenager. They'd come into the gas station where I worked and sit in the BMW 2002s their dads bought them sniggering while I washed the windows.
These boys traveled in a world of privilege and promise, smugly confident that no matter how badly they screwed up, their family's wealth and connections would be there to rescue them. Their sense of personal entitlement was breathtaking; their sense of obligation, not so much.
That's not to say all wealthy young people I ran into back then were like this. Many understood the concept noblesse oblige, that to whom much is given, much is expected. They entered careers aimed at contributing to society, becoming doctors, researchers, ministers, professors and so forth.
No question George W. Bush traveled in the former crowd and is probably the best or worst example of the class, a smirking, not-so-loveable rogue who enjoyed wine, women and song on Poppy's tab until just 24 years ago when he turned 40, an age when most of us are pretty well settled into careers, communities and family life.
When Bush finally ventured out on his own the result was disastrous … not for him, but for the people who worked for and with him. Arbusto Energy, his failed oil exploration company, is a prime example of how Bush landed on his feet while many others were left in the west Texas dust. Another is when he bought into the Texas Rangers with $100,000 of his own money before magically cashing out for $14 million.
Now Bush treats Americans with very short memories to a memoir of his White House years. It's as if he legitimately won the office in 2000; as if he was intellectually and emotionally engaged in the life-or-death decisions he made during his eight years; as if he actually cared.
Bush is still smirking as though telling us, I set your house on fire now buy my book for $35 so you can read how I did it.
Like the goofballs back in New Canaan it was all breezy and easy for "Shrub" as the late Molly Ivins dubbed her fellow Texan. Regret Iraq? Nah.
"Removing Saddam from power was the right decision. …America is safer without a homicidal dictator pursuing WMD."
This statement would be laughable if it didn't so tragically and clearly demonstrate Bush's frat boy state of mind in the Oval Office. Saddam had no WMD. The U.N. inspectors told us so. Saddam was bottled up in his crappy little country, a secular pariah to Islamic terrorists and harmless except to his own people. Our intel told us so.
Saddam was taken out, but Kim Il Jong stayed?
Just before he launched his invasion, Bush's father sent him a note saying, "You know how tough war is, son…"
Sorry, Poppy, but protecting Houston from a Viet Cong air attack doesn't qualify as combat experience. Yet Bush blithely and unforgivably sent our boys to Iraq and more than 4,500 never came home. Many who did are maimed for life, physically, mentally or both.
But it was still the right call. For Bush's oil "bidness" buds.
Speaking of war, we learn Dick Cheney was angry with Bush when he refused to pardon his aide Scooter Libby for outing CIA operative Valarie Plame. "I can't believe you're going to leave a soldier on the battlefield," whined the grieved Veep.
Then there was Katrina, one of many low water marks for the Bush presidency. W's biggest concern? Appearances. The famous shot of the prez gawking at an inundated New Orleans from the comfort of Air Force One created a small perception problem.
As he told NBC's Matt Lauer: "I mean, I was the one who should have said: 'A) Don't take my picture, B) Let's land in Baton Rouge, La., C) Let's don't even come close to the area.'"
But instead, Americans got "D": "Brownie, you're doin' a heckuva job!" days into the catastrophe.
Full disclosure: I haven't read this pile of steaming tripe nor do I intend to. Or, as filmmaker Michael Moore told Keith Olbermann, "I'll read it when Bush does."
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Kevin
Foley is president of KEF
Media Associates, an Atlanta-based producer and distributor
of sponsored news content to television and radio media. |