ClosedLoopCronyism
Bushtopia
Sometimes we can't help but wonder if the term 'neocon' should, perhaps, be changed to neo'crone'.
Case in point - the latest act of kindness and generosity from the Bush family matriarch:
Former first lady Barbara Bush donated an undisclosed amount of money to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund with specific instructions that the money be spent with an educational software company (called 'Ignite!', note the Yahoo-like exclamation point which we are absolutely certain is absolutely unintentional) owned by her son Neil.
Since then, the Ignite Learning program has been given to eight area schools that took in substantial numbers of Hurricane Katrina evacuees.
You may remember that Mrs Bush has already demonstrated her extreme empathy for those refugees of Hurricane Katrina that managed to escape the FEMA-assisted prison at the New Orleans SuperDome and make their way down the gulf coast to Houston:
“What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they (the refugees, many with a different colour skin than Mrs. Bush) all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.”
Now, Neil 'Silverado' Bush may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, and his Mom may not be a true crone, at least not to him, but that does not mean that the middle-of-the-pack Bush boy is not himself a crony:
One investor (in Ignite) is Winston Wong, a second-generation Taiwanese semiconductor tycoon who recently founded Shanghai Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation with the son of Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Last December Neil Bush visited Beijing to share dinner with Jiang Zemin and meet with political heavyweights like Wu Jichuan, China's minister of the information industry.
According to the New York Times, Bush negotiated with the education minister of the United Arab Emirates to introduce Ignite's software to the emirate's schools.
Hamza El Khouli, an associate of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and chairman of First Arabian Development and Investment Company, not only invested with Ignite, he also hosted Bush, his family and Ingite's CEO Kenneth Leonard on the Red Sea last March.
Of course, some of Ignite's investors are closer to home. There's Tim Bridgewater, a top Bush fundraiser, who co-founded Interlink Management with Neil Bush in 1994. Les and Anne Csorba are also Bush contributors and worked in the first Bush White House in the White House Personnel Office and the Office of Personnel Management, respectively. And former President Bush and Barbara Bush have even chipped in, too.
And how's that for a closed loop - from Texas.... to Taiwan.... to China.... to Egypt... to the good 'ol UAE... and all the way back to Texas, and Babs herself again. Whooeeee!
Which is not to say that it's all business, all the time for the now footloose and fancy-free Mr. Bush. By way of example, check out some of the perks that apparently came his way due to a spate of reciprocal cronyism involving the above-mentioned Taiwanese semiconductor tycoon Mr. Wong:
HOUSTON, Texas (Reuters, Nov 2003) -- Neil Bush, younger brother of President Bush, detailed lucrative business deals and admitted to engaging in sex romps with women in Asia in a deposition taken in March as part of his divorce from now ex-wife Sharon Bush.
According to legal documents disclosed Tuesday, Sharon Bush's lawyers questioned Neil Bush closely about the deals, especially a contract with Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., a firm backed by Jiang Mianheng, the son of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, that would pay him $2 million in stock over five years.........snip.........
Bush, who inked the Grace deal in August 2002, said he had not yet received any stock from the company, which built a plant in Shanghai that began production in September. He is supposed to consult for the company and be on the board of directors, he said.
He said he joined the Grace board at the request of Winston Wong, a co-founder of the company and the son of Wang Yung-ching, the chairman of Taiwan's largest business group, Formosa Plastics Corp. Bush never mentioned Jiang Mianheng in the deposition.
Wong, he said, also is an investor in his latest venture, Ignite!, an Austin, Texas, educational software firm.
.....snip.....The Bush divorce, completed in April after 23 years of marriage, was prompted in part by Bush's relationship with another woman. He admitted in the deposition that he previously had sex with several other women while on trips to Thailand and Hong Kong at least five years ago.
The women, he said, simply knocked on the door of his hotel room, entered and had sex with him. He said he did not know if they were prostitutes because they never asked for money and he did not pay them.
"Mr. Bush, you have to admit it's a pretty remarkable thing for a man just to go to a hotel room door and open it and have a woman standing there and have sex with her," Brown said.
"It was very unusual," Bush said.
Yes, it was unusual Mr. Bush.
Indeed.
But, given the family values, or lack thereof, involved, we can only wonder - what did your Mom think?
_____
Note: All comments in parentheses, above, are ours.
Heredity Graphic: Courtesy the very fine Ignite! Learning Program 'Media' site which plays a pared-down, post DEVO-inspired, not-quite 'Schoolhouse Rock' bubblegum pop ditty about 'Heredity' that begins with the lyric "Oh, why do I look like my Mom and my Dad?..... The answer's in my DNA." Now, with absolutely amazing content like that we can see why the educational movers and shakers from the United Arab Emirates are lining up to get the product into their classrooms, but it does leave us wondering how the base feels about the fact that Mr. Bush's company's take on heredity is helping those evil promulgators of heresy at the National Center For Science Education spread their vile and viscious fact-based truths and consequences.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment