Bush Clan Full Of Black Sheep
     Harley Sorensen, Special to SF Gate
     Monday, July 22, 2002
     ©2002 SF Gate

     President Bush is one tough cookie. He doesn't take any crap. Listen to his words: "We aim for a simple,
     uncompromising position: Throw the crooks in jail! We will not rest until the cheats and the chiselers and the
     charlatans spend a large part of their lives behind the bars of a federal prison."

     Yep, on June 22, 1990, that was our man, President George H. W. Bush, 41st president of the United States and
     father of our current president.

     As luck would have it, none of the cheats and chiselers and charlatans of the 1990s federal savings and loan
     rip-offs spent a large part of their lives behind bars -- not even the president's son, Neil, who was one of those
     cheats, chiselers and charlatans.

     Neil Bush did get his wrist slapped, and was fined, for his part in the billion-dollar-plus Silverado Savings and
     Loan scam in Colorado Springs, Colo., but he never accepted any responsibility for the financial disaster, which
     taxpayers are still footing the bill for.

     Bush blamed his problems on the Democrats. There might be some justification for that. Had Bush been named
     Smith, he might have been able to pull off his little scams anonymously, but his father's political opponents made
     sure the beacon of truth shined brightly upon him.

     Others, equally as guilty as Neil Bush -- or even more so -- walked away free as birds, notwithstanding George
     Bush's tough talk.

     When it comes to crime without punishment, the Bush clan is right up there with the Kennedys. The Bushes are
     like both branches of the Kallikak family combined into one.

     (The Kallikaks, for the uninitiated, were a family whose members became the subject of an early study into the
     link between "feeble-mindedness" and heredity. There was a "good" side to the family, and a "bad" side. The
     "good" side was filled with socially successful people, the "bad," with criminals and imbeciles.)

     All accounts of the Bush family tree seem to start with Prescott Bush, father of George (H.W.), grandfather of
     George (W.) and great-grandfather of George (Prescott, Jeb's son). You may already notice the resemblance
     with the Kallikaks.

     Prescott Bush was a banker and businessman who became a U.S. senator. He's the one who discovered that
     there's big money to be made by mixing business with politics.

     Some nasty people on the Internet like to refer to Prescott as "Hitler's Banker," but that title, shared by many,
     doesn't really apply to Prescott.

     Prescott was, however, a director of the Union Banking Corp., which did do business with Nazi Germany --
     before America's entry into World War II, and for a brief while afterward. That arrangement ended in 1942 only
     when the federal government seized the bank's capital stock under the Trading with the Enemy Act.

     In most mainstream writings about Prescott Bush, he is held up as a conservative and careful man. One of my
     Frogtown correspondents has a different view of him, however. Here's what he wrote in an e-mail last week:

     "A friend of mine grew up in Hartford, CT, in the '40s and '50s, and used to work as a bellboy at the Hartford
     Athletic Club, where P. Bush was a member. Bush was a drunk and a cheap tipper, so none of the bellboys liked
     him. So when he was drunk and riding the elevator, the bellboy running the elevator would stop the car about 12
     inches too high, and when Mr. Bush disembarked, he would fall on his face, and be too drunk to remember it
     later."

     Prescott's urge to drink himself into oblivion seems to have worked it way through the family. George W. admits
     to a onetime problem with alcohol and has a drunk-driving record, his twin daughters have each been busted at
     least twice for alcohol-related offenses and Jeb Bush's daughter is in trouble for drug-related offenses. That
     daughter, who clearly needs help, has racked up seven speeding tickets and three accidents since 1995.

     Another Bush family member, a male and a juvenile at the time, got caught half-naked by security guards in a Jeep
     Cherokee in a Tallahassee Mall parking lot. The juvenile girl with him was in the same state of undress.

     That's no big deal nowadays, but it's another example of the difficulty the Bushes have keeping their names off the
     police blotter.

     And, lest we forget, in June 1999 it was Columba Bush's turn. When Jeb's wife returned to Atlanta from a trip to
     Paris, she somehow overlooked $19,000 worth of clothing and jewelry she was supposed to declare to U.S.
     Customs officials.

     And the beat goes on. My favorite Bush is the irrepressible Neil, he of Silverado S&L fame. His latest business,
     backed by people in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Japan and other equally logical places, is an Internet
     educational tool.

     His company is called Ignite!, with the exclamation mark. The $30-per-pupil product he's selling is actually quite
     good, they say. It uses modern attractions, such as animated cartoons and rap music, to teach.

     Neil Bush, who does not lack chutzpah, has been running around the country lately pushing Ignite! It's already in
     some school systems, and will soon be in more.

     Meanwhile, back in Washington, President George W. Bush, "the Education President," is seeking more federal
     money for our nation's underfunded public and private schools.
 
 

     Harley Sorensen is a longtime journalist and iconoclast. His column appears Mondays.
     E-mail him at harleysorensen@yahoo.com.

     ©2002 SF Gate