(ot-politics) You gotta read the article on George W. by Lars-Erik Nelson in the Feb. 24, 2000 issue of The New York Review of Books. Nelson reviews W's (ghost-written) autobiography and three biographies of W.
Makes the case that, despite his meritocratic pretensions and political positions, W. is an aristocrat of distinctly mediocre abilities, who has had just about everything handed to him--who, whether it was admission to Andover, Yale, the National Guard (vs. Vietnam), promotion to officer-pilot in the Guard w/o officer's training, the oil bidness, the Texas Rangers, the governorship, you name it, would never have made it on his own without the constant behind-the-scenes help or frequent rescue efforts of powerful establishment friends of the family. Who, moreover, seems oblivious to how much help he's gotten and how little he has really achieved on his own.
"In his [Bush's] mind he is a superachiever. [...] He seems to have no sense that others have prepared the way for him, protected him, and picked up the pieces for him when he failed. As [...] Hightower said of Bush pere, "He was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple."
The article is pretty scathing but also seems well-supported and fairminded--points out Bush's strengths (energetic, friendly, not stupid (but intellectually lazy), noblesse oblige)--not a hatchet job.
The article contains some interesting comments on the oil busines in Texas back then:
Unlike his father, however, George W. Bush never found much oil. No matter; the domestic oil industry of the 1970's made much of its money by drilling holes in the tax code rather than in the ground. [...] His uncle Jonathan agreed that actually finding oil was not all that important. "In those days, it behooved you to drill" [...] "You didn't have to do terribly well in order to do well because you got so many write-offs. So it was an attractive way to invest money and save taxes." [...] Practically everything Bush turned to in the oil business turned to ashes, yet he always emerged unscathed, and, according to Mitchell, oblivious. "George W. never seemed to acknowledge adequately the role of the carpet-layers in his life," she writes.
If this o.t. political stuff is annoying you all, let me know and I'll stop. I did mention the oil business though. (g)
Thanks to Slider et al.: I snagged FST at 8 1/2 thanks to you. Also have XTO. Greatly appreciated. Hangin' on to a big chunk of KEG since $5. Man, that one purchase has rescued me from my bumbling losses in the patch. Sheer luck plus buy-and-hold approach paying off this time. Hope to do likewise with FST and XTO. I'm sticking to my plan of being two-thirds in tech, one-third in oil, or vice versa as Boom2000 kicks in. |
