The Relatively Charmed Life Of Neil Bush
Despite Silverado and Voodoo, Fortune Still Smiles on the President's Brother
By Peter Carlson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 28, 2003; Page D01
Ah, it's nice to be Neil Bush.
When you're Neil Bush, rich people from all over the world are eager to invest money
in your businesses, even though your businesses have a history of crashing and burning
in spectacular fashion.
When you're Neil Bush, you'll be
sitting in a hotel room in Thailand
or Hong Kong, minding your own
business, when suddenly there's a
knock at the door. You answer it
and a comely woman strolls in
and has sex with you.
Life sure is fun when you're Neil
Bush, son of one president,
brother of another.
Just how much fun was revealed
in a deposition taken last March,
during Bush's very nasty divorce
battle. Asked by his wife's
attorney whether he'd had any extramarital affairs, Bush told the story of his Asian
hotel room escapades.
"Mr. Bush," said the attorney, Marshall Davis Brown, "you have to admit that 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."
"It was very unusual," Bush replied.
Actually, it wasn't that unusual. It happened at least three or four times during Bush's
business trips to Asia, he said: "I don't remember the exact number."
"Were they prostitutes?" asked Brown.
"I don't -- I don't know," Neil replied.
"Did you pay them?"
"No."
Not surprisingly, the revelation made headlines around the world. Equally
unsurprisingly, the sex story overshadowed the curious financial revelations that came
out in the same deposition.
In 2002, for instance, Bush signed a consulting contract with Grace Semiconductor -- a
Shanghai-based company managed in part by the son of former Chinese president
Jiang Zemin. Bush's contractual duties consist solely of attending board meetings and
discussing "business strategies." For this, he is to be paid $2 million in company stock
over five years, plus $10,000 for every board meeting he attends.
"Now, you have absolutely no educational background in semiconductors, do you Mr.
Bush?" Brown asked.
"That's correct," Bush responded.
Meanwhile, back home in Texas, Bush serves as co-chairman of a company called
Crest Investment. Crest, he revealed in the deposition, pays him $60,000 a year to
provide "miscellaneous consulting services."
"Such as?" Brown asked.
"Such as answering phone calls when Jamal Daniel, the other co-chairman, called and
asked for advice," Bush replied.
Ah, it's nice to be Neil Bush, who seems to be living the lifestyle immortalized in those
famous Dire Straits lyrics: "Money for nothin' and chicks for free."
Unique, Relatively Speaking
Neil Bush is the latest manifestation of a long tradition in American life -- the
president's embarrassing relative.
There was Sam Houston Johnson, who used to get drunk and start blabbing to the
press until his brother, Lyndon, sicced the Secret Service on him.
And Donald Nixon, who dreamed of founding a fast-food chain called Nixonburgers
and who accepted, but never repaid, a $200,000 loan from billionaire Howard Hughes.
His brother, Dick, had the Secret Service tap his phone.
And Billy Carter, who drank prodigious quantities of beer, authored a book called
"Redneck Power" and took $200,000 from the government of Libya.
And Roger Clinton, a party animal who spent a year in prison for cocaine dealing and
who later appeared in a movie called "Pumpkinhead II" playing a pol called Mayor
Bubba.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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