-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:From: Robert Millegan [EMAIL PROTECTED]Date: December 5, 2005 8:51:24 AM PSTTo: ctrl CTRL CTRL@LISTSERV.AOL.COM, [EMAIL PROTECTED]Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: The dish on Bush http://news.inq7.net/lifestyle/index.php?index=1story_id=58810The dish on Bush First posted 00:03am (Mla time) Dec 05, 2005 By Amadis Ma. GuerreroInquirer Editor's Note: Published on page E1 of the December 5, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer "The Family" By Kitty Kelley Bantam Books, 2005 777 pagesTHE SKELETONS KEEP rattling and tumbling down from the closet of the Bush dynasty in this latest book by biographer Kitty Kelley, known for her exposès of such celebrities as Jackie Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Nancy Reagan and the British royals.The Author's Note will prepare you for what is in store for the reader, as Kelley recounts how former US President George H.W. Bush, father of the current President George W. Bush, put up barriers to her research.Kelley quotes a divorced daughter-in-law of Bush, Sharon Smith Bush (former wife of Neil Bush, son of George H. W.), as declaring: "This is a family of alcoholism, drug addiction, and even schizophrenia." Also, on at least two instances, of adultery.The black sheep of the family was James S. Bush, brother of George H. W., who was disowned because he married and divorced many times, something the Bushes strongly disapprove of. Accused of embezzlement, James, an alcoholic, fled to other countries and ended up in the Philippines.There, as a US consular officer reported, he was "living with a Filipino street woman he had met in a bar." Impoverished, crippled, almost blind, the unfortunate James died of lung cancer at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City in 1978 at the age of 77.His death was "a great relief to all of us," declared George H. W.Then there was the strange case of Prescott Bush III, a first cousin of President George W. Bush, who walked out of his bride during their honeymoon in Europe, "and she never saw him again." Prescott's parents arranged a discreet divorce on grounds of abandonment. Prescott was later diagnosed as schizophrenic.Many Bushes and their wives and relatives, with their shenanigans, vices and wheeling and dealing, figure in this book. By the 1980s, when George H. W. was vice president, the transactions of the family members expanded and their clients included corporations in Brazil and some Asian countries, including the Philippines.These transactions "left in their wake the jiggery-poker of failed banks, fleeced stockbrokers, convictions, and lawsuits charging mismanagement, stock manipulation, and fraud."However, the emphasis of the book, understandably, is on three major personalities who represent three generations of the Bush dynasty: Prescott S. Bush, who became a senator; his son George H. W. Bush, 41st US president; and his grandson George W. Bush, 43rd (and current) US president.Although an alcoholic and a tyrant at home, Prescott comes off rather well in this book, as he represented a dying breed of the 1950s-"a moderate Republican." This cannot be said of the son and grandson, as the author points out, with the current US president advocating "an extreme brand of Republican politics."On the extracurricular front, George H. W. had his dalliances while he was vice president, and even before, when he was a congressman: "He chose his other involvements carefully (usually out of town) so as not to threaten his marriage. Then along came Jennifer Fitzgerald, who became his secretary and became so much more."The long drawn-out affair caused his wife Barbara to leave him for three months (he was then US ambassador to China), burn her letters, and to suffer severe depression almost to the point of suicide.George H. W. was not the only member of the family to play around. His only sister, Nancy Bush Ellis, had a torrid affair with historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. of Camelot (Kennedy) fame.George H. W. and his son George W. excelled in athletics (although the latter was considered a "bully boy"), but were mediocre students at the elite Andover Academy and the Ivy League Yale University. George W., in fact, finished at the bottom of his class.At Andover, George W.'s first assignment in English was to write an essay on an emotional experience. Since he had written the word tears several times, he scouted around for a synonym in the thesaurus his mother had given him. And thus he wrote: "And the lacerates (italics mine) ran down my cheeks."It turned out that lacerates was not a noun at all but the verb for tears (as in "tearing apart"), a different meaning altogether. The teacher gave him "a big red zero" and scrawled a note: "DISGRACEFUL (all caps the teacher's). See me immediately."Less amusing are some of the reminiscences and opinions of the Yale batchmates of the current US president. Ken White (Yale 1968) opines that "he [Bush] was the last guy you'd ever expect to see in the
