The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty – Kitty Kelley
The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty – Kitty Kelley, Doubleday/Random House, Inc. (2004) 705pp. (S) ***
This voluminous work by Kelley seeks to dig up the dirt on the Bush family dynasty. However, one of the most striking details is not George W. Bush’s notorious cocaine use, but how the politics of his grandfather, Prescott Bush, differed with that of his own and his father’s. According to Kelley, Senator Prescott Bush (Republican from Connecticut) voted to censure Senator Joseph McCarthy, voted against energy deregulation despite strong pressure to do otherwise by his son in the oil business, George H. W. Bush, and in 1956 Prescott Bush even campaigned in favor of civil rights. (However, what Kelley fails to mention is how a bank, Union Banking Corporation, under which Prescott Bush was a director, was cited in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy act for its business dealings with Nazi Germany.)
The progressive values of patrician Bush differ sharply with those of son George H. W. Bush who Kelley describes thusly: “His core beliefs were irrelevant. All that mattered was winning.”(p.515) This moral ambiguity comes into stark relief when one considers that as a U.S. Representative, George H. W. Bush was a supporter of family planning, a stance he quickly abandoned when he became Ronald Reagan’s running mate in 1980. This political expediency seems to have been not just the hallmark of George H. W., but of his son as well. The latter generation Bushes also have become known for ruthless and dirty campaign practices, whether it be George Sr.’s “Willie Horton” television advertisement, or the slandering of Senator John McCain in the 2000 Republican primary in South Carolina by front groups and PACs so as to ensure “plausible deniability” for Bush Jr. These lowball tactics from the Atwater/Rove school of dirty politics, unfortunately have again and again proven their effectiveness. When will the American electorate wake up and start seeing through the smoke?
This voluminous work by Kelley seeks to dig up the dirt on the Bush family dynasty. However, one of the most striking details is not George W. Bush’s notorious cocaine use, but how the politics of his grandfather, Prescott Bush, differed with that of his own and his father’s. According to Kelley, Senator Prescott Bush (Republican from Connecticut) voted to censure Senator Joseph McCarthy, voted against energy deregulation despite strong pressure to do otherwise by his son in the oil business, George H. W. Bush, and in 1956 Prescott Bush even campaigned in favor of civil rights. (However, what Kelley fails to mention is how a bank, Union Banking Corporation, under which Prescott Bush was a director, was cited in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy act for its business dealings with Nazi Germany.)
The progressive values of patrician Bush differ sharply with those of son George H. W. Bush who Kelley describes thusly: “His core beliefs were irrelevant. All that mattered was winning.”(p.515) This moral ambiguity comes into stark relief when one considers that as a U.S. Representative, George H. W. Bush was a supporter of family planning, a stance he quickly abandoned when he became Ronald Reagan’s running mate in 1980. This political expediency seems to have been not just the hallmark of George H. W., but of his son as well. The latter generation Bushes also have become known for ruthless and dirty campaign practices, whether it be George Sr.’s “Willie Horton” television advertisement, or the slandering of Senator John McCain in the 2000 Republican primary in South Carolina by front groups and PACs so as to ensure “plausible deniability” for Bush Jr. These lowball tactics from the Atwater/Rove school of dirty politics, unfortunately have again and again proven their effectiveness. When will the American electorate wake up and start seeing through the smoke?
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