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Richard Jernigan -> RE: Taxes, Corruption (Jun. 24 2011 17:22:24)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Ruphus
Or say after Iraq was under US control, when very first thing that happened was that Bush´s and Rice´s surrounding loaded some 4 billion $ worth of mineral oil for free ...
Ruphus
So if Bush is a billionaire, why does he live in a smaller house in a less fashionable neighborhood than my cousin, the retired Dallas physician? Why is his "ranch" (in South Texas we would call it a "country place") so small and unproductive, compared to my 92-year old aunt's property in South Texas? Neither of my relatives is a billionaire. Did Bush lose it all to Cheney in some high stakes poker game? Or is the tale of his acquired billions just an outrageous lie?
Perhaps Bush's relatively modest apparent lifestyle is just a cover for a more wild and colorful existence? Do he and Laura travel the globe incognito, visiting famous libraries in disguise? Laura is a librarian you know, and George is notoriously in love with her....
My daughter was Assistant Attorney General of the State of Texas throughout Bush's term as Governor. Her boss was the Attorney General, his boss was George W. Bush. My daughter was no fan of Bush. She worked hard as a volunteer in the campaign of Ann Richards, whom Bush defeated in the election for Governor. If there had been any whiff whatsoever of scandal attached to Bush, she was in a prime position to hear of it. I assure you, she has no tolerance whatsoever for such things.
My father knew George H. W. Bush well. My father used to joke that he tried three times, unsuccessfully to persuade G.H.W. Bush not to run for Congress, since he couldn't win. "I was right twice," my father used to say with a smile.
I would estimate that stories, or actual evidence of financial misdealings circulate in Texas concerning perhaps one in twenty powerful politicians. The Bushes as a family are unusual in that not only was there never a whiff of scandal, but they were known for their honesty and integrity.
I'm certainly no fan of George W. Bush. I don't think he is very smart, and I think he made some terrible decisions. But I don't think he's Satan incarnate.--just a jerk who managed to get elected president.
"Bush lied about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction!! He lied!! He lied!!" some will scream.
I did say he wasn't very smart.
I have considerable personal experience in the intelligence business. Intelligence estimates are among the most carefully guarded secrets of the government, except when they are used to advance a political agenda. The reason? You don't want the enemy to deduce what your sources may be. And you don't want him to know how wrong you are. Intelligence estimates are seriously, importantly wrong a significant amount of the time, due to faulty information, faulty reasoning, and most importantly, due to self-deception.
I have personally seen it happen, time and again, that the received wisdom of the intelligence community, supported by an array of fact and inference, turned out to be totally wrong as events unfolded.
Under considerable pressure from Cheney and Rumsfeld, the intelligence community concluded that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Bush was dumb enough to go for it.
Hell, Colin Powell went for it, and he's pretty smart. Smart enough not to risk getting caught in a gigantic lie. Powell now freely apologizes for being wrong. He says in television interviews, with an air of palpable regret, that his United Nations speech advocating war on Iraq was the biggest mistake of his career.
Yes, I know, I know. It's all a Machiavellian conspiracy of the demonic capitalists. All would be right with the world under the proper social order.
Any day now, someone is going to figure out what that would be.
This is the hopeful interpretation of the stock brokers' legally required disclaimer, "Past performance is no guarantee of future results."
RNJ
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