Poor guy! Barely kept his family fed...

By Joseph Walther

There is no doubt about it. Whenever someone mentions the name George W. Bush, people respond with either disgust or unquestioned admiration. There does not appear to be a middle ground, especially over the past 24-months.

I witnessed a discussion between proponents of these opposing views just three days ago. One man expressed his dislike for Mr. Bush by accusing him of “screwing us in order to pad his banking account.”

His opponent vehemently disagreed by calling the accuser a vulgar name and declaring him full of fecal matter for having “no proof.”

Of course, neither of these gentlemen came close to offering any validation that reasonable people might confuse with those things we call facts.

I am a pragmatist, which is code for skeptic, which is code, at least in the minds of some, for “opinionated old fart.” Whatever! I wear the title proudly.

If one exists, “In God we trust” makes perfect sense to me. But, in ALL other cases, audits would be the order of the day, especially whenever politicians and political pundits are involved.

Political longevity begets prominence. Political prominence begets power. And, political power is precisely what astute politicians learn to use as leverage into the world of immense personal wealth, most often through the subtle, but strategic, misuse of public assets.

George W. Bush didn’t invent this. He’s not been the first to use it, nor will he be the last. He’s merely the most gullible. Look for yourselves.

First, let me get a big point of contention—the Iraqi War—out of the way. It has nothing to do with his personal wealth, but it’s important.

Whether people generally agree or not that the war was a mistake is immaterial. So are all of the disagreements over what motivated it.

There is ample consensus, however, that the execution of the war, until recently, has been a nightmarish disaster for all concerned.

Most people lay blame for this directly at the feet of Mr. Bush—and rightly so, in my opinion. Undeniably, though, things have improved greatly over the past year.

It is only fitting that we also lay the credit for this at the same set of feet: those of Mr. Bush.

I’m not saying that he’s finally come to a cultural understanding of the region, but he deserves the credit for finally surrounding himself with competent people who do understand it and letting them run things.

OK, let’s move on to Mr. Bush’s personal wealth in terms of where it now stands (estimated to be between $8-million and $15-million) and how it got there.

I base what follows on more than mere speculation, including a number of public court records.

George W. Bush was a failed oilman, who, in relative terms, barely kept his family fed. Then, one day, without “shootin’ at some food,” stock options bubbled up through the ground instead of “crude.”

Texas Tea it wasn’t, but his Harken stock options were just as valuable. They were available because Mr. Bush worked for Harken Energy back in the early 1990s.

They accrued so much value because, according to investigators, he had “insider” help.

Investigative journalists from the Wall Street Journal and other prominent newspapers besieged him with questions regarding several legal questions. As usual, though, his replies raised more questions than answers.

In short, he earned about $900,000 on a sale made under the same type of circumstances that would, many years later, send Martha Stewart to prison.

The main difference was that Martha’s conviction resulted from far more questionable evidence. The bottom line… George got away with it.

No one’s ever characterized George W as intellectually endowed. Most of his opportunities resulted from family connections and a desire on the part of very wealthy Texas business people to exploit the Bush name.

A man, William (Bill) DeWitt, had earlier bailed George out by buying his failed oil company. He later sold that company to Harken.

Bill then offered George W, along with other Texas investors, most notably Richard Rainwater, a chance to join in a bid to buy the Texas Rangers. The conglomeration bought the team in 1989.

While George W. Bush fell embarrassingly short relative to finances sufficient to play at this level on the big business playground, he was precisely what the group needed in what psychologists call the “affective domain.”

He borrowed $500-thousand from a bank, on whose board he once sat, to purchase a two percent share of the baseball team. He repaid the loan out of the proceeds from cashing in his Harkens stock options.

His official title was “managing partner,” but some thought that it was just a cover for his real title: “political aphrodisiac.” On the surface, all he had to do was attend all home games so the TV cameras could pan in on him.

Below the surface, however, his job was to lure the citizens of Arlington, Texas into a lustfully amorous mindset conducive to having them eagerly submit to the other group partners’ financial gang-bang.

He may not have thought of his actions as active participation in the carnage, though. Perhaps, in his mind’s eye, those folks really wanted it. All he did was provide the intimate dinner, some nice wine, a “place”, and some mental lubricant.

George W. Bush had absolutely no say in the day-to-day operation of the baseball franchise. Edward Rose, another wealthy Texas investor and associate of Richard Rainwater, was in charge of this aspect of the ownership.

However, like most owner-groups, this one wanted a brand new stadium for their baseball team. They did not want to pay for it, though. It was George’s job to get it done.

So, by threat of moving the team, and leaving it to George Bush to convince the city of Arlington to foot the bill, they received a free one.

The city complied by tendering $135-million of the required $190-million. They obtained the rest by applying a ticket surcharge aimed at the “building” fund.

Regardless, taxpayers and baseball fans (71% and 29% respectively) paid for the new stadium.

Even better, the deal permitted the owners to buy back the new stadium for $60-million by having the city of Arlington deduct it from ticket sales at a rate of no more than $5-million a year.

Essentially, billionaire-level private investors substantially increased the value of their holdings by having the tax-paying public pay increased local taxes. In all, they received a $200-million stadium without spending a dime of THEIR own money.

And, George W. Bush carried out his function well. He singlehandedly sold the project to the voters, sans any mention of screwing them, of course.

But, the late Ann Richards (then Democratic Governor of Texas) made the deal even sweeter by signing into law the Arlington Sports Facilities Development Authority (ASFDA).

This gem of legislation made it legal for government to seize privately owned land as long as they deemed it necessary for stadium construction. Land resale values quadrupled for those members of the “inner” circle.

Whenever the group wanted a particular land parcel, it would make a below market offering to the owner. If the owner refused to sell, in came the ASFGA.

Court records show that the Texas Rangers paid out millions in settlements as the result of such shenanigans.

George Bush announced his intent to run for governor in November 1993 (before the stadium even opened). He became governor in 1994. He placed his assets in a blind trust… well, except for his ownership in the Texas Rangers.

He kept his interests until a man, Tom Hicks, bought the team in 1998. But it seems that a miracle had happened by then. George’s share of the team had risen well beyond the original two percent. No one knows how or why.

However it happened, it resulted in his initial $600-thousand investment blossoming into a $15-million personal fortune, all of it through the misuse of public assets by the politically powerful.

Finally, I’d have to use an additional thousand words to describe the rest of Bush’s dealings in this and several other same theme deals.

I could write an entire chapter on Bush’s relationships with Tom Hicks, the Carlyle investment group, and UTIMCO—the University of Texas Investment Management Company. Ann Richards figured prominently with respect to this last one, too.

As well, the names of other political luminaries like Frank Carlucci, former secretary of defense under Reagan, and James Baker III, former secretary of state under George H. W. Bush come up quite often relative to many of these deals.

This is what our politicians do! They’ve always done it, only they now do it so blatantly. Of course, they’re subtle enough to keep ahead of the laws.

And, we let them get away with it by gullibly and repeatedly sending the same cagy foxes to guard the henhouse.

We’re the ones who have to change. Until we do, the beltway “johns” will continue shoving it up our collective butts without so much as cursory preparatory kiss!

Joe Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. You may comment on his column by clicking here.