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Vol. 15, No. 19
September 13, 1999
Table of Contents

More on Campaigns/Elections
More on People

Like Father, Like Son
by Robert W. Lee

Texas Governor George W. Bush, currently the front-running (by a mile) GOP presidential candidate, describes himself as a "compassionate conservative" and "an activist governor with a conservative agenda." Conservatism, he asserts, "is a philosophy that puts government in its proper perspective, that says government ought to do a few things well, that there is a role for government." Compassion, he claims, "says that the policies will lead to a better tomorrow, but there is an activist plan, there is a strategy to, for example, make sure every child learns to read." Yes, there is a strategy for teaching children how to read, but the central question is whether the federal government — under either a "conservative" or liberal administration — should be formulating and implementing national education policy. But this question is always ignored by those who want to govern instead of allowing the individual to govern himself with a minimum of outside restraints.

The Bush Style

Nevertheless, such platitudes, larded with undefined terms and vague concepts (yet suggesting a role for the federal government based on "conservative" principles), have become a hallmark of the Bush style. Beneath it all is the implication that "conservatism" means an activist approach to making the bad medicine of big government go down with a spoonful of rhetorical Republican sugar, while "compassion" means being compassionate with other people’s money in pursuit of an agenda that would further expand federal meddling and control.

Some observers have noted that when the veneer is stripped away, there may not be all that much difference in the basic Bush approach and that of, say, Vice President Al Gore, the leading Democratic candidate. Linda Feldman of the Christian Science Monitor writes: "For the Republican Bush, his mantra of ‘compassionate conservatism’ can sound a lot like the Democratic Gore’s ‘practical idealism.’ Both men propose enlisting faith-based groups to help solve America’s toughest social ills. Yet both also believe government can be a positive force for change — a major departure particularly for Mr. Bush, whose party in recent years has sought to minimize government’s role."

Former Clinton official and onetime Bush fraternity brother Lanny Davis observes: "Among all the Republicans running, [Bush] comes closest to the centrist Democratic philosophy." Indeed, he "is as close to Bill Clinton and Al Gore as he could be politically." Washington Post staff writer Dan Balz further notes that at times Bush has "embraced ideas straight out of Clinton’s playbook," while Ron Fournier, who covers national politics for the Associated Press, adds that "Bush speaks in vague terms with versatile words that don’t pin him down on a contentious issue. It is an age-old political skill that President Clinton turned into an art form."

Many conservative leaders are apparently so anxious to have a Republican win the Presidency that they are willing to ignore ominous signs that their candidate is, at the core, a liberal internationalist likely to continue proceeding down the road toward total government and surrender of American sovereignty to the "new world order" popularized by his father, President George Bush, during the Persian Gulf War.

Faith in What?

A recent major policy address in Indianapolis confirmed that conservative concerns about Bush’s commitment to constitutional principles are indeed justified. Bush’s central theme was a plea to assure that the "American dream touches every willing heart" by having the federal government become an increasing partner with private, faith-based, charitable agencies and programs. He pledged that, if elected President, he would earmark during his first year "about $8 billion" in federal aid "to provide new tax incentives for giving, and to support charities and other private institutions that save and change lives." He claimed that the resources of charitable organizations are so inadequate that unless bolstered by federal assistance "we are asking them to make bricks without straw." Yet the historical record shows that our private charities have been making bricks with straw throughout our nation’s history, although much of their time and resources have necessarily been devoted to overcoming social problems generated by the deleterious and counterproductive policies of government.

According to Governor Bush, "the idea that if government would only get out of our way all our problems would be solved" is a "destructive mindset," since while the "invisible hand" of the free market "works many miracles," it "cannot touch the human heart." "Resources," he advised, "should be devolved, not just to states, but to charities and neighborhood healers." But he promised, "We will never ask an organization to compromise its core values and spiritual mission to get the help it needs." He would apparently have us believe that the long-standing Supreme Court principle that the government regulates that which it subsidizes (Wickard v. Filburn, 1942) no longer applies. But Melissa Rogers, associate general counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee, warns that under the plans suggested by both Bush and Gore, "religious ministries would be regulated by the government, which would mean audits and, probably, tedious reporting, intrusive compliance reviews, and even the subordination of religious principles to government policies and objectives." Additionally, "If tax subsidies flow to churches and other religious ministries, the role of religion as prophetic critic of government also will be diminished." In other words, says Rogers, "Tax money simply should not flow through the church house door, because stifling, intrusive government regulation will quickly follow."

Edward H. Crane III, president of the Washington-based Cato Institute, compared the Bush speech with President Clinton’s State of the Union Address in January (which called for some 95 new proposals for federal action). Though the Bush agenda is less sweeping, Crane concluded, "both speeches were utterly casual in their assumption that virtually any problem confronting the American people is an excuse for action by the federal government." Yet, noted Crane, the "Framers of the Constitution … had quite another vision in mind. Governance, in their scheme of things, was to take place at the state and local levels. The national government was ‘delegated’ certain limited powers, primary among them national defense and … the protection of our civil liberties. So that there would be no confusion, the 10th Amendment made clear that powers not granted to the federal government were to be reserved to the states or to the people."

In the Beginning

George Walker Bush was born July 6, 1946 in New Haven, Connecticut. Two years later, the family moved to Odessa, Texas, and later to Midland, where George W. (the name which differentiates him from his father, George Herbert Walker Bush) attended elementary and junior high school. In 1959, the Bushes moved to Houston, where young George was enrolled in the Kinkaid School, a private academy in one of the nation’s wealthiest suburbs. In the fall of 1961, his parents decided to enroll him at the prestigious Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, the prep school which his father had attended. According to his yearbook, George W. was an average student who never made honor roll.

In his senior year at the prep school, George W. applied to only two universities: the University of Texas and Yale. He was accepted by the latter, which his father had attended, but contends that he was accepted on his merits. He acknowledges that a dean at Andover once asked him where he planned to attend college, and that when Bush replied that he was thinking of Yale, the dean said, "Well, you won’t get in there, so where else are you thinking of going?"

At Yale, Bush compiled a mediocre academic record. He majored in history, but his grades were such that he would later be denied admission to the University of Texas Law School.

George W., like his father, joined the controversial Yale secret society Skull and Bones, where his code name was "Temporary." It is believed that he was accepted to fill one of the so-called "legacy" slots available to otherwise under-qualified recruits whose fathers had belonged. Most members of the secret organization are selected from among the university’s most able students from academics, sports, music, etc.

At Yale, Bush was also elected president of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the campus fraternity notorious for its hard-drinking ways. Russ Walker, a former classmate and friend, recently recalled, as reported by the Washington Post, "returning from a party with Bush one night in college when the inebriated Bush dropped to the ground and started rolling in the middle of the street. ‘He literally rolled back to the dorm,’" according to Walker.

George W. would be plagued by a serious drinking problem for many years. On another occasion when he was 26, the Post records, "he returned home inebriated one night to his parents’ home in Washington — with his then-teenage brother Marvin in tow — and plowed his car into a neighbor’s garbage can, dragging it down the street. When his father asked to see him, George W. challenged him to go ‘mano a mano’ outside." The situation was defused without fisticuffs.

Bush eventually recognized the extent to which "alcohol was beginning to crowd out my energies and could crowd, eventually, my affections for other people." The date was July 28, 1986, the morning after a raucous joint birthday celebration at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs with some friends who were also at or near their 40th birthdays. He awoke with a dreadful hangover and, stirred in part by what he now describes as an intense reawakening of his Christian faith (which he says began the previous year following a conversation with Reverend Billy Graham), he determined to stop drinking, cold turkey. Graham, he asserts, "planted a seed in my heart and I began to change."

Military Service

Bush graduated in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree, but during his final days at Yale a vexing problem arose. His college deferment would expire, and he would become eligible for the draft during the height of the Vietnam War. On May 27, 1968 (two weeks prior to graduation), he visited the offices of the Texas Air National Guard near Houston and expressed a desire to sign up for training as a pilot. Today, he maintains that he applied because he wanted to become a pilot, not to avoid the draft. Yet one of the questions on his application asked if he wanted to go overseas, and he checked the box, "do not volunteer." In a recent interview, he asserted that he did not recall checking the box, but the Washington Post reported on July 28th that "two weeks later, his office provided a statement from a former, state-level Air Guard personnel officer, asserting that since Bush ‘was applying for a specific position with the 147th Fighter Group, it would have been inappropriate for him to have volunteered for an overseas assignment and he probably was so advised by the military personnel clerk assisting him in completing the form.’"

Four months prior to enlisting, Bush had taken the Air Force Officers Qualification Test at Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts, scoring only 25 percent on the "pilot aptitude" section (the lowest acceptable grade) and 50 percent for navigator aptitude. But he scored 95 percent on test questions designed to determine "officer quality." There were a few Guard openings, and a waiting list of other applicants. Bush was given the last slot and was sworn in as an airman the same day he applied.

"He was," according to Los Angeles Times reporter Richard A. Serrano, "able to jump into the officer ranks without the exceptional credentials many other officer candidates possessed." Indeed, while "Bush quickly won a place among the Guard’s elite fighter pilots, other young men who earned their wings first had to build up extensive military experience and aviation skills." Guard commanders insist, however, that he was shown no favoritism. His father was an influential congressman at the time.

By enlisting in the Air National Guard, George W. avoided Vietnam and spent much of his active duty time in Houston flying F-102 fighter interceptors out of Ellington Air Force Base. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who is also vying for the GOP presidential nomination and was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for many years, has joked that he slept more soundly while imprisoned, knowing that Bush was defending the shores of Texas from invasion.

Bush claims, "Had my unit been called up, I’d have gone … to Vietnam. I was prepared to go." But there was no realistic chance that his unit would be ordered overseas. Toward the completion of his training Bush volunteered for overseas duty as part of the "Palace Alert" program which sent qualified F-102 pilots in the Guard to Europe, the Far East, and occasionally to Vietnam. But he was turned down because, as Washington Post reporters George Lardner Jr. and Lois Romano explain, "Only pilots with extensive flying time — at the outset, 1,000 hours were required — were sent overseas under the voluntary program. The Air Force, moreover, was retiring the aging F-102s and had ordered all overseas F-102 units closed down as of June 30, 1970."

Bush graduated from Combat Crew Training School on June 23, 1970, having fulfilled his two years of active duty. While serving the rest of his military obligation he was granted substantial flexibility, as when he was allowed to transfer to the Alabama National Guard for three months in 1972 to serve as political director for a U.S. Senate candidate.

Bush left the Guard as a first lieutenant. As noted earlier, he applied for admission to the University of Texas Law School, but was denied. He was then accepted by the Harvard Business School, and was granted early release (by about eight months) from his National Guard commitment. He began classes at Harvard in the fall of 1973, received his MBA in 1975, and described his experience at the notoriously liberal Ivy League institution as "a vocational training exercise in capitalism."

Business World

After graduating from Harvard, George W. returned to Texas and began his career in the oil business as a free-lance landman, checking deeds and mineral rights at county courthouses and arranging to lease the rights on behalf of oil companies. In 1977, he founded Arbusto Exploration ("arbusto" is Spanish for "bush"), a Midland-based company that did not begin active operations until 1979. In his search for investors, the Bush name and connections proved invaluable.

The first well drilled by the company came up dry, and few attempts were made thereafter. The company mainly arranged private partnerships for drilling projects or joined deals that had been arranged by other firms. The troubled venture lost money for most of its investors. By 1982 it had less than $50,000 in the bank and debts of over $400,000. Bush changed the name to Bush Exploration Company and took the business public, but the offering was also a flop. He sought to raise $6 million, but collected slightly more than $1.1 million, less than he had raised privately during each of the previous two years. That same year he sold ten percent of the company to a Panamanian firm run by Philip Uzielli, a close friend of James A. Baker III, a longtime adviser to then-Vice President George Bush and later Secretary of State in the Bush Administration. "What raised eyebrows," Lardner and Romano recall, "was the price Uzielli paid: $1 million in exchange for 10% of Bush’s company, whose total worth at the time was $382,000." Today, Bush insists that the deal was not a bailout, because Bush Exploration "wasn’t in trouble. We were in a growth mode."

By the end of 1984, according to securities filings, Bush’s limited partners had invested $4.66 million, but had received cash distributions of only $1.54 million, plus savings from $3.89 million in tax write-offs. The company did better than the investors. According to Lardner and Romano, "It put a total of $102,000 into the drilling funds and got back cash distributions of $362,000. From what the investors put up, it also took $216,000 off the top for management fees. With the addition of $100,000 in general and administrative fees … Bush’s company collected $678,000 in fees and cash distributions on an investment of only $102,000."

In early 1984, Bush Exploration had merged with the Cincinnati-based Spectrum Energy 7 Corporation, a firm of investors that specialized in backing independent oil producers. Spectrum was headed by William O. DeWitt Jr. and Mercer Reynolds III, who had met Bush a few years earlier and had supported his father. The two also owned the Texas Rangers baseball team. The deal left DeWitt and Reynolds each with 20.1 percent of Spectrum 7, and Bush with 16.3 percent (1,166,400 shares). Bush became company chairman and CEO, with an annual salary of $75,000.

But Spectrum, too, fell on hard times as oil prices plunged from $25 per barrel to less than $10. The company reported a net loss of $1.6 million in 1985, and was facing an additional loss of $402,000 by mid-1986. It owed more than $3 million in bank loans and other debts, and investors had disappeared. But once again, the Bush name served as a potent rescue remedy. In 1986 Spectrum 7 merged with Dallas-based Harken Oil & Gas, which specialized in the purchase of small, insolvent companies. Its largest stockholder at the time (46.8 percent) was Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros, the international financier and currency speculator who has funded drives to legalize marijuana and physician-assisted suicide. Paul Rea, Spectrum 7’s president, told the Washington Post: "One of the reasons Harken was so interested in merging was because of George [Bush]. They believed having George’s name there would be a big help to them. They wanted him on their board." Harken assumed Spectrum 7’s $3 million-plus debt and infused $2.2 million of its own stock (no money changed hands). In exchange, it received the untapped oil reserves that had so far proved to be a bust, and secured the Bush name at a time when Vice President Bush was gearing up to run for President. For George W. personally, the deal included 212,140 shares of Harken stock and an option to purchase additional stock at 60 percent of face value (by the end of 1989 he had accumulated 345,426 shares); a seat on the board; and $80,000 to more than $100,000 annually as a consultant.

Bush was also authorized to borrow $180,375 from Harken at very low interest rates, but it is not known how much, if any, he paid back (the company’s 1989 and 1990 filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicated that the firm had forgiven loans totaling $341,000, but did not specify the executives involved). The stock would later serve as the collateral Bush used to purchase the Texas Rangers in a deal that, as we shall see, made him a multi-millionaire and provided the financial security that has underpinned his successful political pursuits.

A Closer Look

It was during his tenure at Harken that Bush’s business dealings came under increased scrutiny. In 1990, for instance, Harken signed a deal with the Middle East government of Bahrain for a potentially lucrative offshore drilling concession (the wells eventually turned out to be dry). The company had never drilled overseas, much less in water, which raised questions about the possibility that Bahrain was attempting to gain favor with Bush’s father, who was U.S. President at the time. George W. denies the accusation, and there is credible evidence that he actually opposed the Bahrain deal on grounds that Harken was indeed ill-prepared for the venture.

More serious was George W.’s decision to sell his original 212,140 shares of Harken stock at $4 a share. The transaction occurred on June 22, 1990, only eight days before the company wound up its second quarter with an overall loss of $23.2 million. The public didn’t learn about this loss until August 20th. In the meantime, Iraq had invaded Kuwait (August 2nd), generating concern that the explosive Middle East situation could endanger the potentially lucrative Bahrain drilling contract. Harken’s stock took a tumble, but by selling in June Bush received $848,560 (more than twice the original value of the stock). It raised the specter of insider trading. Had he known in advance of the company’s plight?

Bush claims that he had no inkling, even though he sat on the firm’s three-member audit committee and its eight-member board of directors. "I wouldn’t have sold if I had," he insists. "I got clearance by the [company] lawyer to sell this stock. I was mindful that this transaction would be completely scrutinized." His account is bolstered by evidence that the buyer sought him, not vice versa. He claims that he sold the stock to pay off a $500,000 bank loan he had obtained in 1989 to purchase his share of the Texas Rangers. "I didn’t need to pay it off," he asserted during an interview. "I did it because I just don’t like to carry debt." He had, however, carried the debt for some seven months.

According to his attorney, Bush and other board members were not informed until July 13, 1990 (in a communication from the company’s president) about operating losses incurred during the second quarter, but Harken has rejected media requests to scrutinize the memo. The attorney also claims that the minutes of a June 11th meeting between the company’s audit committee (including Bush) and auditors from the company’s accounting firm confirm that pending operating losses were not discussed. But the company also refuses to make the minutes available to reporters.

At Home With the Rangers

After working on his father’s presidential campaign in 1988, George W. Bush returned to Texas. His Harken stock served as collateral for the half million dollar loan (from a bank of which he was a director) that covered most of his share for the purchase of the Texas Rangers baseball team in 1989. The purchase price was $86 million. Bush eventually put up $606,000. Describing the arrangement, the Associated Press reported on August 1st that "Bush had had an inside track in the Rangers deal because of long acquaintance and friendship with the team’s majority owner, Eddie Chiles, who had been a family friend since Bush was in elementary school." Also, "Another friend, Bill DeWitt Jr., was a partner with Bush. They had known each other from working together at Spectrum."

Their original plan was rejected when baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth ruled that not enough local money was involved. Ueberroth himself helped to persuade wealthy Texas financier Richard Rainwater to join forces with Bush. Bush and DeWitt raised half of the money, while a group led by Rainwater and an associate raised the other half. Bush helped run the franchise, and became its most public face. Among other things, he approved major trades, including one that sent a promising minor league outfielder named Sammy Sosa to the Chicago Cubs.

Bush’s job with the Rangers enabled him to promote a motherhood-and-apple-pie project with a high media profile. Lardner and Romano write: "For the first time, he became a public figure in his own right, attending ownership meetings, speaking at the Rotary Club, sitting in the stands at all the games, and handing out baseball cards with his picture on them. Fans by the dozens would line up by his seat for autographs, just as they would for the team’s superstar pitcher, Nolan Ryan."

Crucial to the success of the venture was construction of a new ball park for the team in Arlington. After a massive public relations effort in support of a taxpayer role in financing the new stadium (hardly an anti-statist position!), and threats that the franchise might move unless a new facility was built, voters approved a one-half cent increase in the sales tax to generate $135 million for the purchase of land and construction of the stadium. The team was to put up another $65 million.

But where to locate? The family that owned 13 acres of the land preferred by Bush and his associates did not want to sell. After they were given a lowball offer, which they rejected, a new government agency (the Arlington Sports Facility Development Authority) was established to condemn the property. The family was given a pittance of what the property was worth. They subsequently sued the city, and a jury awarded them $7.5 million — some six times what they had originally received.

Bush claims that he "wasn’t aware of the details" of the land condemnations, even though he was the team’s managing general partner and takes credit for the project. But on October 27, 1990, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram had quoted him as saying that "the idea of making a land play, absolutely, to plunk the field down in the middle of a big piece of land, that’s kind of always been the strategy." And a memo dated one day earlier, from an Arlington real estate broker to the Rangers’ president, asserted: "In this particular situation our first offer should be our final offer.... If this fails, we will probably have to initiate condemnation proceedings after the bond election passes." The point at issue, Bush’s critics contend, is hypocrisy.

On the first day of his first gubernatorial campaign in 1993, Bush declared: "The best way to allocate resources in our society is through the marketplace, not through a governing elite." During the campaign he said that "I will do everything I can to defend the power of private property and private property rights when I am the governor of this state." Yet the condemnation of one family’s private property for the benefit of other powerful private interests of which Bush was himself a part was hardly consistent with that laudable rhetoric.

The Rangers franchise was soon ranked by Financial World as the most profitable in baseball. So profitable, in fact, that when the team was sold last year, the price had swelled from the original $86 million to $250 million. Bush’s share, for his $606,000 investment, was over $14.9 million — nearly 25 times his original investment.

Trilateral and CFR Strings

George W.’s first race for public office came in 1978, when he ran for a seat in Congress that had opened up when Democratic Representative George Mahon announced his retirement on July 6, 1977 (Bush’s 31st birthday). Mahon had served in the house for 43 years, longer than any other member of Congress at the time. Republican leaders initially backed Odessa Mayor Jim Reese, a conservative former television sportscaster. Then Bush entered the race, setting the stage for a spirited primary in which Bush claimed that he wanted to go to Washington to help curb the "bureaucratic spread of [a] federal government that is encroaching more and more on our lives." Reese, however, branded Bush a liberal Rockefeller-type Republican and targeted his father’s affiliation with such controversial, world government-espousing entities as the Trilateral Commission (TC) and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

Bush was dogged by the issue. In his New York Times Magazine profile, Sam Howe Verhovek recalls: "With his father serving on international boards like the Rockefeller-financed Trilateral Commission, the candidate found himself hectored by groups who said he, too, was surely a tool of the New World Order." Eventually, Bush professed his opposition to "one-world government," and "one monetary system," and defended his father’s intimate ties with the TC with the ludicrous claim that "if the Trilateral Commission supports those things, I’m sure my father is a dissenting voice."

Every Administration during the past half-century, regardless of party, has been heavily larded with members of the CFR and the TC.For an overivew of the CFR and TC, including charts listing key CFR members and the positions they have held, and American members of the TC, see the special "Conspiracy for Global Control" issue of THE NEW AMERICAN (1997 edition), available for $2.50, postpaid, from: THE NEW AMERICAN, P.O. Box 8040, Appleton, WI 54912.* The issue remains pertinent today, since Governor Bush’s coterie of foreign policy advisers also includes many. Condoleezza Rice, who was a member of the National Security Council during the Bush Administration, is his principal foreign affairs and military policy adviser. She has belonged to the CFR since 1984. According to Hoover Institution research fellow Arnold Beichman, in a laudatory Washington Times column, "There is little question that if there is a Bush nomination leading to a GOP presidential victory in the year 2000 that the handsome Professor Rice, a political scientist at Stanford University and its former University Provost, will be a top pick in the second Bush administration."

"Of course," Beichman continued, "there are other senior Bush foreign policy advisers, a team headed by former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle." All three (though Beichman did not mention it) are longtime CFR members, and Shultz has also belonged to the TC. Time magazine for June 21st added that Robert Zoellick is also a member of the Bush foreign policy team. He, too, belongs to the CFR, and was described by Time as "suspect by conservatives because of his long association with the ever pragmatic James Baker." Baker, President Bush’s first Secretary of State and a longtime friend of the Bush family, joined the CFR last year. Other Bush advisers who belong (or belonged) to the CFR include Donald Rumsfeld (Secretary of Defense in the Ford Administration and Chief of Staff for Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Bush), Martin Feldstein (Harvard University economics professor), Robert M. Kimmitt (U.S. ambassador to Germany and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs in the Bush Administration), and Richard Cheney (Secretary of Defense in the Bush Administration).

Reese finished first in the 1978 congressional primary, but Bush garnered enough votes to force a run-off, which he won by a razor-thin 1,400 votes despite carrying only one of the district’s 17 counties (Midland). He then lost the general election to the Democrat, again carrying only Midland.

Bush reportedly decided after the defeat that he should forego any further attempts at public office until his father retired. He briefly considered running for governor in 1990, but Lardner and Romano state that since his "father had been a significant issue in the congressional race," and as President would "cast an even larger shadow," Bush again decided that running "while his father was in office could pose problems for both of them."

President Bush’s defeat by Bill Clinton in 1992 resolved that problem, and George W. entered the 1994 Texas gubernatorial race against incumbent Democrat Anne Richards, who had been elected in 1990. At the 1988 Democratic National Convention, then-state treasurer Richards had received national notoriety by ridiculing Bush’s father with the line, "Poor George, he can’t help it — he was born with a silver foot in his mouth." Some of George W.’s personal friends still believe that that personal attack on his father was a factor in his decision to challenge Governor Richards. He received his party’s nomination unopposed.

During the campaign, Bush settled on four issues — education reform, overhaul of the juvenile justice system, welfare, and civil court procedures. All were hot issues at the time. The legislature had already been working in all four areas, and when it approved major legislation in 1995, Bush could claim credit for success in implementing his agenda. During the campaign, after refusing to stray from that four-plank platform, Bush defeated Richards by a margin of 53 to 47 percent. He was re-elected last year by a landslide, winning 69 percent of the vote, including more than two-thirds of female voters, one in three Democrats, and 49 percent of the Hispanic vote which he made a special effort to cultivate. He thereby became the first Texas governor to be re-elected in 24 years and the first ever elected to back-to-back four-year terms. In his two gubernatorial campaigns he also set new records for raising campaign cash (as he has done to date during his presidential campaign), collecting a total of $41 million for his two elections, more than any gubernatorial candidate in history.

On the Issues

Bush has sent mixed messages on many key issues. The resulting confusion is exemplified by the American Life League, which contends that he has "abdicated his right to be described as pro-life," and the National Right to Life Committee, which declares him to be "solidly pro-life." Bush has said that he would support a constitutional amendment to outlaw abortions (except when the life of the mother is endangered and in cases of rape or incest — a schizophrenic policy if all human life is sacrosanct), but adds that "America is not ready to ban abortions" because "America’s hearts are not right," so there is no need to pursue the matter. Instead of arguing about repeal of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision which conjured up an alleged "right" to abortion, "what we ought to do is promote policies that reduce abortions," such as the parental notification bill which he advocated (and the legislature approved) this year. "The United States Supreme Court has settled the abortion issue," he contends, so "the best public policy is to encourage fewer abortions through strong adoption laws and by sending a clear abstinence message to our children." He would not require either his Supreme Court nominees or his running mate to pass an anti-abortion litmus test.

Bush believes that education, his top priority as governor, is "by far the most important thing a state does." He has publicly supported tax-financed school vouchers since his 1994 campaign, claiming: "We’ve got to figure out how to encourage the spread of vouchers so as to improve public schools and to convince people it will improve public schools." Actually, however, vouchers have the same fatal drawback as his plan calling for increased federal assistance to charitable endeavors: They are inevitably accompanied by federal regulations and controls that undermine the independence of recipients. The Constitution does not authorize the federal government to fund education, yet Bush asserts that there is a federal role, but that it should be limited to "sending money to states with no strings attached" — a literal and legal impossibility.

Bush has sent a mixed message on the crucial issue of gun control. In 1995 he signed legislation allowing Texans to carry concealed handguns, and this year approved a measure which bars local governments within the state from suing gun manufacturers. But he supports the federal ban on so-called "assault" weapons and has also called for a change in federal law to require criminal background checks for sales by private individuals at gun shows (a position which, according to a spokesman, he has favored for five years). He also signed bills prohibiting anyone from carrying a firearm within 300 yards of a school, and holding adults criminally liable if they allow a juvenile to have access to a loaded gun.

"Gay" Friendly?

Following the 1994 election, Governor Bush pledged that he would veto any legislation that sought to repeal his state’s anti-sodomy law. He also opposes same-sex marriages, on grounds that "marriage is sanctified by the Almighty and it’s between a man and a woman." He has said that he does not believe homosexuals should receive special preference in "hate" crimes legislation, or that they should be foster parents. Asked at a press conference about adoption of children by homosexual couples, he said he was "opposed to gay adoptions," since "children ought to be adopted in families with a woman and a man who are married."

On the other hand, he has suggested that attacks on homosexuality could backfire on Republicans and "affect the outcome of elections." And last year, homosexual activists applauded him after Texas GOP leaders excluded Log Cabin Republicans (a homosexual political faction) from the party’s state convention, and Bush called for an end to name-calling and infighting over the issue.

When asked about the controversial nomination of homosexual activist James Hormel to be ambassador to Luxembourg (he was sworn in on June 29th while his male "partner" held the Bible), Bush declined to comment on the specifics, claiming that he did not "know the background." But he told reporters that he would not exclude homosexuals from political posts "as long as they can do a good job, as long as their political agenda was the same as mine." The Log Cabin Republicans subsequently lauded Bush for going "further on the issue of gay rights than any front runner in history during the pre-primary season."

Lip Reading

Governor Bush has promised that he will, if elected, strive to block any proposed tax increases. On June 8th he sent a letter to Grover G. Norquist, director of Americans for Tax Reform, stating, "You know from our conversations that if elected President, I will oppose and veto any increase in individual or corporate marginal income tax rates or individual or corporate income tax hikes." He did not extend the pledge to other taxes.

He wrote that he would "also oppose any further reduction or elimination of income tax deductions and credits, unless offset dollar for dollar by reducing tax rates."

Writing in the June 10th New York Times, David E. Rosenbaum recalled, "In 1988, the first year the pledge against tax increases figured in the Republican presidential primary, Senator Bob Dole of Kansas refused to sign it. Vice President George Bush, the Governor’s father, used this against Senator Dole and went on to win the primary, the Republican nomination and the Presidency."

Continued Rosenbaum: "At the Republican convention that year, he made his famous pledge, ‘Read my lips: no new taxes.’ But in 1990, to obtain a budget agreement with the Democratic Congress, President Bush broke his promise and signed a law raising income taxes."

Time will tell just how true the adage, "Like father, like son," really is.

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