Beating Around the Bushes

Nick Gillespie | September 14, 2004

Kitty Kelly's Bush family bio is due out today. I'm an avid reader of her stuff, though I consider her a fabulist more than a biographer. I don't mean that as a put-down, either. Her Nancy Reagan tome alone--which among other things painted Mommie Poo Pants as an offscreen Hollywood legend and as spreading the news with Sinatra on Dutch's watch--was more inventive and sexed-up than any dozen Almodovar films (would we expect any less from a First Lady who gave Mr. T. the most famous pre-Monica lap dance at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave?). It's just that I wouldn't trust her the way, say, I trust CBS News. Or maybe I trust her just the same.

From the p.r. build up, the big revelation is that Dubya snorted some blow at Camp David back when Poppy was prez. Not a bad tale to tell, even if the source, the ex-wife of Fredo Neil Bush, denies she ever said anything like that. But god, as a disinterested observer who will not be voting for Bush or Kerry, let's hope there's something more recent--and scarifying--than that. In a post-Clinton age, that's about as scandalous as an indiscretion in a Henry James novel.

Get the dish (literally) on Kelly in this Wash Post story (spoiler alert: she skips the veal).

Whatever the book says--and however quickly it is discredited--the real loser is once again John Kerry, who just can't seem to buy a straight-up top-of-the-fold story since the Dem convention a hundred years ago. That as much as anything else about the guy may indicate he deserves to lose. After all, if he can't control the liberal-dominated media, how the hell is he going kick France's ass?

Comments

|9.14.04 @ 8:21AM|#

I can handle things! I'm smart! Not like everybody says... like dumb... I'm smart and I want respect!

|9.14.04 @ 8:30AM|#

So is Dubya Sonny or Michael? I think the metaphor breaks down there.

Nick Gillespie|9.14.04 @ 8:50AM|#

Dear Achilles,

I think it's safe to say the contemporary political scene is overstuffed with Fredos and pretty light on Michaels. Which might be a good thing.

|9.14.04 @ 10:06AM|#

Fredo is in the Whitehouse, and that is not a good thing . . .

|9.14.04 @ 10:11AM|#

Oh, I dunno. I would think the news that a self treated, white knuckle alcoholic who controls the world's most powerful military is using again would be a significant story. I've seen some film clips of the guy since he supposedly sobered up that lend credence to that story.

|9.14.04 @ 10:21AM|#

By talking about his sobriety and salvation so much, Bush made them a legitimate topic for debate.

|9.14.04 @ 10:51AM|#

By talking about his sobriety and salvation so much,

Perhaps joe could link us to the last three times Bush has talked about his sobriety and salvation. I honestly don't recall him talking about it much at all, certainly not in the last four years.

|9.14.04 @ 11:25AM|#

I was wondering something. Bush the Older doesn't have a texas accent. Barbara Bush doesn't have a texas accent. Jeb doesn't have one. (Saw him on the TV durring the hurricanes and he can actually speak coherent sentences in a logical sequence. Amazing).

Dubya has a (what sounds to me) texas accent, sort of. So is that a act or what?

|9.14.04 @ 11:49AM|#

RC, I wish my mind had your gift for selective ignorance.

You can find your own damn links, if you really have that much trouble remembering that Bush used his salvation narrative throughout the 2000 campaign to deflect the drug abuse charges.

|9.14.04 @ 11:55AM|#

You can find your own damn links, if you really have that much trouble remembering that Bush used his salvation narrative throughout the 2000 campaign to deflect the drug abuse charges.

Yes, just like how John Kerry uses his Vietnam service to answer all those hounding questions from the press about what he did in the late 60s. What a perfect parallel you've found!

|9.14.04 @ 11:57AM|#

W is obviously Sonny, the belligerent guy who goes crazy and opens up a can of whoopass even when he shouldn't.

Jeb is obviously Michael, the smart guy who gets things done. Without Jeb's help in 2000, W wouldn't be President today.

|9.14.04 @ 12:27PM|#

Josh, John Kerry's Vietnam Service WAS what he did in the late 60s.

|9.14.04 @ 1:45PM|#

Seriously, joe, see if you can find the circularity in these two posts:

Bush used his salvation narrative throughout the 2000 campaign to deflect the drug abuse charges.

By talking about his sobriety and salvation so much, Bush made them a legitimate topic for debate.

|9.14.04 @ 3:24PM|#

John Kerry, who just can't seem to buy a straight-up top-of-the-fold story since the Dem convention a hundred years ago. That as much as anything else about the guy may indicate he deserves to lose. After all, if he can't control the liberal-dominated media, how the hell is he going kick France's ass

Kerry's strategy has been to minimize his public exposure and hope to win on the "anybody but Bush" vote. It's a viable strategy, given that (a) there are certainly plenty of reasons to dislike Bush but (b) there are also plenty of reasons to dislike Kerry. Plus, of course, this is (as always) a highly negative Presidential campaign, so the "above the fold" stories about candidates tend to be negative ones.

So I don't think the lack of high-profile Kerry stories is an indication that the press isn't on his side. I think that the Kerry campaign's ideal version of press coverage is would be "the media all but ignores us, and focuses on attacking Bush". Which is pretty much what's happened.

Tim Cavanaugh|9.14.04 @ 3:31PM|#

The pattern is actually quite consistent: Neil is Fredo. W is Sonny. Jeb is Michael.

You'll recall that Sonny was in line to be the don before circumstances intervened. The Bushes have been more fortunate. I know whenever Jeb appeared on tv during the 2000 ballot fiasco all I could think was "Crimoney, why didn't they run this guy instead?" Primogeniture must be observed, I guess...

|9.14.04 @ 4:58PM|#

RC, I think you missed my point about my "made it a legitimate topic for discussion" post. I was parodying those idiots who claim that Kerry's speechifying about his time in the service made it ok to make bogus, sensationalist charges about that service. See, I changed the subject from Kerry to W, and the object from war service to drug use.

I guess if I have to explain it, it wasn't that funny.

But still apt! I'm nothing if not apt.

|9.14.04 @ 6:03PM|#

I was parodying those idiots who claim that Kerry's speechifying about his time in the service made it ok to make bogus, sensationalist charges about that service.

"I remember Christmas of 1968, sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and the president of the United States telling the American people I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared -- seared -- in me."

-- John Kerry, speech to the US Senate, 1986.

How about that. Bogus, sensationalist claims about Kerry's service in Vietnam, from Kerry himself. Oh, wait -- those were *pro-Kerry* lies, so that means they're good. I forgot we were in JoeLand here.

|9.15.04 @ 10:20AM|#

That statement is in complete accord with what he wrote in his diary on the day the events occurred. You think the man would lie in his own diary?

hot britney spears|11.4.04 @ 8:07PM|#

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