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Still picking my jaw up off of the desk. God. Bless. America. First, from the NYT:
[T]he 43rd president is beginning to add his voice back into the national dialogue. A month ago, he spoke publicly in favor of one of his defining domestic legacies, the tax cuts that still divide the country. Two months from now, he plans to publish a book outlining strategies for economic growth.
Pat Garofalo of The Center for American Progress may have been rendered speechless for a moment, but then penned the article “Coming This Summer: For $24.95, George W. Bush Will Share His ‘Strategies For Economic Growth’“:
That Bush believes the country needs his thoughts on how to create economic growth is laughable. After all, under his watch, “growth in investment, GDP, and employment all posted their worst performance of any post-war expansion,” while “overall monthly job growth was the worst of any cycle since at least February 1945, and household income growth was negative for the first cycle since tracking began in 1967.” As the Economic Policy Institute found, “between the end of the 2001 recession (2001Q4) and the peak of that expansion (2007Q4), the U.S. economy experienced the worst economic expansion of the post-war era.”
…And its not just under Bush that the nation saw lackluster economic growth. Over the last 50 years, in fact, two-thirds of the private sector jobs created in the country have come under Democratic administrations.
Also picking his jaw up off of the floor was Robert Schlesinger at U.S. News & World Report.
This is like Tim Tebow writing a treatise on passing accuracy, like Fox News releasing a how-to guide on fairness and balance in television coverage, like Rush Limbaugh teaching a gender sensitivity class, like Newt Gingrich lecturing about the sanctity of marriage, like Emily Post publishing a collection of “Yo Mamma” jokes. For sheer chutzpah this blows away Michael “Brownie” Brown penning a book on Hurricane Katrina and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt “Let’s Cut Taxes and Increase Defense Spending” Romney lecturing anyone on the deficit.
Bush not being one given to introspection and cataloging of his own errors, it seems unlikely that the volume will be styled along the lines of “do the opposite of my presidential policies.” In fact given the publication date and the fact that Romney seems intent on doubling down on Bush’s agenda, I can guess what the title will be: The 2012 Republican Party Platform.
What are your ideas for the title of W’s tome? I wonder who will be the suckers asked to give endorsements on the back cover?
Note to publisher: perforate the pages so that they can be easily torn out for wrapping fish, lining bird cages, TP, etc.
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Arbusto Energy (sometimes referred to as Arbusto Oil)[1] was a petroleum and energy company formed in Midland, Texas, in 1979, for former US President George W. Bush by a group of investors which included Dorothy Bush, Lewis Lehrman, William Henry Draper III, Bill Gammell, and James R. Bath. The company’s chief financial officer was K. Michael Conaway, now a United States Congressman from Texas.
It was later revealed that Bath made an investment of $50,000 while representing Salem bin Laden of the Saudi Binladin Group. This fact became controversial after the September 11, 2001 attacks due to Salem bin Laden being an older, half-brother of Osama bin Laden, who is alleged to have planned and financed the attacks. Upon Salem bin Laden’s death in a 1988 airplane crash, in Texas, his interest in Arbusto (along with other Binladin Group assets), passed to Khalid bin Mahfouz.
In 1982, Arbusto became known as Bush Exploration, a year after George H. W. Bush became Vice President. A friend of the Bush family, Philip Uzielli, invested $1 million in 1982 in exchange for a 10% stake in the company, at a time when the whole company was valued at less than $400,000. As it neared financial collapse again in September 1984, Bush Exploration merged with Spectrum 7 Energy Corp., a company owned by William DeWitt and Mercer Reynolds. Bush became Chairman and CEO of Spectrum 7.
In 1985 Spectrum 7 reported a net loss of $1.5 million and was bought in 1986 for $2.2 million by Harken Energy, with Bush joining the Harken board of directors and finance audit committee.
In 1987 the Saudi investor Abdullah Taha Bakhsh bought most of Union Bank of Switzerland’s shares in Harken becoming its third largest investor owning 17% of the company. He was represented on the board by Talat M. Othman. Another investor was Ghaith R. Pharaon, a partner of Bakhsh’s, who would later be involved in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International scandal, and is currently the target of an international dragnet.
In January 1990 with the company in the same state as its previous incarnations, it was awarded a contract to drill for crude oil off the coast of Bahrain, a move that shocked industry insiders as Harken had no previous experience outside of the US or of drilling offshore.
In June 1990 Bush sold more than half of his shares in Harken to a Los Angeles broker named Ralph D. Smith. One week after the sale Harken announced an overall loss of $23.2 million triggering an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission into the sale.
Let me see if I remember his old plan….
-Write checks to cover two wars. CHECK.
-Give away money to taxpayers “who spent too much on taxes”. CHECK.
-Reduce taxes to the wealthy. CHECK.
Bury the books in the backyard and run like hell. (CHECK)
um…. If I did that, I would be in jail.
Grim Fairy Tales.
How I fucked you all?