"R. David Steele" /OMEGA wrote in message
[...]
And if GWB had been a Missile officer, we would be hearing how
his daddy arranged that he could sit out the war in Montana......

Sorry but a one term republican congressman in a Texas controlled
by democrats does not have that type of power. LBJ had power.
Senator Gore, D-TN, had power. Congressman Bush did not.


I do believe that you are incorrect about how powerful and influential
Congressman Bush was:

http://www.usa-presidents.info/bush.htm
http://www.who2.com/prescottbush.html

W.'s Grandfather, Prescott Bush, served as Senator from Connecticut from
1952 (mid-term election) to 1963.
W.'s Father, GW Bush, served TWO terms as Congressman from the 7th District
of Texas, 1966 to 1969. Both Father and Grandfather Bush were members of the
Yale Skull and Bones Society, just like W. I would think that the son a
two-term Congressman and grandson of a 1.5 term Senator could rightfully be
said to be "connected," at least compared to most of us. BTW, Prescott Bush,
according to legend, was said to be involved in one of the most famous of
all Skull and Bones Society pranks, the theft of Geronimo's skull, so even
in that circle, he's literally something of a mythical creatu

http://www.post-gazette.com/columnis...00923roddy.asp


W.'s general family background is a bit more connected than I realized:

http://archive.salon.com/politics200...sh/index1.html
[...]
"In the 20th century, Bush's family didn't hobnob with kings, but they
certainly mingled with presidents before taking over the White House
themselves. Bush's great-grandfather was a steel and railroad magnate who
became a personal advisor to President Hoover, who was in fact a distant
relative. Grandfather Prescott Bush, the Connecticut senator, was a favored
golf partner of President Eisenhower (not a relative). Grandmother Dorothy
Walker Bush's father founded a Wall Street investment house and was a close
advisor to FDR, another Bush relative.
George W. Bush spent his childhood between the Bush homes in New York, Long
Island and Connecticut; the family compound at Kennebunkport, Maine; the
10,000-acre plantation in South Carolina; and the island retreat in Florida,
where their neighbors were Doubledays, Fords, Roosevelts and Vanderbilts."



Here's what one former professor has to say about W:


Originally published on Friday, July 16, 2004 in the News section of
The Harvard Crimson.

Former HBS Prof Blasts Bush
By SIMON W. VOZICK-LEVINSON
Crimson Staff Writer

As the race for the White House heats up and the nation's left-leaning
heads come together to unearth potential skeletons in President Bush's
closet, one line in his resume has avoided major scrutiny: the time
Bush spent just across the Charles River, earning an MBA at the
Harvard Business School (HBS) in the 1970s. Now, as some fervently
question the commander-in-chief's performance in the Texas National
Guard decades ago and more current-minded politicos take aim at the
events surrounding Sept. 11, 2001 and the invasion of Iraq, one former
HBS professor is doing his best to publicize his recollections of what
he calls a sarcastic, mediocre student who went on to lead the United
States.
Yoshihiro Tsurumi, an avowed opponent of Bush's current views and
policies who was a visiting associate professor of international
business at HBS between 1972 and 1976, said Bush was among 85 students
he taught one year in a required first-year course. In the class on
"Environment Analysis for Management," incorporating elements of
macroeconomics, industrial policy and international business, Tsurumi
said students discussed and debated case studies for 90 minutes
several times a week.

Tsurumi-now a professor of international business at Baruch College in
the City University of New York-said he remembers the future president
as scoring in the bottom 10 percent of students in the class.

Thirty years after teaching the class, Tsurumi said the
twenty-something Bush's statements and behavior-"always very
shallow"-still stand out in his mind.

"Whenever [Bush] just bumped into me, he had some flippant statement
to make," said Tsurumi when reached at his home in Scarsdale, N.Y.
"The comments he made were revealing of his prejudice."

The White House did not reply to requests for comment on Bush's time
at HBS.

Tsurumi said he particularly recalls Bush's right-wing extremism at
the time, which he said was reflected in off-hand comments equating
the New Deal of the 1930s with socialism and the
corporation-regulating Securities and Exchange Commission with "an
enemy of capitalism."

"I vividly remember that he made a comment saying that people are poor
because they're lazy," Tsurumi said.

Tsurumi also said Bush displayed a sense of arrogance about his
prominent family, including his father, former U.S. President George
H.W. Bush.

"[George W. Bush] didn't stand out as the most promising student,
but...he made it sure we understood how well he was connected,"
Tsurumi said. "He wasn't bashful about how he was being pushed upward
by Dad's connections."

Tsurumi said that the younger Bush boasted that his father's political
string-pulling had gotten him to the top of the waiting list for the
Texas National Guard instead of serving in Vietnam. When other
students were frantically scrambling for summer jobs, Tsurumi said,
Bush explained that he was planning instead for a visit to his father
in Beijing, where the senior Bush was serving at the time as the
special U.S. envoy to China.

In addition, Tsurumi is still sore about what he recalls as Bush's
slight to his cinematic taste. When he arranged for students to view
the film of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath during their study of
the Great Depression, Tsurumi said, Bush derided the film as "corny."

At the time, Tsurumi said his worries about his student extended no
further than the boardroom.

"All Harvard Business School students want to become president of a
company one day," Tsurumi said. "I remember saying, if you become
president of a company some day, may God help your customers and
employees."

When he discovered that his former pupil was vying for the presidency
in 2000, Tsurumi said he tried to inform the public about his
experience with the then-Texas governor at HBS-but got few results
beyond hate mail.

"Last election time, if you recall, the American mass media did a
shameful job of vetting [the presidential candidates]," Tsurumi said.

As another November approaches, Tsurumi is trying again to air his
criticisms of the man he once taught and his actions as president.

"This time it seems to be getting around a bit more widely," he said.
"After three years of dismal record, people seem more inclined to
believe that all his failed leadership was apparent during the Harvard
Business School years."

In a July 2 speech to the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan in
Tokyo, Tsurumi repeated the broadside he has launched repeatedly in
the past.

"I always remember two groups of students," Tsurumi said then,
according to published reports. "One is the really good students, not
only intelligent, but with leadership qualities, courage. The other is
the total opposite, unfortunately to which George belonged."

-Staff writer Simon W. Vozick-Levinson can be reached at
.

Copyright © 2004, The Harvard Crimson Inc. All rights reserved.

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