Did anyone see this article about Bush Sr. giving Kennedy an award?

...When it was announced (with amazingly little fanfare) that the pugnaciously anti-Iraq war Democrat Kennedy had been awarded the 2003 George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service, so many jaws dropped all over Washington that usually voluble politicians were only heard swallowing their real thoughts.

Since the current President Bush veered away from the real war against terrorism in Afghanistan and went a'venturing in Iraq, much to his father's dismay, just about everybody close to Washington politics has known of the policy schism between father and son.

It was politically and philosophically obvious. But people around Father Bush, a coterie of traditional internationalist conservatives who protect him like a wolf mother does her cubs, would heatedly deny any family rift -- and nobody spoke publicly about it.

Now it's all out. Father Bush has done it in his own preferred nuanced way -- the way Establishment gentlemen operate -- but he has revealed the depth of his disagreement with his impetuously uninformed son.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/10/18/bush_srs_message_to_bush_jr/

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Dubya showed Teddy favor when he first took up residence in the White House (remember the famous buddy picture?), so is there some tie between the two families?

Or maybe it's just guilt......?

It's intriguing, I guess, to watch the right wing old guard snipe at the right wing vanguard, especially when the sniper has his own son in his sights. But I hardly think it's worth the gushing or historical nonsense with which Georgie Ann Geyer lards her Globe column.

Geyer spouts:

"(Bush Sr.) lived his life in the service of moderate and intelligent internationalism. His manners were always meticulously courteous, as he wooed even critics overseas to see the American position. He was even-handed in the Middle East and thus brought the area to the verge of peace for the first time in history; he was capable of using force but preferred to do it supported by coalitions of friendly states, thus cementing international cooperation."

Ha, ha! Bush Sr.'s "intelligent internationalism" involved such highlights as:

- inveighing against China's entry into the United Nations;

- backing terrorism against Nicaragua from the Contras;

- helping Reagan break the law in the Iran-Contra affair, and then pardoning the criminals;

- bribing and bullying foreign nations into backing Gulf War I. In the UN, Yemen's ambassador, for refusing to obey, was told "that's the most expensive vote you've ever cast" whereupon its aid was slashed;

- lying to the US public about Iraqi atrocities in Kuwait in order to manufacture consent for the war (cf. the infamous Hill and Knowlton pr firm's lie about the babies being tossed out of incubators);

- leading a posse of failed US auto executives to Japan in '91 to demand that the Japanese stop seducing US consumers with such efficient and desirable cars, and promptly throwing up in the prime minister's lap...

Sure, next to his lunatic son, Bush Sr. looks better now. But there's no need to mythologize him. He sucked, too.

but you have to admit that his son is at least good at one thing: making ANYBODY look good.

I agree with Voltaire that Poppy Bush was not a good president, I do think he is far more intelligent than Dubya, and actually developed skills in his life rather than relying on Daddy's money and his ability to con people to get him through everything. I think Dubya knows he can't live up to the old man's standards and that's why he's doing things that Daddy had the sense to avoid, as a way of standing up to the old man.

This award is Daddy backhanding Dubya for disobeying. "You didn't do what I wanted you to do so I'll give a gift you'd have liked to a guy you dislike."

I heard today that Mommy Dearest talks a great deal about Jeb in her new book, really laying it on about what a good speaker Jeb is. That's Mommy getting her little dig in at Dubya.

Someone should have gotten these people in family therapy about forty-five years ago.