George Bush's Education
 

Things that make you go hmmmmmm :o

January 17, 2003

"To those of you who received honors, awards, and distinctions, I say, well done. And to the C students, I say you too can be president of the United States."
- George W. Bush,
Yale commencement address,
33 years after graduation


He was a C student at Phillips Andover.

He got a not-so-stellar 1206 on his SATs - 566 verbal, 640 math. That was a full 180 points below the median score for the Yale University class of '68.

But boola-boola for him!

In the fall of 1964, George W. Bush was welcomed inside Yale's
ivy-covered walls as a "legacy admittee."

And why not?

The wisecracking Texas teen had something far more powerful than dumb ol' test scores or silly grades. He had a father, George H.W. Bush, who was a rich and prominent Yale alum. And
a grandfather, too. Prescott S. Bush, the aristocratic Connecticut senator, was even a Yale trustee.

A merit decision by a highly selective admissions committee? Not even close.

If this wasn't affirmative action, nothing is.

Affirmative action for rich, white kids whose daddy and granddaddy also went to Yale.

And of course, this particular unlevel playing field denied a place to some higher-scoring, harder-working student who made a single, tragic mistake - not being born as well as the Bushes.

Tough luck for him or her.

But wait!

Wasn't that just the kind of squeezed-out student that now-President Bush was supposedly speaking for last
night when his Justice Department filed a brief with the Supreme Court challenging the affirmative-action program at the University of Michigan?

First, Bush inaccurately derided the Michigan plan as "quotas."

Then he got all moralistic, saying that giving a leg up to black or
Latino applicants i! s! "divisive, unfair and impossible to square with the Constitution." That kind of system, he complained, "unfairly rewards or penalizes prospective students."

It's unfair?

Unfair like being ushered into the Ivy League by Poppy and Gramps?

Unfair like getting into Yale with a 1206 and Cs?

Unfair like having an entire educational career - and much of a
professional life - delivered by rich-boy affirmative action?

And in W's case, the special boosts didn't begin or end with the
admissions committee at Yale.

Had the future president's name been, say, "Arbusto" instead of Bush, would he even have made it as far as Andover, the tony prep school that was also up to its crinkled nose in Bushes?

At Andover, Bush never got his name on the honor roll, even one term. The published record shows that on his very first essay assignment, the future president's grade was zero.

"Disgraceful," the teacher ! wrote in bright red ink.

With a prep-school record this sad, his college counselor suggested, maybe he ought consider applying to a safety school in case things didn't work out at Yale. Bush chose the
University of Texas. But he never had to fall back on Austin, the Bush name packed such a wallop at Yale.

And once classes started in New Haven, this third-generation Yalie
continued not to impress academically.

Oh, his easy manner won him plenty of friends on campus. He was active in his fraternity, rising eventually to president. He made the cheerleading squad:eek: :o and the super-secret Skull
and Bones society.

But there is little evidence he did much book-cracking along the way.

Freshman year, his grades put him in the 21st percentile of his class, meaning four-fifths of his classmates did better than the Future Leader of the Free World.

And in the years that followed, y! oung W never pulled his average above a C. His college transcript, in an eye-popping leak to The New Yorker magazine, showed a 73 in Introduction
to the American Political System and a 71 in Introduction to International Relations, to cite two examples that could mean something in hindsight.

Now, none of this is any cause for shame.

Lots of people do poorly in college and succeed grandly in life.

And a crucial lesson was obviously learned. The playing field is never level, whatever people say. Just make sure
the tilt is your way.

As it was for George W. Bush.

His own family-sponsored affirmative-action plan kept pulling through.

Despite the Yale grades, he was accepted at the Harvard Business School. Despite repeated business failures,
cronies of his father's kept bailing him out.

His big-jackpot investment, the Texas Rangers baseball team, was pretty much a gift from pals of his dad.

And the rest, as they say! in the Ivy League, is Bush family history.

You don't think some black kid in Michigan would have a problem with that?

"And of course, this particular unlevel playing field denied a place to some higher-scoring, harder-working student who made a single, tragic mistake - not being born as well as the Bushes. "

i'm related to the bushes and i didn't get any special treatment when it came to getting into college or getting a job.

shelley j
sigma k

How closely related are you?

george senior is my 2nd uncle. his sister is my great aunt. this makes george w my 2nd cousin i guess. i posted in another thread that i've never actually met him, but i am related to him. i could have used him as a string to pull if i wanted to when i applied to college, but i decided to go on my own hard work. didn't get into an ivy league school, but i did get a good education.

shelley j
sigma k

Well ya'll it just goes to show that "What's good for the BUSH FAMILY GOOSE ain't good for the ORDINARY AMERICAN MINORITY GANDER". Does this really SURPRISE anyone? I'm not surprised AT ALL. You see, this is EXACTLY what happens when deception, greed, money, and power are the main factors in ANYTHING.

I just read an article in which NELSON MANDELLA himself is speaking out about his opposition to what Bush and his administration is doing. He's also speaking about his concerns about Bush's OBVIOUS lack of intellect and insight.

Like I said before, Bush is just a GOOD OLE' GOOOOFFFFY BOY who is a PUPPET. And, in all SERIOUSNESS, I truly believe that he has MILD MENTAL RETARDATION and/or a SERIOUS Mental Health diagnosis.

Hummm.....I've never heard of a second uncle before and if George Sr's sister is your great aunt, why isn't he your great uncle? That would mean, I think, that they are the siblings of one of your grandparents, right? :confused: But in any event, I think your situation and his situation are not the same at all. If an admissions office did not KNOW you were related to the Bushes, how could they give you preferential treatment?

great uncle is correct. but by marriage. my great aunt (my mom's aunt) is married to his brother.
you're right. if they don't know then it doesn't make a difference. but that is sort of my point. i chose not to use my relations as a way to get into college. i chose to go on my own hard work like i said. but if i really wanted to i could have called on family relations. i come from very high society on my mom's side of the family, but my grandfather on my dad's side was a factory worker his entire life. so i'm very blessed to know both sides of it.
it was interesting to grow up with one grandfather who owned his own company and knew all of st. louis' high society and also have a grandfather who worked in the factory of the same type of company my other grandfather owned.

shelley j
sigma k

oh yeah, please don't be offended that i posted on a delta sigma theta thread. you all have better, more interesting conversations than most of the other groups on here.

shelley j
sigma k

But really the fact that you didn't "pull strings" is the point. If he had gone to Yale or Andover, for that matter, based on merit, I think that at least his words would seem less bogus. While still subject to White privilege the obvious favoritism that being child of powerful alum gave him would not be there. Instead, he got everything he has as the result of favoritism rather than his great mind and hard work.

very correct and well said.

shelley j
sigma k

Where's Bin Laden?
 

Maybe this is why we can't find Bin Laden. :D

http://pic4.picturetrail.com:80/VOL6...1/20179462.jpg

Poo on all the people who helped put this man in office.

George George George **smh**

oh the shame! oh the shame!

shelley j
sigma k

Re: Where's Bin Laden?
 

The American people didn't VOTE him in. He was PUT there. I still refuse to believe that he won that election and I don't think that Florida was the deciding vote.

DAT's YO FAMILY!!!!!!:D :cool: :p :o :D

BAWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! :D :D :D

A kid I know of went to U of Penn with a 900 SAT score (old SAT) and decent grades.

He was a legacy.

While penn has a reputation of taking only a small percentage of applicants. It does take 90 percent of its legacies.

He was a legacy.

However, that would apply to a minority legacy also.

i know!! that's why it's so shameful. our family is not really that stupid. i swear!

shelley j
sigma k

more Bush affirmative action
 

Besides the titilating tidbits on the divorce, I was most interested in his business dealings. Sounds like Affirmative Action to me..
________________________________________

HOUSTON -- In the annals of embarrassing presidential relatives, Neil Bush is no Billy Carter or Roger Clinton.

But his messy divorce has produced some eye-opening disclosures. Among them: He had sex with women who showed up uninvited at his hotel rooms in Asia; he had an affair and may have fathered a child out of wedlock; and he stands to make millions from businesses in which he has little expertise -- including a computer-chip company managed in part by the son of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin.

It seems certain opportunities tend to present themselves when your name is Neil Bush.

For his part, Bush defended the fees he has received for consulting jobs. But he gave little insight into whether the women who offered him sex in Hong Kong and Taiwan were perhaps paid by mysterious benefactors.

In a deposition taken last March and reviewed by The Associated Press, Bush told the attorney for his wife of 23 years, Sharon, that the women did not ask him for money and he did not pay them anything.

Asked how he knew what to do when he opened his door and saw a woman standing there, the 48-year-old Bush replied: "Whatever happened, happened."

"It's a pretty remarkable thing for a man just to go to a hotel room door and open it and have a woman standing there and have sex with her," said the attorney, Marshall Davis Brown.

"It was very unusual," Bush replied.

Sharon Bush also accused Neil of fathering a child with the woman he now plans to marry. The woman's ex-husband has filed a defamation lawsuit, and DNA testing has been requested.

The titillating details have made barely a splash in Texas, where loyalty to the president runs deep. University of Texas government professor Bruce Buchanan said he doubts Neil Bush's shenanigans will become political fodder in the 2004 election.

"There are lots of examples of presidents with troubled siblings and it never seemed to have that much of an impact," he said.

Jimmy Carter's beer-swilling brother, Billy, wrote a book called "Redneck Power" and accepted money from the government of Libya. Bill Clinton's half-brother, Roger, was jailed for a year for dealing cocaine. Richard Nixon's kid brother Donald took $205,000 from Howard Hughes in the hopes of opening a fast-food chain selling Nixonburgers.

It is not the first time Neil Bush has caused his family some trouble. At the end of his father's presidency, Neil was among a group of defendants who agreed to pay $49.5 million to settle a negligence lawsuit over the $1 billion collapse of the savings and loan he directed in Colorado.

Bush denied wrongdoing and was not charged in the grand jury investigation, but the U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision found Bush's conduct "involved significant conflicts of interest and constituted multiple breaches" of his fiduciary duties.

Bush has gone on to reap profits from other ventures. In the deposition, he said he hoped to receive an estimated $2 million for acting as a consultant to Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., co-founded by Jiang Zemin's eldest son.

"Now, you have absolutely no educational background in semiconductors, do you Mr. Bush?" Brown asked.

"That's correct," said Bush, who holds an MBA from Tulane University.

Bush recently told the AP he has "not received one penny of compensation" from Grace Semiconductor because he never did the consulting. He did not respond to a request for comment on his divorce proceedings.

Bush has focused most of his energy on Ignite Inc., an Austin-based educational software startup. So far, he has raised $23 million from investors, including Winston Wong, the other founder of Grace Semiconductor.

"Let's face the reality," Bush told the AP in 2002. "I probably have access to people who probably wouldn't meet with a development-stage company, but I feel I'm held to a higher standard."

Bush's tax returns, obtained by the AP, showed $357,000 in income from Ignite and at least $798,218 from three transactions involving the stock of Kopin Corp., a small U.S. high-tech company where he had previously been a consultant.

There is no evidence he has tried to enlist help from the president for any of his ventures. Bush spokesman Taylor Gross said the White House had no comment.

Still, said Rice University political science professor Bob Stein, "there is a family pattern here where the Bush sons -- Jeb, Neil and George -- have benefited tremendously by their connections through their father."

Currying favor with a relative of the president can "start to smell bad," said Steven Weiss, communications director for the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics.

Rex John, who has known Neil Bush since his Denver days, said he has never known Neil Bush to use his family connections to obtain business opportunities.

"I'm sure it has opened many doors for him, but it wasn't Neil out there trying to get them open," John said. "Neil would never do anything like that. That's not his style."

After Neil Bush severed his 23-year marriage to Sharon in May, he proposed last month in France to Maria Andrews, a former volunteer for former first lady Barbara Bush.

Sharon Bush's lawyer in the defamation case, David Berg, allowed the AP to review the deposition but said he did not have a copy of Sharon Bush's testimony. He would not make her available for an interview.

Sharon Bush, 51, alleged her ex-husband could have fathered Andrews' 3-year-old son. That prompted Andrews' former husband to file a defamation lawsuit against Sharon Bush. Neil Bush submitted a tissue sample for analysis.

In the meantime, he has been ordered to pay $1,500 a month in child support for two of his children, Pierce, 17 and Ashley, 14. The couple's oldest child, Lauren, is 19.

I had not heard about this Bush. He must be the Bush's Cousin Pete. AlphaIota, tell us more. :o :p :D