By Alex Constantine

Even loyal conservatives must admit that George Bush, Jr. is a strange bird. Texans
have never truly accepted him as one of their own. "Like his father," the UK's
Observer jeered in 1994, "his home-grown credentials are questioned." In general, the
natives were somewhat uneasy about the occasional bizarre antic - like the first day
of a local dove shoot, highlighted by Bush bagging a protected songbird, not the
designated target (Ed Vulliamy, "White Hot Mama fights a Texan Bush War,"
Observer, October 2, 1994). "No real Texan would have done that!" barked then
Governor Ann Richards.

But then, in the mid-90s, the Texas political landscape shifted radically, the old order
crumbling and a home-grown right-wing mutation plowing through the crust.
Democrats had dominated the state since the Civil War, but with missionary zeal the
Christian Right rallied and seized control of the Republican Party, led by the state's
Christian Coalition and Eagle Forum, and went on to demonstrate that any political
machine is mutable, even in the deep South.

But Bush still didn't quite fit the ticket, some Texans felt. True, his business was
petroleum. But shortly after George, Jr. joined the board of Harken Oil, BCCI, the
international bank that parlayed middle eastern oil profits into political influence, not
to mention engaging in child prostitution and arming Iraq, dropped a number of
lucrative drilling contracts in his lap (Petzinger, Truell & Abramson, 'Family Ties,' Wall
Street Journal, December 5, 1991, p. 1). Texans were left to ponder the question:
Why in tarnation was Bush, Jr. in business with the scandal-ridden Shiek Khalifah
bin-Salmon al-Khalifah, the ruling emir of Bahrain? In 1990, the Shiek's name surfaced
on a list of primary shareholders in BCCI's parent company, BCCI Holdings in
Luxembourg. Bush had pulled strings to throw the contracts to Harken. In return,
Harken Oil helped BCCI investment bankers gain a foothold in the U.S.
When the Iraqgate scandal broke, W. attempted to separate himself from it, blaming
a former aide who had gone to work for BCCI and resigned when the press caught
a whiff of the deal.

At the same time, it was clear that Junior had his eye fixed on his father's old eyrie in
Washington. W. had been one of Bush, Sr.'s leading advisors, a "lead player," in "the
campaign to oust White House Chief of Staff John Sununu" (Pertzinger, Truell &
Abramson). He was an old hand at gamesmanship by the time he landed his
gubernatorial seat.
The W.S. Journal looked into Bush's business dealings and found a "complex pattern"
of provocative personal and financial ties, but Bush refused to respond to questions:
"George W. Bush, a managing partner of the Texas Rangers baseball team, declined to
be interviewed," but "he did provide brief responses to written questions through an
intermediary." Where was the Texas moralist with an aversion to "even" the vaguest
appearance of wrong-doing? In hiding.

But still exploiting those personal and financial relationships, of course. In March, 1995,
the regents of the University of Texas, at the behest of Governor Bush, invested $10
million with the Carlyle Group, a merchant bank in the District of Columbia. Carlyle was
chaired by Frank Carlucci, Ronald Reagan's secretary of defense and, since 1989, "a
darling of the corporate sector," per the L.A. Times. Carlucci sits on the board of
numerous mega-corporations, including Bell Atlantic, Ashland Oil and the Kaman
Corporation. Carlyle's sole outside partner is the Mellon Family. Richard Darmon,
economic advisor to Bush, Sr., was on the board. So was James Baker III, former
secretary of state. These investments raised a ruckus in the business press.

Seems G.W. himself had long-standing business ties to the Carlyle Group, a firm bonded
financially with the Bin Laden family of Saudi Arabia. In 1990, he was granted a seat
on the board of Carlyle by former Nixon aide/bagman Fred Malek, a Carlyle advisor (Joe
Conason, "Notes on a Native Son," Harper's, February 2000, p. 49).

Fred Malek, mind you, was the CREEP deputy director who, prompted by Nixon's
trembling belief that "a Jewish cabal" in the Bureau of Labor Statistics was bent on his
destruction, made up a list of Jews in the bureau. Malek was made deputy director of
the Republican National Committee by George Bush, Sr., an old friend. It was Malek
who organized an "ethnic coalition" of Nazis in August 1988, the Heritage Groups
Council, that included the likes of Laszlo Pastor (a Hungarian-American, former fascist
Arrowcross death squad officer and junior diplomatic envoy to Berlin under Hitler), and
Father Florian Galdau (a priest, Vatican P-2 member and New York leader of the Iron
Guard, a latter day version of the old SS-run Romanian terror organization).

Once again, the Bush family distanced itself from scandal. The clan pled ignorance, even
though Bush, Sr. had cherry-picked Malek for the job. Supposedly, they had fooled
everyone, even the conservative National Jewish Coalition, which boasted In 1992 that
"Vice President Dan Quayle, HUD Secretary Jack Kemp, GOP Campaign Manager Fred
Malek and a large number of key Senators, Congressmen and candidates for office
addressed Jewish delegates and community leaders at a series of events hosted by the
NJC during the Republican convention in Houston last month." (NJC Bulletin, September
1992).

On February 2 1990, USA Today's Tom Squitieri wrote that "four key
Republican activists, ousted from George Bush's 1988 campaign amid
charges of anti-Semitic or pro-fascist links, are back working for the party."
These included Fred Malek and Phil Guarino, another pro-Nazi P2 lodger.
George W. Bush ran spin control for his father's 1988 presidential campaign,
and when the Nazi scandal broke ever-so-briefly in the media, GW protected
his father by urging the European fascists to resign from the Heritage Council
(Citizen's Law Web Site,
http://www.citizenslaw.net/bushdynasty_corrupt.htm).

=-=-=-=-=-=

Inside The Carlyle Group

***

New York Times, 3/5/01:

...Traveling with the fanfare of dignitaries, Mr. Bush and Mr. Baker [use] their
extensive government contacts to further their business interests as
representatives of the Carlyle Group, a $12 billion private equity firm
based in Washington that has parlayed a roster of former top-level
government officials, largely from the Bush and Reagan administrations, into
a moneymaking machine. In a new spin on Washington's revolving door
between business and government, where lobbying by former officials is
restricted but soliciting investments is not, Carlyle has upped the ante and
taken the practice global. Mr. Bush and Mr. Baker were accompanied on
their trips by former Prime Minister John Major of Britain, another of Carlyle's
political stars. With door-openers of this caliber, along with shrewd
investment skills, Carlyle has gone from an unknown in the world of private
equity to one of its biggest players. Private equity, which involves buying up
companies in private deals and reselling them, is a high-end business open
only to the very rich. Over the last decade, the Carlyle empire has grown to
span three continents and include investments in most corners of the world.
It owns so many companies that it is now in effect one of the nation's
biggest defense contractors and a force in global telecommunications.

Its blue-chip investors include major banks and insurance companies,
billion-dollar pension funds and wealthy investors from Abu Dhabi to
Singapore. In getting business for Carlyle, Mr. Bush has been impressive. His
meeting with the crown prince was followed by a yacht cruise and private
dinners with Saudi businessmen. And Mr. Bush led Carlyle's successful entry
into South Korea, the fastest-growing economy in Asia. After his meetings
with the prime minister and other government and business leaders, Carlyle
won a tough competition for control of KorAm, one of Korea's few healthy
banks. The steady flow of politicians to lucrative private-sector jobs based
on their government contacts is a familiar Washington tale. But in this case,
it is being played out for more dollars, on a global stage, and in the world of
private finance, where the minimal government rules prohibiting lobbying by
former officials for a given period are not a factor. These rules say nothing
about potential conflicts when former government officials use their
connections and insights for financial gain, and they may attract more notice
now that George W. Bush is president. Many of those involved with Carlyle,
which invests largely in companies that do business with the government or
are affected by government regulations, have ties to the Oval Office.

For instance, Frank C. Carlucci, a Reagan secretary of defense who as much
as anyone is responsible for Carlyle's success, said he met in February with
his old college classmate Donald H. Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense, and
Vice President Dick Cheney, himself a defense secretary under former
President Bush, to talk about military matters - at a time when Carlyle has
several billion-dollar defense projects under consideration.... "Carlyle is as
deeply wired into the current administration as they can possibly be," said
Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, a
nonprofit public interest group based in Washington. "George Bush is getting
money from private interests that have business before the government,
while his son is president. And, in a really peculiar way, George W. Bush
could, some day, benefit financially from his own administration's decisions,
through his father's investments. The average American doesn't know
that and, to me, that's a jaw-dropper."

It is difficult to determine exactly how much money the senior Mr. Bush and
Mr. Baker have made. Mr. Baker is a Carlyle partner, and Mr. Bush has the
title senior adviser to its Asian activities. With a current market value
of about $3.5 billion on Carlyle's equity and with the firm owned by 18
partners and one outside investor, Mr. Baker's Carlyle stake would be worth
about $180 million if each partner held an equal stake. It is not known
whether he has more or less than the other partners. Unlike Mr. Baker, Mr.
Bush has no ownership stake in Carlyle; he is an adviser and an investor and
is compensated by obtaining stakes in Carlyle investments.
Carlyle executives cited, for example, Mr. Bush's being allowed to put money
he earns giving speeches for Carlyle into its investment funds. Mr. Bush
generally receives $80,000 to $100,000 for a speech. He sits on no
corporate boards other than Carlyle's. Carlyle also gave the Bush family a
hand in 1990 by putting George W. Bush, who was then struggling to find
a career, on the board of a Carlyle subsidiary, Caterair, an airline-catering
company....

With $12 billion from investors, Carlyle claims to be the nation's largest
private equity fund and makes money by investing in undervalued companies
and reselling at a profit.... The California state pension fund invested
$305 million with Carlyle, and the Texas teachers pension fund - whose
board was appointed when George W. Bush was governor - gave Carlyle
$100 million to invest in November. Carlyle also works as a financial adviser
to the Saudi government....Carlyle has done well for its investors, returning
an average of 34 percent a year over the last decade, in line with other
private equity funds. It has done this by buying what it knows best -
companies that are regulated by the government. Nearly two-thirds of its
investments are in defense and telecommunications companies, which are
affected by shifts in government spending and policy. ...Carlyle has
become the nation's 11th largest defense contractor, owning companies that
make tanks, aircraft wings and a broad array of other military equipment. It
also owns health care companies, real estate, Internet companies, a
bottling company and even Le Figaro, the French newspaper.... And its
access extends well beyond American shores. In Europe, Carlyle has
assembled an advisory board that besides Mr. Major includes Karl Otto P÷hl,
former president of German's Bundesbank, and the past or present chairmen
of B.M.W., Hoffman-LaRoche, Nestlé_, LVMH-Moït Hennessy, Louis Vuitton
and Aerospatiale, the French Airbus partner. Carlyle's Asia advisory board,
which helps raise money and finds and reviews deals, includes former
President Fidel V. Ramos of the Philippines, the former prime minister of
Thailand and the executive director of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.
The former South Korean prime minister Park Tae Joon was also an adviser
to Carlyle....
In an office adorned with photographs of Mr. Carlucci and the politically
mighty - he sits beneath an Oval Office picture of himself and Mr. Reagan -
Mr. Carlucci makes it clear that his extensive government and global ties are
as fresh as ever. "I know Rumsfeld extremely well," Mr. Carlucci said in an
interview. "We've been close friends throughout the years. We were college
classmates."...

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"This new direction of the US economy will generate hundreds of billions of
dollars of surplus profits, which will line the pockets of a handful of large
corporations..."

Corrupte Bush-familie
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