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Why Aren't The Bush Daughters In Iraq?
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Why Aren't The Bush Daughters In Iraq?
The President's Family Has Set An Appallingly Bad Example For Wartime Sacrifice
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by Kitty Kelley
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When I was a little girl in a convent school, the nuns impressed on me
the power of setting a good example. These beloved teachers are no
longer around to instruct the president and his family, so I recommend
that the Bushes learn from Mark Twain, who said: "Always do right. This
will gratify some people and astonish the rest."
My
suggestion comes after the White House announcement earlier this month
that Jenna Bush, one of the president's twin daughters, is writing a
book on her all-expenses-paid trip to Panama, where she worked for a
few weeks as an intern for UNICEF. Jenna Bush is quoted as saying she
will donate her earnings from her book to UNICEF, a commendable
gesture, considering her father's net worth of $20 million. But while
the 25-year-old makes the rounds of TV talk shows this fall in a White
House limousine, dozens of her contemporaries will be arriving home
from Iraq in wooden boxes. In Britain, Prince Harry is insisting on
going off to Iraq — even as his country is reducing its troop
commitment.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt showed how the power of good example could
also be powerfully good politics. When he led the country to sacrifice
in World War II, his children enlisted and his wife traveled to
military bases to counsel and comfort the families of soldiers.
Newsreels showed the president's four sons fighting with the Marines in
the Pacific, flying with the Army Air Forces in North Africa and
landing with the Navy at Normandy. Soon other public figures followed
suit — movie stars (James Stewart and Clark Gable) enlisted and sports
heroes (Joe DiMaggio and Hank Greenberg) went off to war.
The
contrast between FDR's good example during wartime and that of George
W. Bush is stark and sad. The Bush family rallies to the political
campaigns of its scions and spends months on the road raising money and
shaking hands to put their men into public office. In fact, the public
image of their cohesive family — the pearl-choked matriarch surrounded
by progeny and springer spaniels — helped cinch more than one
presidency for the Bushes. Yet now, when its legacy is most in peril,
the family seems to be squandering its good will on a mess of
celebridreck.
The president tells us Iraq is a "noble" war,
but his wife, his children and his nieces and nephews are not
listening. None has enlisted in the armed services, and none seems to
be paying attention to the sacrifices of military families. Until
Jenna's trip to Panama, the presidential daughters performed community
service only when mandated by a court after they were cited for
underage drinking. Since then they have surfaced in public during
lavish presidential trips with their parents, bar-hopping outings in
Georgetown and champagne-popping art openings in New York.
The
first lady, so often lauded for her love of literacy, has not been seen
in the reading rooms of veterans' hospitals. The president's sister,
Doro, publicly picketed Al Gore's last days in the vice president's
mansion as he awaited the Supreme Court's decision on the Florida
recount of 2000. Yet she has been strangely absent from publicly
supporting her brother's war.
The presidential nieces and
nephews also have missed the memo on setting a good public example.
Ashley Bush — the youngest daughter of the president's brother, Neil,
and Neil's ex-wife, Sharon — was presented to Manhattan society at the
52nd Annual International Debutantes Ball at the Waldorf Astoria. Her
older sister, Lauren, a runway model, told London's Evening Standard
that she is a student ambassador for the United Nations World Food
Program, but she would not lobby her uncle for U.S. funds. Her cousin,
Billy Bush, chronicles the lives of celebrities on "Access Hollywood."
"Uncle
Bucky," as William H.T. Bush is known within the family, is one
presidential relative who has profited from the Iraq war. He recently
sold all of his shares in Engineered Support Systems Inc. (ESSI), a St.
Louis-based company that has flourished under the president's no-bid
policy for military contractors. Uncle Bucky told the Los Angeles Times
that he would have preferred that ESSI, on whose board he sits, was not
involved in Iraq, "but, unfortunately, we live in a troubled world."
The
only member of the Bush family to show the strains of our "troubled
world" is former President George H.W. Bush, who shed tears recently
while addressing the Florida Legislature. The elder Bush was talking
about son Jeb's gubernatorial loss in 1994. Jeb, who was later elected,
tried to console him. But the sobs of Bush 41 seemed to be more about
his older son's "noble" war.
Perhaps the father's sadness sprang
from his own experience fighting in what his parents called "Mr.
Roosevelt's war" — the good war — the war that saved the world from
tyranny. He enlisted at 18 to fly torpedo bombers. He flew 58 missions
in two years and returned home a war hero. Since then, no one in his
large family has seen fit to follow his sterling example of service and
patriotism.
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