My Dream is Realized at Long Last

So last week Elisabeth Bumiller rips off Roxanne to give us the BushCo Random Thirteen (from an iPod programmed by a flunky).  This week Ms. Bumiller takes me to school to demonstrate how a professional shill, with awesome White House "access", gets it done as she rips me off with a long overdue WH Love Letter about BushCo's valuable background in and love affair with baseball. 

I stand in awe of Ms. Bumiller's talent for knocking every one of the undoubtedly Ketchum-approved myth-points out of the park.  She writes:

When he was a child, the game was an obsession and a link to his father, the captain and first baseman on the Yale team. When he became an adult, the game made Mr. Bush a multimillionaire and helped start his political career, and now serves as an escape from the pressures of the White House.

Next time I have to remember to wedge in the complicated but rewarding relationship with his father at every opportunity.  In my WH Letter, I went with Jenna and Not-Jenna practically growing up at the park with Daddy.  Live and learn. 

Ms. Bumiller fawns on:

Anyone who knew Mr. Bush as an owner of the Rangers invariably described a man who was not just promoting a team but also building the image and political skills necessary to win the Texas governorship and the White House.

"Listen, the president was the ideal baseball owner from the commissioner's perspective," said Steve Greenberg, the son of the baseball legend Hank Greenberg and the deputy baseball commissioner to Fay Vincent when Mr. Bush owned the Rangers. "He was first and foremost a fan and lover of the game. Secondly, he was very supportive of the commissioner. I think as a politician, maybe by osmosis at that point, he understood how difficult it was to govern 30 headstrong, very wealthy owners."

and

Roland Betts, the chairman of the Chelsea Piers sports complex in Lower Manhattan and the single largest investor in the group that bought the Rangers with Mr. Bush, recalled in an interview earlier this year that after the group set up Mr. Bush as managing partner, he quickly took to the road promoting the team.

Even I went deep with all those myth-points.  The whole point of the White House Letter column is to remind us that BushCo was destined to lead us. But what's this about "anyone who knew him then" knowing that they were in the presence of greatness?  That's odd.  This site (scroll down) quotes the Rangers' GM, who remembers exactly what BushCo did during his years fronting for the Rangers in a less masterful light:

"George was the front man. George was the guy that you met when you wanted to be introduced to Ranger baseball. He was the spokesperson. He dealt with the media, he dealt with the fans, and it was obvious to us right from the start that that's what he was made for... George chose to sit right next to the dugout, with the fans, every day... I mean, it's 100 degrees down there. He's there from before the game, half an hour before the game, didn't leave his seat except to go to the bathroom, cheering for the ball club, signing autographs, listening to hecklers, accepting well-wishes from season-ticket customers."

George absolutely loved it. And why not? It was the ultimate dream job, it was business but it was also fun. Then somebody suggested that he run for governor. But Bush was unwilling to give up baseball. In fact, the only ambition he had was to someday become league commissioner.  When the presiding commissioner suddenly resigned, George called him to see if he could get his support to assume the post. When the man suggested that Bush pursue politics, George replied: "I think I'd rather be commissioner than governor."

But just as other people were running the team while he clapped and grinned, other people were running his political career for him as well. 

No, no, Bumiller, through Roland Betts, insists:

"Well, he really wasn't making speeches about the Texas Rangers," Mr. Betts said. "He was helping local Republican politicians, and using the Rangers as his talking points. He was building political capital. So when he decided to make his move, he had his machine." Mr. Bush and the other owners sold the team in 1998, when Mr. Bush made more than $15 million on an investment of $600,000.

That line "helping local politicians" will either make you laugh or cry if you know the background of the building of the Texas Rangers Stadium,or as Nicholas Kristof, of all people, called it, "The Great Land Grab."   In fact, I'm surprised that she risked going so far down the Texas Rangers road, especially that last bit about it being such a brilliant investment.  It is, after all, so easy to find out the details of the deal and exactly how rotten it was for Texas taxpayers - raising taxes, confiscating land from private owners, building his political machine to take over national politics - all between bags of peanuts and hot dogs. 

But it's not Ms. Bumiller's job to pick and choose which Ketchum myth-points get used in the WH Letter.  It's her job to clean them up and make them look believable.  And, I have to admit, she does that better than anyone else in the business.

UPDATE: Riggsveda, in the comments, provides the definitive pre-2000 election BushCo profile.

Comments

[Riggsveda]

Great links! Bumiller is such a suck-up, it's a wonder she isn't carrying Rove's Depends.

"Owner" with regard to the Rangers, is really a stretch, but if you want to consider owning a 2% share "ownership", well, this is the age of credulity. If there was any justice in the world he would have been run out of town on a rail by the good citizens of Arlington, but this is not Hollywood, just real life, where the evil and sordid get to die pleasantly of old age, and the rest of us whistle earnestly past the graveyard.

For the definitive background on Bush, nobody beats Joe Conason, and you can read one his best pieces here (ran in Harper's before Bush got in office).

[Riggsveda]

Duh.

Forgot to copy in the link above. Here it is.

[Helga Fremlin]

Englighten me Rob - is Ms Bumiller actually a journalist? Ever since I first read her, I have thought that she was a court reporter and nothing else! Thanks for giving us the background on the shady dealings re the Texas Rangers - I believe Joan Didion also dealt with them in a NYRB piece in 2000.

[eRobin]

Hi Helga! Yes, she is. She was a style reporter for WaPo for a while, where I think she found her niche. She certainly has maintained a lot of her style section habits. She's written a book about Indian women, which I really should read. It's supposed to be okay. She's no slouch. She's just chosen to use her talents for evil.

You know who else is good? Jodi Wilgoren. But when she wrote about the Kerry campaign, I swear she lost her mind. It was like she hated him and politics and everything about her job and she made us all pay.