George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

illion. Their future was now weighted with the crushing burden of a defacto second
mortgage, in addition to the astronomical national debt that Reagan and Bush had rolled
up. This unhappy consciousness was compounded by the personal carnage of the
continuing economic contraction, which had been accelerated by the shocks of
September-October, 1989. An ugly mood was abroad, with angry people seeking a point
of cathexis.
They found it in Neil Bush, the president's marplot cadet son, the one we saw explaining
his March 31, 1981 dinner engagement with Scott Hinckley. As even little children now
know, Neil Bush was a member of the board of directors of Silverado Savings and Loan
of Denver, Colorado, which went bankrupt and had to be seized by federal regulators
during 1988. Preliminary estimates of the costs to the taxpayers were on the order of $1.6
billion, but this was sure to go higher. The picture was complicated by the fact that Neil
Bush had received a $100,000 personal loan (never repayed, and formally forgiven) and a
$1.25 million line of credit from two local land speculators, Kenneth Good and William
Walters, both also prominent money-bags for the Republican Party. In return for the
favors he had received, Neil Bush certainly did nothing to prevent Silverado from lending
$35 million to Good for a real estate speculation that soon went into default. Walters
received $200 million in loans from Silverado, which were never called in. This was a
prima facie case of violation of the conflict of interest regulations. But instead of keeping
quiet, Neil Bush showed that the family tradition of self-righteous posturing even when
caught with both hands in the cookie jar was well represented by him: he launched an
aggressive campaign of proclaiming his own innoncence; it was all political, thought
Neil, and all because people wanted to get at his august father through him.
Sleazy Neil Bush's pontificating did not play well; Neil sounded "arrogant and flip" and
the result, as People magazine commented at the end of the year, was "a public relations
fiasco." Posters went up in Washington emblazoned with the call to "Jail Neil Bush,"
while out in Denver, the Colorado Taxpayers for Justice marched outside Neil's
downtown office (where Neil had answered questions about his ties to the Hinckley
family in on March 31, 1981) carrying placards and chanting "Yes, Neil, it's wrong to
steal!" and "Give it back, Neil!" [fn 19] Neil was looking forward to public hearings
organized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to probe his malfeasance; there
was talk of a criminal indictment, but this eventually dwindled into a $200 million civil
suit brought against Neil and 10 other former Silverado officials for "gross negligence" in
their running of the affairs of the bank.
Bush's immediate reaction to the dense clouds gathering over Neil's head was to step up a
scandal he saw as a counterweight: this was the "Keating Five" or "Lincoln Brigade"
affair, which hit Senate Democrats Cranston, Riegle, Glenn, and DeConcini, plus
Republican McCain. Some S&L loans showed "excesses," Bush was now ready to
concede, and some were "foolish and ill-advised." But, he quickly stipulated: "I don't
want to argue in favor of re-regulating the industry." And Bush was also on the defensive
because, while he mandated $500 billion for the S&Ls, he wanted to veto a measure
providing for unpaid parental leave for working mothers, despite a campaign promise that
"we need to assure that women don't have to worry about getting their jobs back after