George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

In a recent letter to the Texas Monthly, Wyatt specifies that "when people speak of Mr.
Bush's humble beginnings in the oil industry, it should be noted that he rode down to
Texas on Dresser's private aircraft. He was accompanied by his father, who at that time
was one of the directors of Dresser Industries." "I hate it when people make statements
about Mr. Bush's humble beginnings in the oil industry. It just didn't happen that way,"
writes Mr. Wyatt. [fn 9] Dresser was a Harriman company, and Bush got his start
working for one of its subsidiaries. One history of Dresser Industries contains a
photograph of George Bush with his parents, wife, and infant son "in front of a Dresser
company airplane in West Texas." [fn 10 tris] Can this be a photo of Bush's arrival in
Odessa during the summer of 1948? In any case, this most cherished myth of the Bush
biographers is very much open to doubt.
Fawning biographies of bloodthirsty tyrants are nothing new in world literature. The red
Studebaker school goes back a long way; these writers of today can be usefully compared
with a certain Gaius Velleius Paterculus, who lived in the Roman Empire under the
emperors Augustus and Tiberius, and who thus an approximate contemporary of Jesus
Christ. Velleius Paterculus was an historian and biographer who is known today, if at all,
for his biographical notes on the Emperor Tiberius, which are contained within
Paterculus's history of Rome from the origins down to his own time.
Paterculus, writing under Tiberius, gave a very favorable treatment of Julius Caesar, and
became fulsome when he came to write of Augustus. But the worst excesses of flattery
came in Velleius Paterculus's treatment of Tiberius himself. Here is part of what he writes
about that tyrannical ruler:
Of the transactions of the last sixteen years, which have passed in the view, and are fresh in the
memory of all, who shall presume to give a full account? [...] credit has been restored to
mercantile affairs, sedition has been banished from the forum, corruption from the Campus
Martius, and discord from the senate- house; justice, equity and industry, which had long lain
buried in neglect, have been revived in the state; authority has been given to the magistrates,
majesty to the senate, and solemnity to the courts of justice; the bloody riots in the theater have
been suppressed, and all men have had either a desire excited in them, or a necessity imposed on
them, of acting with integrity. Virtuous acts are honored, wicked deeds are punished. The humble
respects the powerful, without dreading him; the powerful takes precedence of the humble without
condemning him. When were provisions more moderate in price? When were the blessings of
peace for abundant? Augustan peace, diffused over all the regions of the east and the west, and all
that lies between the south and the north, preserves every corner of the world free from all dread
of predatory molestation. Fortuitous losses, not only of individuals, but of cities, the munificence
of the prince is ready to relieve. The cities of Asia have been repaired; the provinces have been
secured from the oppression of their governors. Honor promptly rewards the deserving, and the
punishment of the guilty, if slow, is certain. Interest gives place to justice, solicitation to merit. For
the best of princes teaches his countrymen to act rightly by his own practice; and while he is the
greatest in power, he is still greater in example.
Having exhibited a general view of the administration of Tiberius Caesar, let us now enumerate a few
particulars respecting it. [...] How formidable a war, excited by the Gallic chief Sacrovir and Julius Florius,
did he suppress, and with such amazing expedition and energy, that the Roman people learned that they
were conquerors, before they knew that they were at war, and the news of the victory outstripped the news
of the danger! The African war too, perilous as it was, and daily increasing in strength, was quickly
terminated under his auspices and direction. [...] What structures has he erected in his own name, and those
of his family! With what dutiful munificence, even exceeding belief, is he building a temple to his father!