Archives for June 2015

In the Washington Post, Robert O’Harrow Jr. and Tom Hamburger, “Jeb Bush dogged by decades of questions about business deals“:

…. Today, as he works toward his run at the White House, Bush touts his business experience as a strength that gives him the skills and savvy to serve as the nation’s chief executive. He has said he “worked my tail off” to succeed. As an announced candidate, Bush soon will be making financial disclosures that will reveal recent business successes and show a substantial increase in his wealth since he left office as Florida governor in 2007, individuals close to the candidate told The Post.

But records, lawsuits, interviews and newspaper accounts stretching back more than three decades present a picture of a man who, before he was elected Florida governor in 1998, often benefited from his family connections and repeatedly put himself in situations that raised questions about his judgment and exposed him to reputational risk…

Five of his business associates have been convicted of crimes; one remains an international fugitive on fraud charges. In each case, Bush said he had no knowledge of any wrongdoing and said some of the people he met as a businessman in Florida took advantage of his naiveté.

He has been involved in myriad business ventures dating back to the early 1980s, taking time out to run for governor three times, winning the first of two terms in 1998. He has brokered real estate deals in Florida, arranged bank loans in Venezuela, marketed industrial pumps in Thailand, wholesaled shoes in Panama, promoted a building-materials company to Mexican interests and advised transnational financial services firms. He sat on more than a half dozen corporate boards. Since leaving office in 2007, Bush’s income has soared from speeches, service on corporate boards, consulting and managing investments for others…

At first glance, Jeb Bush’s dual biography as a businessman-politician can be hard to reconcile. Bush the politician presents the image of a man who is appealing, well-disciplined, intelligent and moderate. Bush the businessman has sometimes lent his name and credibility to money-making ventures that involved dubious characters.

He and his friends have explained this seeming incongruity by saying that he has been the victim of people who took advantage of his good nature…

Bush’s business activities and missteps have been widely covered over the years, by the Miami Herald, the St. Petersburg (now Tampa Bay) Times, the Wall Street Journal, Mother Jones magazine and other publications, along with books by political scientists and journalists…

It’s the time-tested Bush Crime Family defense: Is it our fault that something about us makes people want to thrust wads of cash into our pockets? Can you blame us just because we’re too patrician to investigate why that nice man in the tailored mask asked us to hold the door of the public vault open? Isn’t it vaguely un-American to demand that Very Important People such as ourselves account for every grubby little cash transaction, as though we were peasants on an allowance from our betters?…

Or, as Paul Waldman says:

…[H]e did make his money the Bush way: by trading on his family name and the perception that because of who his father was (or later, because of who his brother was), he would have far-reaching influence that could help other people make money…

I’d be interested to hear the conservatives who are outraged by Hillary Clinton making millions in speaking fees explain how this kind of thing is completely different…

And “It’s OK if you’re a Republican” is not a defensible argument.

Jeb Bush, “Dogged”Post + Comments (79)