Gideon said:

Cereus-validus spouted:

I bet you are one of those fascist republikooks that voted for
the "****ing idiot".

==========

I love hearing all you folks with your GED's ranting about
the stupidity of the president with his Harvard degree and
his Yale master's degree.

First of all, you got that backwards. Yale first, then Harvard. (You've really
got to try harder if you are going to cast aspersions at others intellectual
credentials.)

Secondly, while Cereus is usually prickly and overly sarcastic (and sometimes
smutt) he does have my respect for his expertise in things botanical.

Now let's look at Bush's undergraduate scholarship and his vaunted MBA.
(And I'll throw in a little about me, the amateur horticulturalist. I did have
a few elective classes in horticulture at college, just for fun, but my major
was mathematics.)

I went to a college that recruited me, with a merit scholarship and
as a member of the honors college. Bush got into Yale as a legacy.

I graduated with high honors in an intellectually challenging field.
Bush majored in history and racked up a large number of
"gentleman's Cs." (A coach at my high school taught history; he
*told* me that he found it the easiest subject to major in and he
needed to major in *something* in college because what he really
wanted to teach high school and coach a sport.)

Bush did poorly as a freshman in Political Science, Sociology and
Economics. (I am not surprised.) Bush's transcripts put him in the 21st
percentile of his class in his freshman year. He played a *lot* of intramural
sports. He did post some better grades a senior, when he travelled in a
very well-connected circles (Skull and Bones.)

After graduation,I got married and built a life (still married, 30 years next
June). I've had what help my family could give but that's not much more
than any typical middle-class family could do. Moral guidance. A good
undergraduate education. A loan (since repaid) to help buy my first
house. And I *know* I'm lucky to have had that; I had a leg up and I do
appreciate that *not everyone does.* I didn't have a trust fund. No grad
school.

Bush entered the Texas Air National Guard and did some political work. He
applied to the UT Law School and was rejected. He took a management
trainee position. He did some more political work. He then left the TANG
early, to enter the MBA program at Harvard. Reasonable suspicion suggests
behind-the-scenes rigging of the TANG gig, both the going in and getting
out. (But nothing direct and obvious, because that isn't neccessary when you
move in certain circles. You don't *have* to ask.)

Bush certainly didn't have the undergraduate credentials for Harvard
Business School. What he did have was an educational trust fund and a
father who was chairman of the Republican National Committee (and soon
after the Ambassador to China). He may have been let in under the guise
of what was referred to as a 'poets' program--a small, experimental group
of people who wouldn't normally be considered for admission. And he
would certainly have an easy time building a study group to work with
through the program. (What a *great* guy to know once you've got
your MBA!!!) He certainly learned some business lingo--'metrics' being
a favorite with Bush, thus the long lists of how much of this or that in some
of recent his speeches.

(The MBA degree in general has certainly lost a quite bit of its luster in
the wake of a series of huge corporate scandals. So perhaps having
earned one isn't sucha great intellectual acheivement, or the 'science of
management' isn't as well developed as it could be, or there is a dearth
of ethics training--even at Harvard.)

Bush learned so much at Harvard that he went on to run some businesses
rather unsuccessfully. He was bailed out by family friends and contacts
--though he managed to cash out of one at an opportune time, receiving
only a cursory investigation for insider trading.

Then he became the front man (schmoozer) and minor partner in a baseball
team which was ginned up in value when a new stadium was built with
public assistance (to the tune of $200 million in subsidies). That also
included low-balling 'immanent domain' seizures of land around the
stadium (which added much to the value of the team). "He had a
well-known name, and that created interest in the franchise," according
Tom Schieffer, the Rangers' former president. It was all a very cozy deal.
Not the sort opportunity open to Harvard MBAs not named George W. Bush.
Nor quite the rugged 'self-made man' sort of thing either (nor an example
of the purest of ethics, in my opinion). Name-brand connection and
influence were at the core of this, Bush's one real business success.

Bush has lived and breathed cronyism all his life. Is anyone who paid
attention to Bush's past surprised that a barely-was lawyer and disgraced
horse-show overseer with friends in high places (and no experience in
disaster management) ended up as the head of FEMA? There's reams
more that can be, has been, and will be written about the Bush
administration's preference for political credentials and connections over
competence and relevant experience (the Coalition Provisional Authority
staff in Iraq being a prime example) but this isn't the place and I'm not
the person to do it.

Let's get back to gardening, people.

--
Pat K. ('someplace.net' is comcast)

Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
(attributed to Don Marti)