Bush, 30, said in a telephone interview from his office at a real estate development firm in Fort Worth, Texas, that he was moved to join the service in part when he attended the rainy commissioning in October of the aircraft carrier named for his grandfather -- the USS George H.W. Bush.
"My grandfather's my hero, and what really sold me on the ultimate decision was having the chance to see the CVN-77 be commissioned under his name," he said. "That was pretty moving, and I had a chance to meet some Navy admirals, as well. I had a chance to talk to them briefly about the opportunity, and I was won over."
George Prescott Bush, the oldest son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, said the death of Pat Tillman, the NFL player and Army Ranger who was killed in Afghanistan in 2004 in what was later determined to be a friendly-fire incident, "was a wake-up call for me." He said he even "looked into active duty" and had somber conversations with his wife about the possibility.
Bush said he had not intended to announce his plans. "Honestly, I'm kind of a little disappointed that the word got out," he said. "I was hoping to keep this as confidential as possible. I'm not doing it for political purposes or anything along those lines. I'm just doing it because I've been inspired by the friends of mine that have served, either through the JAG (military law) program or through the Reserves. I thought this was a small way that I could get involved."
Duty and honor
Thursday March 22, 2007
I gotta say it's impressive that George P. Bush, Jeb's son and 41's grandson, has volunteered for military service as a Navy Reserves intelligence officer. As we know all too well from the Iraq experience, reservists could easily see active duty. I've never met George P. Bush, who lives and works here in Dallas, but friends of mine know him fairly well, and say he's a great guy. This certainly speaks well of his character. He's doing very well for himself in private business here in Dallas; he could have taken an easy road, and still had a bright political future ahead of him -- but he didn't. Excerpt:
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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"It is strange that people who imagine First Amendment violations where there are none can be so shrill in their criticism of those they disagree with (all the while remaining untroubled by genuine First Amendment violations such as university "speech codes")." So I can't be both concerned about the First Amendment and critical--even shrilly critical--of the privileged and elite? I'm baffled by the standard.
We have here a man whose family is deeply entrenched in national politics and decides to join the military at a time of (debateably) war. Having served in the military being such a hot resume item for someone seeking political office, I don't see where, in GPB's situation, it is either inappropriate, out of line or bonkers to question his motives. Speculating upon John Edwards' decision to continue running for office is obviously appropriate, so why not GPB's motives to serve? I've seen nobody try and smear him as a traitor, as Kerry was for running around an "idiot" in a swiftboat. Neither the left nor the right is innocent of smear tactics, but it's just not happening here. Besides, if the charges of bullying and stalking his ex-girlfriends are indeed true, why would anyone applaud this man serving in a position to do the same to our servicepeople?
However, having announced to the public his intention of entering service he must know that every move he makes will be watched. There will be no hiding his military record as his uncle was able to do. For that reason alone it may have been better to simply report for service quietly and with little fanfare. According to the Politico story that revealed his decision, he was taken by surprise to have received the phone call from them. It would appear that someone leaked the story to reporter Mike Allen, who is very well connected. It could have been an orchestrated leak, of course. Or not.
Having actively campaigned for his uncle as recently as 2004, George P. Bush made himself a public political figure. He shouldn't have any expectation of privacy and he knows how the media works. He could not possibly have thought that his joining the USNR would remain secret. If he did think this would stay out of the news, he is naive beyond belief, and an intelligence officer is the LAST thing he should become.
Of course, with supposedly cooked-up military intelligence being largely responsible for our very presence in Iraq, odd that no one is yet concerned that someone whose family has so much to lose by being wrong about what goes on over there will eventually be in charge of gathering and providing the intelligence that drives future policy in the War on Terror (tm) I swear, if I was one of the tin-hat crowd, this would make me shudder. One must admit, it's all a little too Robert Anton Wilson to not at least get a chuckle out of it.
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