Carlyle Guy on His First Impression of the Bush Boy

[BurtWorm]

Salon.com's War Room offers this glimpse of the Bush boy's "experience with inexperience."

Day pass required. Scroll down.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room//index.html

And if Bush wants to compare his pre-government experience to John Edwards', he may not want to ask David Rubenstein to be a character witness. This is how the co-founder and managing director of the Carlyle Group remembered his first meeting with the man who would be president in a speech last year:

"But when we were putting the board together, somebody came to me and said, look there is a guy who would like to be on the board. He's kind of down on his luck a bit. Needs a job. Needs a board position. Needs some board positions. Could you put him on the board? Pay him a salary and he'll be a good board member and be a loyal vote for the management and so forth.

"I said well we're not usually in that business. But okay, let me meet the guy. I met the guy. I said I don't think he adds that much value. We'll put him on the board because -- you know -- we'll do a favor for this guy; he's done a favor for us. We put him on the board and spent three years. Came to all the meetings. Told a lot of jokes. Not that many clean ones. And after a while I kind of said to him, after about three years -- you know, I'm not sure this is really for you. Maybe you should do something else. Because I don't think you're adding that much value to the board. You don't know that much about the company. He said, well I think I'm getting out of this business anyway. And I don't really like it that much. So I'm probably going to resign from the board.

"And I said, thanks -- didn't think I'd ever see him again. His name is George W. Bush. He became President of the United States. So you know if you said to me, name 25 million people who would maybe be President of the United States, he wouldn't have been in that category. So you never know. Anyway, I haven't been invited to the White House for any things."

[radfringe]

1. major media lapdogs won't be following up on this one

but they will be talking their talkingheads off about Edwards' "inexperience"

Selective amnesia sets in:

bush* only had 6 years experience as governor before running in 2000

bush* had NO foreign relation experience (and as far as I can tell -- he hasn't learned much on the job either)

bush* bashed McCain during the 2000 primaries - ads implied that McCain was a crazy-battle-fatigued maniac.

Later bush* asked McCain to be VP-running mate. McCain turned him down, and bush* tapped Cheney as second-choice.

as a "biddnessman" bush*'s companies had to be bailed out by his daddy's buddies

[cthrumatrix]

2. dubya doesn't read.... commander bunnypants exposed again for the

puppet he is for TPTB....

(edit: he did read the pet goat)

[stevedeshazer]

3. 25 million people who would may be POTUS

He wouldn't be on my list, either.

[skypilot]

4. He kinda makes Bush sound like...

...David Brent from "The Office". I'm surprised they put up with him for a whole three years.

[pinto]

5. here's another link (informationclearinghouse) w/audio link, also:

A Look At Why The Carlyle Group Wanted to Drop George W. Bush From Its Board A Decade Ago

David Rubenstein, founder of the secretive defense contractor Carlyle Group. Recalls how useless Bush was as a board member of Carlyle’s firm Caterair and his surprise that George W. is now president.


http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3994.htm

[kentuck]

6. Man! Is this devastating!

what a loser...

[Hoping4Change]

7. Question: Might not Rubenstein have ulterior motives for

suggesting that Bush was not wanted by Carlyle and that it was a distant rather than close relationship?

[kentuck]

8. Kick !

:kick: this is too good!

[President Jesus]

9. Rubenstein's campaign donations (full list)

very interesting, because he solidly gave to Dems all the way to '98. Then all of a sudden, he started giving exclusively to pukes...

http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=DC&last=Rubenstein&first=David