Howard Fineman on Bush's "Mother Hen Nominee" (& a "fishing-club matter"?)

[highplainsdem]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9600021/site/newsweek/


Mother Hen Nominee
By Howard Fineman
Newsweek
Updated: 2:40 p.m. ET Oct. 5, 2005


Oct. 5, 2005 - It took George W. Bush and Karl Rove about seven years—not counting a decade of earlier spadework by Rove—to gather in their hands the many strains of conservatism and to use that accumulated power to steer themselves into two White House terms. But now the reins that they so assiduously grasped have fallen, one by one, from their grip. Like trail hands on a runaway stagecoach in a cowboy movie, they need a hero to gallop alongside, leap aboard, and save them from careening into the creek.

It doesn’t look as though Harriet Miers is that person.

To mix my movie metaphors, the selection of Miers reminds me of the scene in “2001: A Space Odyssey.” As the astronauts unplug the memory chips in the brain of Hal the Computer, the machine returns to its roots, so to speak, plaintively singing the first song it was taught, “Daisy Bell.” Miers is Bush singing “Daisy Bell.”

Here is an alternative theory. It looks to many White House observers as if Bush was operating pretty much alone on this pick. Those who know the Bush family are harking back to 1988 when George H.W. Bush—determined to show he can make political decision without the crutch of James Baker—came up with Dan Quayle as his running mate. Miers is obviously no Dan Quayle, at least on the academic front, but this Bush may have been eager to show that he can make a pick of his own in a crisis atmosphere.

<snip>


Fineman goes on to explain how Miers is one more of the women Bush himself calls "mother hens," and why her background as well as the work she's done for him make his decision more understandable.

He also mentions an incident from Shrub's background that I'm not familiar with.

Among the "matters" he says Miers took care of for Bush, Fineman lists "the fishing club Bush was part of, that had had run-ins with locals and employees." Is anything here familiar with this "matter" in W's background, and why this was something he would have needed Miers' help with? I don't recall ever hearing anything about this, yet Fineman lists it first, with Bush's "murky" military service and the drunk-driving arrest listed afterward. I'd wonder if Fineman was just throwing some rather unimportant bit of background out there, but since the questions about military service and that drunk-driving arrest have caused a lot of trouble for Bush, it wouldn't make sense for Fineman (or any other journalist) to list something trivial first, followed by two important "matters." And in fact he refers to all three as "Matters," capitalized.

So what is the fishing-club Matter? Anyone know? I've been using Google to try to check this, but haven't turned up anything yet.

[Neil Lisst]

1. Bush loves short, nonthreatening women

Bush loves short, nonthreatening women. Harriet Miers, Laura, and Condi are great examples. They make him feel like a man, which is why he surrounds himself with short people.


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http://www.webcomicsnation.com/neillisst/

[baby_bear]

3. Karen Hughes is not short - n/t

[Bumblebee]

4. good point -- she is actually 6 ft

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. Which is why he sent her out of town on a foolish errand.

[MADem]

9. But she reminds him of his mama, and that is handy when you need a

skirt to hide behind...remember, she bailed him out of the DUI thingy.

[liveoaktx]

2. I think he's talking about the Athens, TX Fishing Club-Rainbo Club

http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/08/ale04036.html

Perhaps Miers helped fix Bush's tax breaks for this exclusive resort.

[highplainsdem]

10. Thanks! But I still think Fineman's suggesting there's more to the

story than what I just read in that Buzzflash alert, or in the LA Times story (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-profile6oct06,0,6078046,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines ) that I found a link for in some comments on this at http://taxprof.typepad.com/ , where the Buzzflash alert was also mentioned (I finally found that page by using the name of the fishing club to search, after seeing your message about it).

Miers didn't help get Bush those tax breaks, but reportedly helped settle a lawsuit brought by a former caretaker at the Rainbo Club, who alleged that Bush and other members of the club had unjustly fired him out of "spite and ill will." Fineman's comments seem to allude to this, in his reference to run-ins with employees and locals. I haven't found anything yet on the details of the case, but Moseley apparently had sufficient enough grounds for the lawsuit that the other members of the Rainbo Club opted for confidential settlements with him. Reportedly Miers, as Bush's lawyer, opted to fight, and she got the complaint against Bush dismissed, so there was no "awkward publicity." But wouldn't a confidential settlement also have avoided all "awkward publicity"?

According to an archived Washington Post story at http://lobby.la.psu.edu/083_Class_Action_Reform/News_Stories/Newspaper/Washington_Post_021000.htm , it took almost two years to get the case dismissed. To me, that suggests that Bush's fighting the charge against him had more to do with how potentially damaging losing the case (or admitting guilt in a confidential settlement) would be. If they were simply worried about that tax break becoming public knowledge as a sidelight of the case, some incidental background on it, I'd think that extended legal battles would be the last thing they'd want. Fineman's referring to employees and locals, too -- plural -- so unless that column was sloppily written and he'd misremembered a lawsuit brought by one former caretaker as an incident involving a number of people, there's more to this story -- enough to have left Bush very grateful to Miers for making this problem go away.

By the way, Bush's tax savings on that property, because of the loophole, amounted to about $500 a year, according to a story in the Amarillo Globe-News in 1999, when the tax savings came to light. This wasn't a huge story, and it just doesn't seem like anything that would be worth two years of legal maneuvers, or that would explain Bush finding Miers so important after she took care of this for him.

[bornskeptic]

5. Here's an explanation of the fishing club matter.

DALLAS -- For Harriet Ellan Miers, the road to a Supreme Court nomination began in summer 1994, with an ugly little legal problem involving an exclusive East Texas fishing camp and the soon-to-be governor, George W. Bush.

A caretaker named J.W. Moseley alleged that Bush and the other members — who included two former Texas secretaries of state and former Dallas Cowboys owner H.R. "Bum" Bright — had unjustly fired him out of "spite and ill will."

ADVERTISEMENT

For most of the members, men of established wealth and power, the suit was little more than a nuisance. But for Bush, it carried the potential for public embarrassment that no rising political star needs, especially because there was talk that cabins at the camp, known as the Rainbo Club, had been used to gain questionable tax advantages.
(snip)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/la-na-profile6oct06,1,1742273.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

[On the Road]

7. In Jon Stewart's Words,

"If I recall correctly, that case was 'School of Catfish v Hundred Pounds of Dynamite'"

:smoke:

[Neil Lisst]

8. Jon Stewart - funniest man on television

And most insightful political commentator.

Sometimes The Daily Show is the only place you can get a candid look at the day's talking points. When they grab a phrase of the day by Team Bush, and show it 20 times, it's killer.