“Brian Williams Reports – George Bush: The Father’s Footsteps”
[] (Three stars)
Sunday at 9 p.m. on MSNBC
ON Sunday night, MSNBC premieres an hour-long documentary with the two-hour title “Brian Williams Reports – George Bush: The Father’s Footsteps.”
Finally! A news special with a title so long it takes more time to read it than to watch the show.
But if you can get past the pretentious title, it is definitely worth a watch – especially if you are unclear about presidential candidates and their backgrounds.
For reasons no one can quite figure out, George W. Bush is thought of as a regular guy who grew up in a little dirt town. (Ann Richards, the Texas governor who lost her reelection bid to GWB once said, “He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.”) Meanwhile, John Kerry is generally perceived as a rich kid who married up.
The truth is, both men were born with more privilege and dough than most of us will ever see. (Midland, Texas, GWB’s “little West Texas hometown” for example, was at one point one of the highest per capita income towns in the U.S.)
This is the story of the Bush dynasty and how it grew – beginning with grandfather Prescott Bush who, like Joe Kennedy, laid the riches and the groundwork for his descendants.
The special begins with Prescott, an investment banker, who became a U.S. senator from Connecticut. The special then moves onto his son, George the Elder, a millionaire oilman who lost two Senate bids in Texas, but went on to become an ambassador, head of the CIA, as well as vice president and then president of the U.S.
And, finally, onto GWB, who like his forefathers, went to the exclusive Andover Prep boarding school, and then onto Yale.
Their impact on the U.S. has been enormous: Prescott Bush was a senator when the Cold War began, George Sr. presided over the end of that cold war, and GWB presides over the U.S. war on terrorism.
Williams points out that both father and son “had to contend with a troubled economy and both, under different circumstances, went to war against Iraq.”
This is a most interesting American family – every bit as intriguing as the Kennedys – if not as flamboyant. It’s a good unbiased look at the president and his family in these troubled times.
