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<DIV><A
href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-kelley19mar19,0,737381.story?track=mostviewed-homepage">Click
here: Why aren't the Bush daughters in Iraq? - Los Angeles Times</A> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<H1>Why aren't the Bush daughters in Iraq?</H1>
<DIV class=storysubhead><FONT size=3><STRONG>The president's family has set an
appallingly bad example for wartime sacrifice.</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=storybyline>By Kitty Kelley, KITTY KELLEY, who wrote "The Family: The
Real Story of the Bush Dynasty," is working on a biography of Oprah
Winfrey.<BR>March 19, 2007 </DIV><BR>
<DIV class=storybody>WHEN I WAS a little girl in a convent school, the nuns
impressed on me the power of setting a good example. These beloved teachers are
no longer around to instruct the president and his family, so I recommend that
the Bushes learn from Mark Twain, who said: "Always do right. This will gratify
some people and astonish the rest." <BR><BR>My suggestion comes after the White
House announcement earlier this month that Jenna Bush, one of the president's
twin daughters, is writing a book on her all-expenses-paid trip to Panama, where
she worked for a few weeks as an intern for UNICEF. Jenna Bush is quoted as
saying she will donate her earnings from her book to UNICEF, a commendable
gesture, considering her father's net worth of $20 million. <STRONG><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(255,255,0)">But while the 25-year-old makes the
rounds of TV talk shows this fall in a White House limousine, dozens of her
contemporaries will be arriving home from Iraq in wooden boxes. <FONT
color=#ff0000>In Britain, Prince Harry is insisting on going off to Iraq — even
as his country is reducing its troop
commitment</FONT>.<BR></FONT></STRONG><BR>Franklin Delano Roosevelt showed how
the power of good example could also be powerfully good politics. When he led
the country to sacrifice in World War II, his children enlisted and his wife
traveled to military bases to counsel and comfort the families of soldiers.
Newsreels showed the president's four sons fighting with the Marines in the
Pacific, flying with the Army Air Forces in North Africa and landing with the
Navy at Normandy. Soon other public figures followed suit — movie stars (James
Stewart and Clark Gable) enlisted and sports heroes (Joe DiMaggio and Hank
Greenberg) went off to war. <BR><BR>The contrast between FDR's good example
during wartime and that of George W. Bush is stark and sad. The Bush family
rallies to the political campaigns of its scions and spends months on the road
raising money and shaking hands to put their men into public office. In fact,
the public image of their cohesive family — the pearl-choked matriarch
surrounded by progeny and springer spaniels — helped cinch more than one
presidency for the Bushes. Yet now, when its legacy is most in peril, the family
seems to be squandering its good will on a mess of celebridreck.
<BR><BR><STRONG><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(255,255,0)">The president
tells us Iraq is a "noble" war, but his wife, his children and his nieces and
nephews are not listening. None has enlisted in the armed services, and none
seems to be paying attention to the sacrifices of military
families.</FONT></STRONG> <FONT color=#ff0000 size=3><STRONG>Until Jenna's trip
to Panama, the presidential daughters performed community service only when
mandated by a court after they were cited for underage drinking.</STRONG></FONT>
Since then they have surfaced in public during lavish presidential trips with
their parents, bar-hopping outings in Georgetown and champagne-popping art
openings in New York.<BR><BR><STRONG><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(255,255,0)">The first lady, so often lauded for her
love of literacy, has not been seen in the reading rooms of veterans' hospitals.
The president's sister, Doro, publicly picketed Al Gore's last days in the vice
president's mansion as he awaited the Supreme Court's decision on the Florida
recount of 2000. Yet she has been strangely absent from publicly supporting her
brother's war</FONT></STRONG>.<BR><BR><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(255,255,0)">The presidential nieces and nephews
also have missed the memo on setting a good public example. Ashley Bush — the
youngest daughter of the president's brother, Neil, and Neil's ex-wife, Sharon —
was presented to Manhattan society at the 52nd Annual International Debutantes
Ball at the Waldorf Astoria. Her older sister, Lauren, a runway model, told
London's Evening Standard that she is a student ambassador for the United
Nations World Food Program, but she would not lobby her uncle for U.S. funds.
Her cousin, Billy Bush, chronicles the lives of celebrities on "Access
Hollywood." <BR></FONT><BR>"Uncle Bucky," as William H.T. Bush is known within
the family, is one presidential relative who has profited from the Iraq war. He
recently sold all of his shares in Engineered Support Systems Inc. (ESSI), a St.
Louis-based company that has flourished under the president's no-bid policy for
military contractors. Uncle Bucky told the Los Angeles Times that he would have
preferred that ESSI, on whose board he sits, was not involved in Iraq, "but,
unfortunately, we live in a troubled world."<BR><BR>The only member of the Bush
family to show the strains of our "troubled world" is former President George
H.W. Bush, who shed tears recently while addressing the Florida Legislature. The
elder Bush was talking about son Jeb's gubernatorial loss in 1994. Jeb, who was
later elected, tried to console him. But the sobs of Bush 41 seemed to be more
about his older son's "noble" war.<BR><BR>Perhaps the father's sadness sprang
from his own experience fighting in what his parents called "Mr. Roosevelt's
war" — the good war — the war that saved the world from tyranny. He enlisted at
18 to fly torpedo bombers. He flew 58 missions in two years and returned home a
war hero. Since then, no one in his large family has seen fit to follow his
sterling example of service and patriotism. </DIV></DIV></FONT><BR><BR><BR>
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