As Barbara Bush spent two hours championing her son’s software company at a Houston middle school Thursday morning, a watchdog group questioned whether the former first lady should be allowed to channel a donation to Neil Bush’s Ignite Learning company through Houston’s Hurricane Katrina relief fund.
“It’s strange that the former first lady would want to do this. If her son’s having a rough time of it, couldn’t she write him a check?” said Daniel Borochoff, founder of the American Institute of Philanthropy, a Chicago-based charity watchdog group. “Maybe she isn’t aware that people could frown upon this.”
While HISD [Houston Independent School District] has a policy that prevents the district and its schools from endorsing or promoting the “merit of a brand name or trademarked products,” Houston officials defended the event.
Susan Ohanian, a former public school teacher and Vermont-based author who tracks educational issues, said she was stunned by Bush’s donation.
“The public has a very hard time understanding that some money is not worth it,” she said. “I’ve never heard of anything like this so blatant: Pull at your heart strings with Katrina victims and then make sure your son profits from it.”
No comment.
Nepotism, lice incest runs in the family. Besides let’s face it, without handouts like this, how is an incompetent moron like Neil Bush supposed to make any money?
Vintage Bu$hCo.
Truly the font of a huge problem in America. Like Mother, like son. I can’t say anything good about these guys.
Since when is writing your son a check , a tax deductible charitable contribution?
But you guys are bitter, or anything.
hey, give the alcoholic old broad a break. She just wants her son to have the sheltered billions that the rest of the Bush Crime Family has.
isn’t this also how the Mafia operates?
I wouldn’t be surprised if her son’s company was making spyware..
“hey, give the alcoholic old broad a break. She just wants her son to have the sheltered billions that the rest of the Bush Crime Family has.
isn’t this also how the Mafia operates? ”
This is what it sounds like… when a liberal cries
Compassionate conservatism in practice: conserve the compassion and cash for those in your own family. Lovely!
She should write the book “Donating for Dummies”.
What I want to know is — how is his software supposed to help with the diasaster relief? Hurricane Katrina disaster, that is, not his own personal diasaster. There can’t be any damage to Neil’s property, as the hurricane missed Houston (my brother lives in Houston and said there was just a spit of rain).
Basically it sounds like what agile said in post #3 — how to make giving money to your son tax deductible.
Isn’t it remarkable that Barbara Bush was able to pull off the “kind old lady” charade for the years Bush Sr. was in office?
There really seems to be very little truth in that persona, if any. I believed it at the time. Now I view her as a shrewd, manipulative privilaged richie rich.
I’ve got to give credit to the Bushies. They’re not very good at disguising the fact that their only motivation is devotion to the rule of the plutocracy, yet there’s still no viable opposition. I conclude that we’ve become a nation of rats and mice.