Romney: Bush ‘was at a different phase in his life.’
By on Aug 13th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Romney: Bush ‘was at a different phase in his life.’
Asked recently by Conde Nast’s Matthew Cooper about his time as a classmate’s of President Bush’s at Harvard Business School, Mitt Romney drew a sharp contrast between himself and the president. “I was living in Belmont with a wife and two kids and going home every night to be with them and do my homework,” said Romney. “George was at a different phase in his life.” (HT: Political Wire)
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Heh. I have a feeling that any and all Republican candidates may be wanting to distance themselves from the King. :-D
August 13th, 2007 at 3:46 pmOuch!
August 13th, 2007 at 3:46 pmLOL — Romney knows how to skewer and do it diplomatically.
August 13th, 2007 at 3:48 pmIt is unfortunate that the fool (King George the Dumb) was not in a different phase of our lives–say about 2000 years ago. Even then I doubt he could get a job with GEICO.
August 13th, 2007 at 3:49 pmCould it have been the phase referred to by Donovan
August 13th, 2007 at 3:50 pmin his song “Mellow Yellow”?
Bush was more interested in going down to Cabo-San Lucas,doing lines off waitresses, and gettin him sum’a that Mexican pussy.
Helloooo!
August 13th, 2007 at 3:50 pmStill, GW Bush IS SMARTER than many libs because he is the FIRST MBA president. Matthew Cooper from Conde Nast isn’t as educated, nor are ANY lib-fools who post here! Comment by GordonMull — August 13, 2007 @ 3:48 pm
A legacy MBA? BAHAHAHAHAHA, you actually think that means something?
BAHAHAHAHA!!! And who says ignorant republicans can’t be funny!!!
I’m so laughing AT YOU – it hurts!!!!
August 13th, 2007 at 3:50 pmGDumbya has always been “at another phase of his life”.
It’s called “The Bubble” — and he lives in it . . . most likely in a continuous drunken stupor.
August 13th, 2007 at 3:50 pmLOL — Romney knows how to skewer and do it diplomatically.
Comment by missmolly — August 13, 2007 @ 3:48 pm
Yeah, just keep him away from the rodent firearms!!!
August 13th, 2007 at 3:50 pmChimpy was at the coke-snorting, beer-chugging, date-raping phase of his life which lasted for the next 20 years.
-GSD
August 13th, 2007 at 3:51 pm#5: The first MBA president makes him smart?
Please. He’s driven every business he’s been involved with into the ground, and now he’s doing it to the government. A piece of paper does NOT denote or define intelligence.
August 13th, 2007 at 3:52 pmlet’s just say George liked cruising the backroads with powdered doughnuts and chicks
August 13th, 2007 at 3:53 pmSorry, meant my post to be in reference to GordonMull’s comment, now at #3
August 13th, 2007 at 3:53 pm#3 G. Null
“… isn’t as educated, nor are ANY lib-fools who post here!”
Don’t let your alligator mouth overload your hummingbird ass!
However, we will never know since there are no lib-fools.
August 13th, 2007 at 3:53 pmBush is also the first president to have bankrupted every business he’s run – almost including the US!!! Only hoover did a better job!!
August 13th, 2007 at 3:56 pm“let’s just say George liked cruising the backroads with powdered doughnuts and chicks”
Comment by catcher’s Mitt
And, in his next phase, he married a powdered chick, and went down backroads with the Doughboy.
August 13th, 2007 at 3:56 pm“Still, GW Bush IS SMARTER than many libs because he is the FIRST MBA president.”
Wow, I’m impressed. George Bush is smarter than all of us because he has an MBA and thinks he is the President (I have not yet and never will call him President). That’s a real stretch. I guess it doesn’t matter that he had a C+ grade point average. Just because he thinks he is President that somehow makes him smart?
Most posts by trolls are idiotic. This one is beyond idiotic.
August 13th, 2007 at 3:57 pmStill, GW Bush IS SMARTER than many libs because he is the FIRST MBA president. Matthew Cooper from Conde Nast isn’t as educated, nor are ANY lib-fools who post here!
Comment by GordonMull — August 13, 2007 @ 3:48 pm
I won’t even get into the obvious points about how Dubya skated through school and what grades he got, nor will I harp on his business acumen after graduation — since those points have been covered by other posters.
My question is this — why, in your view, does earning an MBA make somebody smarter than another advanced degree (such as law)? I would even put Jimmy Carter’s post-graduate study of nuclear physics up for consideration as testament to his brain power, even though he had to return to the peanut farm before graduating.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:06 pmIt’s funny how the down-home Republicans hate the elites, unless it is Chimpy and company and then they fall all over themselves praising the wonders of an Ivy League education.
Just another pack of phonies.
-GSD
August 13th, 2007 at 4:07 pm“Still, GW Bush IS SMARTER than many libs because he is the FIRST MBA president.
Gordonmullethead”
He gets into the most elite MBA program in the country with a C average. Gee, how does that happen? The same way he got into Yale, and Andover Prep, with big donations and pulled strings from daddy. Concidentitly, that’s how he got into the chickenhawk platoon of the National Guard during Vietnam, but keep defending him mullethead.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:07 pmI’m so laughing AT YOU – it hurts!!!!
Comment by CT_Version_2_Coward — August 13, 2007 @ 3:50 pm
That was a good one. That dolt actually think Bush’s MBA is worth the paper it’s written on!
One thing we can be sure of — Bush is smarter than GordonMull.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:07 pmGWB probably paid someone to do his classwork for him as he was too busy either praying to the porcelain goddess or in a paranoid stupor.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:08 pmIsn’t it interesting that the troll makes the same assumption that all conservatives do, that bloggers are undereducated simpletons.
Never does the thought enter their closed little minds that bloggers represent the whole of American society… and that, yes, there are bloggers who have MBAs, or ever PhDs… and went to Ivy League schools without the benefit of being a legacy.
Perhaps, we are smart enough to have an opinion and are prepared to defend that opinion, but when the gauntlet is dropped, the silence is deafening.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:09 pmIn the West Texas energy business, George W. Bush started out researching who owned mineral rights. He later traded mineral and royalty interests and invested in drilling prospects. He had started his own oil and gas company by 1978, taking $17,000 from his education trust fund to set up Arbusto Energy (arbusto means Bush in Spanish). The company fell on hard times when oil prices fell. He made several attempts to revive the business, first by changing the company’s name and later by merging with other companies. In 1983, Bush’s company was rescued from failure when Spectrum 7 Energy Corporation, a small oil firm owned by William DeWitt and Mercer Reynolds, bought it. Bush became chief executive officer. Harken Energy Corporation acquired Spectrum 7 in 1986, after Spectrum had lost $400,000. In the buyout deal, Bush and his partners were given more than $2 million worth of Harken stock for the 180-well operation. Bush became a director and was hired as a “consultant” to Harken. He received another $600,000 of Harken stock, and has been paid between $42,000 and $120,000 a year. By the spring of 1987, Harken was in need of cash. So Bush and his fellow Harken officials met with Jackson Stephens, head of Stephens, Inc., an investment bank in Little Rock, Arkansas (Stephens contributed $100,000 to the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980 and gave another $100,000 to the Bush dinner committee in 1990.) Stephens arranged for Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) to provide $25 million to Bush’s company in return for a stock interest in Harken. As part of the deal, Sheikh Abdullah Bakhsh, a Saudi real estate tycoon and financier, joined Harken’s board as a major investor. Stephens, UBS, and Bakhsh each had ties to the infamous, scandal-ridden Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). In 1990, Bush sold his remaining stock options and left the oil business. Writer Jack Colhoun revealed some details of that stock sale, referring to Bush by his childhood nickname “Juniorâ€:
On June 22, 1990, George Jr. sold two-thirds of his Harken stock for $848,560-a cool 200 percent profit. The move was well timed. One week after Junior sold his stock, Harken announced a $23.2 million loss in quarterly earnings and Harken stock dropped sharply, losing 60 percent of its value over the next six months. On August 2, 1990, Iraqi troops moved into Kuwait and 541,000 U.S. forces were deployed to the Gulf.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:10 pmBush WAS at a different phase- drinking Southern Comfort & snorting cocaine.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:11 pmGordonMull has vanished, apparently — I guess our rebuttals and questions were too much for him.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:11 pmBush’s Legacy –
You fail to mention who bailed W’s butt from bankruptcy for Arbusto:
The Bin Laden’s
August 13th, 2007 at 4:12 pm“Still, GW Bush IS SMARTER than many libs because he is the FIRST MBA president.â€
He has failed at every business venture attempted.
Arbusto, Spectrum 7 Energy Corp. and Harken Energy
Letters behind a name do not mean squat. Its what you make of your life and the degree to which you impact and better the lives around you.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:12 pmAhh, thank you for filling that detail in trueblue!
August 13th, 2007 at 4:13 pmLittle known fact:
August 13th, 2007 at 4:18 pmBush played baseball at Yale.
His batting average was .014
He got one hit, when the infielders collided trying to field his weak grounder. He was, according to witnesses, still thrown out at first, but the umpire, Ricky Cheney, called him safe.
Yes, a bin Laden invested in Arbusto and BCCI (Bank of Crooks and Criminals International, full of terrorists and drug dealers) was a big investor in Harken. Very unusual for a small West Texas oil company that had nothing to do with the Middle East.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:20 pmThe ump was trying to gain influence with his daddy.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:21 pmLittle known fact:
Bush played baseball at Yale.
He played only because they let him wear an oversized cup.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:21 pmBush ( on the Harken Board) received several memos from Harken officials about the impending financial crisis in the company, sold his stock, then several days later the Harken financial problems were made public. He failed to file notice of these sales to the SEC for 8 months. The SEC simply stopped their 1990-91 investigation.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:23 pmJust like his dad and Regan hid the S&L crisis before his dad’s election.
Raven,
August 13th, 2007 at 4:23 pmSame codpiece he wore for “Mission Accomplished”.
When I was in college, it was said that frat boys could never study and still pass because they had files of exams and papers the members could use.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:27 pmBush applied to the University of Texas Law School but was denied admission.
He then applied to Harvard Business School and got in.
So, he couldn’t get into his home state law school but miraculously he is admitted to an Ivy League B-school?
You think that was “merit based”?
August 13th, 2007 at 4:31 pmHe was also denied at a Houston prep school, but was legacied in at Andover.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:39 pmMormons don’t drink or do drugs.
Thats what Romney meant.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:40 pmClinton: National Honor Society and met JFK in high school, academic scholarship to Georgetown, Rhodes Scholar–attended Oxford, doctorate from Yale in Constitutional Law.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:42 pm“Same codpiece he wore for “Mission Accomplishedâ€.”
I heard he never washes it, for fear the Russians might figure how to strike him out…
August 13th, 2007 at 4:43 pmHe was also denied at a Houston prep school, but was legacied in at Andover.
Comment by Keith — August 13, 2007 @ 4:39 pm
Keith – not questioning you…but I’m curious as I spent a year in Houston and was wondering what school that was…remember?
August 13th, 2007 at 4:44 pmMormons don’t drink or do drugs.
Thats what Romney meant.
Comment by BARTLEBEE
You mean Mormons are not supposed to drink or do drugs.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:46 pm“Mormons don’t drink or do drugs.”
Except up on the roof of their grocery store around 4:00 PM, Monday thru Friday.
(personal knowledge)
August 13th, 2007 at 4:47 pm“Mormons don’t drink or do drugs.â€
Except up on the roof of their grocery store around 4:00 PM, Monday thru Friday.
(personal knowledge)
Comment by Raven
It’s that gateway drug, caffeine that causes it all, don’t ya know.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:53 pmOne sip of coffee or that diet coke and next thing you know,those young Mormons are swinging from the ceiling, running 8-ballers.
/snark
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: “While writing about Mr. Bush…during the 2000 campaign, I heard from his family friends that he had been turned down by St. John’s [a Houston prep school], so I asked him about it. He indignantly denied the story. A few days later an aide called and said that Mr. Bush had checked with his parents and that it was true.”
August 13th, 2007 at 4:53 pmStudies show that 90% of caffeine abusers start out on their mother’s milk.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:56 pmComment by RUCerious — August 13, 2007 @ 4:18 pm
That ump was a dick.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:58 pmStudies show that 90% of caffeine abusers start out on their mother’s milk.
Comment by Keith
Up against the wall, Mormon mother
Mother who has raised a son so well
He’s 34 and drinking in a Coffee Shop.
Downing double mocha’s and raising hell…..
( sorry couldn’t help myself lol )
August 13th, 2007 at 5:10 pmYou mean Mormons are not supposed to drink or do drugs.
Comment by Wayne — August 13, 2007 @ 4:46 pm
Sure. Its that way in any religion. But Romney’s lilly white and straight as an arrow. I doubt he’s ever tasted a beer.
Its clear, at least to me anyway, that what Romney meant by that was Bush was a drunk, and he was not.
August 13th, 2007 at 5:19 pmWayne,
Just look what happened to Marie Osmond!!
August 13th, 2007 at 5:21 pmHowever I’d be willing to bet that when they reinstate the draft Mitt’s boys will find out what booze tastes like.
August 13th, 2007 at 5:21 pmMIKE GRAVEL is a man of the people for the people.
If you don’t support him you don’t support real change.
August 13th, 2007 at 5:22 pmKucinich would be real change.
August 13th, 2007 at 5:24 pmI’m therefore in the remaining 10% of caffeine abusers who was a forcep baby, and bottle fed.
August 13th, 2007 at 5:33 pmRaven,
August 13th, 2007 at 5:43 pmThat’s the problem with generalizations, they don’t fit everyone. I was breastfed until I was thirteen. They now have to kick me out of Starbucks at closing time.
yeah, and my favorite brew at this time is from some Alaskan (?) coffee company, it’s called “Dead Man’s Reach”
August 13th, 2007 at 6:24 pm“Served in bed, raises the dead…..”
Bush was a boozin coke snortin whore chasin draft dodger.
And Mitt was a card carrying temple going stripling mormon lad.
Thats what Mitt meant.
August 13th, 2007 at 6:33 pmHe’s referring to bush’s ‘not-straight’ phase…. The dirty little secret of Bush’s college years. That’s why he referred specifically to his wife and children in contrast to the closet case in chief.
August 13th, 2007 at 6:35 pmBush the first MBA Prez? Holy crap! Sure doesn’t act like it. Where did he get the MBA? Or did Daddy buy it for him? Either way, that piece of paper doesn’t mean much. Bush tanked every business he was involved in. Gee, wasn’t it Saleem Bin Laden who bailed out Bush when he failed to strike oil in Bahrain? Hmm.
August 13th, 2007 at 7:11 pmSee? That kind of crap totally chaps my hide.
Dubya was classmates with both Kerry and Romney. Everyone is coming from the same damned little circle of elites.
But Romney and Dubya have another thing in common. Their dad’s both realized when invading and occupying a country was wrong and unnecessary.
August 13th, 2007 at 7:34 pm#62 nailed it.
The real story here is NOT that Dubya was “in a different phase” (drug/booze addled), that is just the diversion… (the implication that Mitt is somehow a “cleaner” version of Bush…)
No, the real story is that GW Bush and Mitt Romney were classmates at Harvard. Did they know each other? Is there any other connection? Inquiring minds want to know.
This Skull & Bones bullshit has got to stop.
August 13th, 2007 at 9:39 pmBefore I went to college and got my degree, I was a dumbass.
After graduating and getting my degree, I became a certified smartass. (heh, heh)
Which is what makes me different from George W. Bush…at least I admit it.
In his case, though, after graduating, Bush remained both a dumbass and a smartass…going on a twenty year drinking and drugging binge…and finally getting “selected” as the first dumbass smartass president.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:02 amWas Dubya going for his MBA at the same time he was having coke-and-hooker binges on Contadora Island? If so, I salute his multitasking abilities.
August 14th, 2007 at 9:21 amWay too many comments to parse through here, but being a married guy in grad school myself, I understand precisely what Romney is talking about here. Romney isn’t disparaging Bush, just I wouldn’t be disparaging my classmates who may hit the bar for happy hour while I’m headed home to my wife and home after class. We need to stop trying to read too much into every statement a candidate makes.
August 15th, 2007 at 7:38 am