Bush is for moral clarity, except when there is buck to be made.

[The Whiskey Priest]

For someone who wears the mantle of moral superiority, to whom God talks directly, Bush is a bottom-dweller and an outlaw when it comes to making a buck.

Lets summarize what Alterman and Green’s lay out for us regarding Bush and Harken Oil in their book, The Book On Bush, How George W. (Mis) leads America

Bush gets his MBA from Harvard

Bush heads back to West Texas and the land of “black gold”

1988 Harken purchases Spectrum 7, a failing oil company run by George Bush
Harken puts Bush on board of directors, hires him as a consultant and gives him low interest loans with which to purchase Harken Stock

1989 Bush votes for a deal whereby Harken would sell an unprofitable subsidiary called Aloha Petroleum to an independent subsidiary thereby booking a profit of $7.9 million dollars, which in turn allowed it to claim losses for the year of only $3.3 million dollars. According to Alterman and Green, Alfred King formerly the managing director of the Institute of Management Accounts said of this deal, “ the people of Enron could have gone to school on this thing.” A future SEC investigation forced Harken to admit it was lying about its books and forced them to restate the losses at $12.6 million dollars.

May 17, 1990, Bush attends a meeting of the Harkens Board where it is announced that Harken’s is three days away from running out of money.

A few days later Harken spins off two troubled divisions in a deal mysteriously financed by Harvard Management Fund, an institutional investor that manages Harvard University’s huge endowment fund. William Black, a top federal bank regulator during the Reagan and first Bush administrations, “his is beyond nuts from an institutional investor’s standpoint. You don’t see the Harvards of the world doing things like this.”

May 22, 1990, the deal financed by the strange loan from Harvard is announced. The price of Harken’s stock was stable, for the moment and Bush ask lawyers about selling his Harken stocks.

June 15, 1990, the Harken’s board is warned by attorneys about insider trading and selling stock based on bad news, The document titled “Liability for Insider Trading and Short-Term Swing Profits.” This underscored response that Bush had earlier received to his inquire. The legal firm of Haynes and Boone, Harken’s legal representatives, had written, “ The act of trading, particularly if close in time to the receipt of the inside information is strong evidence that the insider’s investment decision was based on the inside information….Unless the favorable facts clearly are more important than the unfavorable the insider should be advised not to sell.”

June 22, 1990, Bush sells stock even though he has heard at least twice it smells like “insider trading.”

February, 1991, Bush finally gets around to filing stock disclosure papers with the SEC. SEC launches investigation.

October 1993, SEC announces that it will halt investigation of Bush with the statement, “(halting the investigation) must in no way be construed as indicating that the party has been exonerated or that no action may ultimately result.”

After Harken has restated its profit, due to SEC investigation of cooking the books that Bush voted for, the Harken stock tanks, but Bush is okay, because based on insider information he has cashed out.

Moral of the story boys and girls, don’t forget your Sunday school lessons, but its okay to lie, cheat and steal when there is buck involved.


We should all carry around a highlighted copy of Eric Alterman and Mark Green’s book, The Book On Bush, How George W. (Mis) leads America. If just 25% of the evidence they present is true---Bush and Cheney should be wearing stripes and cleaning up the roadways.