Saturday, May 9, 2009

The Bushes in Preston Hollow: How Iraq May Follow Them There

by Maggie at Maggie Thornton


It has been 18 years since the north Dallas homestead of J.R. Ewing departed prime time, leaving behind the vision of glittering oil baron balls, Dallas skyscrapers and infidelity at Southfork. That "larger-than-life" image of Dallas society lingered in the minds of people around the country. Now, a former U.S. President who has dabbled a bit in the oil business, has come to the north Dallas neighborhood of Preston Hollow. George and Laura Bush have back moved in.

George and Laura Bush

Preston Hollow is, or has been, home to the rich and famous: Ross Perot, Roger Staubach, Mary Kay Ash, T. Boone Pickens, American Airlines' Bob Crandall, and the Bushes until he was elected Texas Governor. It's said that purchasing a "tear-down" in Preston Hollow will cost about $800,000 with estates costing up to $40 million. The 8,500 sq. ft. Bush home is at 10141 Daria Place, and the street was gated and closed to the public when the Bushess moved in. Neighbors are waiting to see what happens next.

David Feherty, a journalist, a CBS golf commentator and a neighbor living about a "par-5" away from the Bush's new home has some advice for the President and Mrs. Bush - move to Crawford - build an alligator-filled moat around the place - come back to Dallas in about 30 years...

Feherty seems to be a social crank, and I find that unusual because he's a "golf analyst," after all and that whole golf scene is usually so friendly and gentlemanly (except for Tiger's recent and accelerated tantrums). Feherty likes "Dubya," however" and he is sympathetic to the plight of the former First Family as they try to maneuver the local rich and famous:
Even with their Secret Service entourage, the Bushes are going to be besieged by herds of North Dallas McMansion-dwellers, more brown-nosed and full of BS than any longhorn. Nouveaux riche and face-lifted old-monied fossils alike will descend upon them like ants to the honeypot every time they set foot outside their door. The area that encompasses the Park Cities and Preston Hollow is home to roaming packs of these social climbers. I’m talking to you, the guy with the champagne flute, the stupid grin, and the trophy wife who, if she has one more facelift, will be wearing a triangular beard. You’re just the type who will want to show that famous hospitality for which Texas is renowned, and your nasty little dog will try to hump poor Miss Beazley half to death. (Although that former First Scottish Terrier has shown some gnashers recently, so Fido beware.)
Pretty funny, actually.

The advice to return to Dallas in about 30 years was to allow the time needed before "any of us knows the truth about how and why he [President Bush] played some of the rotten cards he was dealt," addressing the Bush legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan:
From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East, I can tell you this, though: despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Osama bin Laden, there’s a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death. I’ve never met a soldier who didn’t love this president and this country, and I’ve met a bunch of them, at home and abroad, in hospitals and in theater. At Walter Reed, Bethesda Naval Medical Center, and the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, I have visited dozens of patients, and I always ask of them before I leave: “What do you want to do when you get out?” No matter how broken or burned, or how many limbs they are missing, they give only one answer: “I want to go back. I want to rejoin my team, to finish our mission.” They are rightfully proud of what they have done and want nothing more than to be with their brothers and sisters in arms, because they know the consequences if their job is left unfinished. Right here on American soil, we will end up with unqualified people having to do the job they have been doing over there so incredibly well, and with such extraordinary compassion. The fact is, Americans in America have been safe since 9/11, almost the whole length of G2’s term as president, and for that we should be thankful.
I don't know about you, but that choked me up a bit. I hope Mr. and Mrs. Bush receive many blessings in their new home, because I know they will be a blessing to many.

Read the entire article at D Magazine, with more insight into the President and First Lady and what life might be like for them in Preston Hollow. Here's a hat tip to Jules Crittenden.

5 comments:

  1. The Bush family deserves to left alone by the social brown noses that slther from party to party in Preston Park. Former President Bush kept this country safe for the last eight years, no thanks to the slimeball democrats and their piss poor America politics. The MSM should be ashmned of themselves for how they treated and
    are still treating the former President. NO OTHER President has has endured the piles of nasty comments, editorial,pictures like Bush did, and is still dealing with. I have yet to see or hear any conservative media say they want to see BHO killed or murdered or any really nasty, virulent comments get thrown the Mullah in White House's way. May the former President and Mrs. Bush enjoy their new digs. My family was safer by far with this man at the helm of this country. That is all unraveling before our very faces by the mullah obamaham, and his ilk. We are now in grave danger and most people do not see this or just refuse to. Thank you President Bush!

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  2. BUsh ws unfortunate enough to be elected when he was. Whoever defeated the Socialist putsch in 2000 would have received much the same.

    As I have continually said, Bush isn't the best we ever produced, but he is far from the worst.

    In all my 60 years I have never seen such hatred and venom spewed at a president, even by former presidents. The conduct of CLinton and Carter over the last 8 years goes beyond shameful.

    Whether we agree or disagree with W, he stood by his values and didn't waiver in the winds of the left or polls.

    I have no doubt that when all the dust settles and history looks back, he will given much more approval then he receives today, provided free thought is still allowed in America.

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  3. I wish the former President and his family well. During the former President's term of office the press had a field day bashing him for everything and anything with the exception of 9/11. As others have pointed out he also endured much from other President's Bill Clinton whose conduct in the White House was scandalous and who lied in public office. When he left the White House I was told he left many of the areas in a shambles with writing on the walls and computers; explicit language throughout; and ripped nearly everything off of the Presidential jet that was not nailed down. President Bush did not want to make a big deal out of it so no press person ever published the information. As for Carter he is the one with have to thank for initiating the mortgage mess and Iraq. He is the author of the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). Banks are compelled to make loans to low-income borrowers in particular “communities of color” that may not qualify strictly in economic terms. The CRA was backed and promoted by the left and benefited various community organizations such as ACORN (Association of Community Organization for Reform Now). It is estimated at least $100 billion in such loans were made in the first twenty years of this Act. The CRA is enforced by four federal government bureaucracies: the Fed, the Comptroller of the Currency, the Office of Thrift Supervision, and FDIC. This law can prohibit or postpone any bank merger, branch expansion, or new branch creation by any of the aforementioned four bureaucracies if a CRA “protest” is issued by a “community group” and thus ACORN used its legal or illegal methods to continuous force loans for people who could not afford the payments. Now, for Iraq it can be traced to the liberal democratic policies of Jimmy Carter, who created a firestorm that destabilized our greatest ally in the Muslim world, the shah of Iran in favor of a religious man, the ayatollah Khomeini. Carter saw Khomeini as a holy man in a revolution rather than a father of modern terrorism. Carter’s ambassador to the UN, Andrew Young, and said “Khomeini will eventually be hailed as a saint.” Carter’s Iranian ambassador, William Sullivan said “Khomeini is a Gandhi-like figure.” Carter’s advisor James Bill proclaimed to Newsweek in an interview on February 12, 1979 that Khomeini was not a mad muahid, but a man of “impeccable integrity and honesty. Carter even went so far as to pressure the Shah of Iran to make concessions to the ayatollah including the release of political prisoners. Carter aided the Islamic Revolution and without this aid it may have died. Gen. Robert Huyser, Carter's military liaison to Iran also stated "The president could have publicly condemned Khomeini and even kidnapped him and then bartered for an exchange with the [American Embassy] hostages, but the president was indignant. 'One cannot do that to a holy man,' he said. This belief pattern of Carter’s and the left continues today - that evil really does not exist; people are basically good; America should embrace the perpetrators and castigate the victims. So we have Obama who continues this pattern through his series of apologies to the world for our evil, the release of the prisoners in Gittmo, funding Hamas and the Gaza strip, lack of support for our ally Israel, opening the doors of our land to all from that area and the list goes on…

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  4. PatriotUSA and Lew: Thanks so much for you comments. I agree with both of you.

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  5. Anonymous, thank you for a fine comment. I do not know how President Bush endured it.

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