*'s early years - please read before commenting on his status as a Texan

[StellaBlue]

Born July 6, 1946, in New Haven, Connecticut. Moved to Odessa, Texas in June 1948. In 1949, family moved to California. After about a year, they moved to Midland Texas (in May 1950). W attended schools in Midland as the family grew. In 1959, they moved to Houston. From 1960-64, W attended the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. From 1964-68, he attended Yale, again in New Haven, Connecticut. From 1968-73, W was in the Texas Air National Guard, but no one really knows where he was or if he was even in Texas. In 1975, W was given an MBA by Harvard, then moves back to Midland 'to pursue his career in the oil industry'. In March 1989, W and a group of investors bought the Texas Rangers and began their plan to screw over the people of Arlington. The new stadium opened in 1994. In November 1994, W was elected Governor of Texas. In December 2000, W was selected President of the United States.

http://www.bushchildhoodhome.org



See also: http://www.texaschapbookpress.com/magellanslog66/Pseudo-Texans.htm

(snip)
"I know the type. Oh do I know the type. When George W. Bush first appeared on the Texas political scene in 1992, running for governor against Ann Richards, I shuddered. I didn’t know him personally, but I might as well have. I grew up with his clones all over West Texas, I went to school with them, I listened to their drawl, I listened to their false bravado. And here was one of them, running for governor against probably the best human being to occupy that office since Sam Houston in 1860.

"Little, of course, did I know that my old swaggering classmate-clone would use the Governor’s Mansion in Austin as only a way station on the road to the White House.

"Appearance may not be everything, but in this media age, it’s a lot. And George W. Bush’s aw-shuck-isms, his monosyllabic manglings of the language, his jerky gestures, all communicated well to, first, a lot of Texans, and then to a lot Americans: Here’s a real guy. You can tell he’s not comfortable in that suit in front of all those namby-pamby liberal journalists, and that he’s really just ahankering to get into his Levi’s and go check out the Back Forty.

"It worked. Did it ever work (with of course a little help from his father’s old Texas buddies, his brother’s friends in Florida, and the U.S. Supreme Court)." (snip)



For the record, I have had relatives in Texas since 1833. The Texas Revolution occurred in 1836. Texas joined the Union in 1845/46. The current Governor, Rick Perry (whom I refer to as 'Governor Good Hair'), is a Real Texan. Doesn't mean I love him, but he is a Texan. http://www.governor.state.tx.us/ (snip: "A fifth generation Texan, Governor Rick Perry has taken an extraordinary Texas journey, from a tenant farm along the rolling plains of West Texas to the governor’s office of our nation’s second largest state.")


But the main reason a lot of us don't consider * a Real Texan is not because he was not born here, or because he didn't spend most of his formative years here, or because his family just arrived here in the fifties to screw us over. It's because he doesn't really care about Texas or Texans. He is a pretend cowboy and a pretend rancher and a pretend Texan. He's never, nor has anyone in his family, been a sharecropper or a cattle rustler or an oil-field worker or a fruit-picker or a Gulf fisherman or a dirt farmer or any of the other things that all real Texans know only too well... lives that are just now barely past, lives that are all too real in the memories of millions of living Texans, and lives that us young Texans both revere and are grateful to have escaped.

[TlalocW]

1. I think Molly Ivins said something along the lines of

Anyone who uses "summer" as a verb is not a real Texan (as in, "My family summers in Kennebunkport."). Bush has done that a few times.

TlalocW

[StellaBlue]

2. Doesn't it just make you want to puke?

:puke:

[Gruenemann]

3. Right on!

Maybe only other REAL Texans can understand ;-)

[Ishoutandscream2]

6. Yes, there are a lot of Texas haters here

But I'd like to think it's mainly because of the BFEE. However, at least we REAL Texans know that this group of thugs got its real start in the northeast. Bush is no more a Texan than Hitler was a communist.

[StellaBlue]

4. no comment

[karlrschneider]

5. All belt buckle, no pecker

...

[triguy46]

33. ROFL...n/t

[txaslftist]

7. Shit. If he's a Texan, horseshit comes out of a pig.

[StellaBlue]

8. Real Governor

http://www.photo.net/equipment/kirktuck/gov.-ann-richards,-50-1.4.half.jpg

[MN ChimpH8R]

41. Luv ya, Ann Richards

Even this Minnesotan can recognize a real Texan when he sees one. And AR is a real Texan of the best possible Democratic type.

I still think that Molly Ivins supplied her with the "born with a silver foot in his mouth" line, though. :)

[jwirr]

9. I had to laugh when you said he had never been

a cattle rustler! That is the one thing I think he may have succeeded in.

[StellaBlue]

10. Well, he may know a lot about bullshit,

But a cowboy that don't make him.

Show me pictures of him cattle-rustlin'.

Edited to add: He MAY be a sheep-rustler.

[Lisa]

36. unless one of the steers stepped on his foot

Then he'd give up and head for home, bawling.

[calico1]

11. Of all the U.S. Presidents there is

exactly ONE that was born in the State of Connecticut. This idiot!
Oh well, at least I can find comfort in knowing that *I* was not born here but in New York, which gave us FDR. :)

[crispini]

12. I do think some of it is "Where are your PEOPLE from?"

Maybe it's a Southern thing. My family has lived in the South for generations. We are farmers, feed store owners, surveyors, school board members, etc. But we're all from this one small town and that geographic area has a lot to do with who we are-- even the extended family.

[Ishoutandscream2]

13. Exactly. Great description of what we are

I think you hit the head on who we REALLY ARE. I think you described my family, and others from the South accurately. This is who we are.

[StellaBlue]

15. Yes, partly.

He's not ROOTED in Texas. He just happened to come here through his family's opportunist speculation in the oil industry, a thing most Texans couldn't and still can't afford to do.

He then used our culture to propel himself into office.

I would call him a CARPETBAGGER.

[calico1]

16. What? You mean you don't have your own

oil well? I remember years back when the series "Dallas" was popular. They interviewed some people in I think Australia or somewhere in Europe and most people thought that this was the way the average Texan lived--mansion, stables, etc. :D

[crispini]

19. Yes, I have my own personal herd of cattle.

I herd them down Central expressway every morning, with my lasso, riding my horse and wearing boots and spurs. :P

[Lisa]

40. don't forget the chaps!

And you have to have a really cool brand for your cattle. It can't be a Nike swoosh knockoff!

[Ishoutandscream2]

21. Yes, good ol' "Dallas" Apparently, some DUers still think we're like

that. The negative stereotypes from the show still haunt us. And many, including some DUers, buy in to those stereotypes.

[calico1]

23. I was kidding. *I* do not buy into that

stereotype. I have a cousin who lives in TX. Did you I really thought that? :shrug: And by the way, I totally understand about stereotypes. I am from NYC.

[crispini]

30. I got it.

:P It *is* fun to yank people's chains though. when I travel I will tell people the most outrageous stuff about my Dallas lifestyle and see what I can get them to swallow. :evilgrin:

[StellaBlue]

Yeah

I just got back from four years livingin Europe.

This was the general impression of Texas:







Actually, where I live, it's more like this:







Edited to add: they were really surprised to hear that we get some snow every winter, too.

[pepperlove]

14. Take it on back

and then tell me how in thiis world we let a Nazi sympathizer into the white house...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html

[StellaBlue]

17. Take what back?

... but, yes... seems to be a family tradition. Prescott / Hitler, Georgie / Saddam, Dubya / ...

That was the most in-depth article on the Bush/Mazi topic that I have seen - thanks for posting that.

[pepperlove]

18. hahah

dontcha love thenet at times... take the story BACK before the current rash of *holes and see where the arrogance and warmongering stems from is what I meant... to the Bush tie with Nazis.

[ms liberty]

20. And he's NOT SOUTHERN either!

As a REAL southerner - my family came to NC in the 1750's - I really get pissed off when he gets described that way. Living in the South does not make someone a southerner!

[Ishoutandscream2]

22. Amen, sister!

[StellaBlue]

24. MMMMMM-hmm

Shaking my head.

[jwirr]

44. What about me? I live in Minnesota and my family

came to Virginia about the same time as yours did. You know we are all products of our environment and family history but usually we realize it and make adjustments when needed to correct problems. That is something bushies apparently never have to do. No matter what state he would have been born in or lived in he would not be different. He is self-centered and greedy. He has what a friend of mine called "tunnel vision". He only sees what he wants to see.

[JHB]

25. 1949-1960, age 3 to 14, were not his "formative years"?

If living in Midland for those ages didn't form his Texan identity, it sure as hell formed his "real Texan wannabe" identity, especially hating educated northeasterners, like Poppy and his school "chums".

He was elected governor, and won the state in 2000 and 2004. He may not be a "real" Texan, but y'all can't disown him that neatly, either. And it's not like anywhere else wants to claim him...

[StellaBlue]

26. Yeah

But he didn't live here for all of them.

And how many summers do you think the Family Bush spent in 100-degree Midland, Texas?

Where I grew up, if your parents had Yankee accents and 'summered' in New England, you were a Yankee, plain and simple.

My great-aunt, who ran for office back in the 40s and was narrowly defeated, used to tell a story about the 'first Republicans' to come to town, back in the teens. She says her daddy (who was a state senator) wouldn't let her and her siblings play with the new dentist's kids, because, not only were they Yankees, but, worse, they were REPUBLICANS.

Sadly, this story would NEVER be told today, because Texas is swamped with both. ;)

Ya'll must like Texas a lot since you keep coming down here in such numbers... or is it just to make money in oil and computers???

:D

[crispini]

27. Oh SNAP!

LOL! :rofl:

[Gormy Cuss]

34. He may not be a Texan's definition of Texan

but he self-identifies based on where he spent his formative years and nobody else wants him. I say you are stuck with him!

His parents on the other hand are Yankees, through and through. The Bush compound at K'port makes them summer complaints and nothing more. Mainiacs are just as picky about such things as Texans. Even being born in Maine isn't worth much if your parents were from away.

;-)

[MN ChimpH8R]

43. W is a "Texan" in the same way

fundies are "Christians." Useful label to mislead the easily confused and it's put on for show.

[Lisa]

37. that's a good point, about the hating ...

That, I suspect, is from his mom.

It does reflect his personality very well -- he defines being a Texan through exclusion (like it's some special club which has a tremendous number of rules about why certain people "don't belong").

[tammywammy]

28. That's right, you ain't born here, you ain't Texan

:)

In my family my grandfather worked in refineries after the war until he retired. For a year or so, the whole family lived in Michigan. My aunt was born that year. We tease her to this day about being a Yankee. :)

And as I remember back to my geography in school, Connecticut ain't Texas. :)

[Bernardo de La Paz]

29. All Hat No Cattle

[Tower]

31. And Napoleon wasn't really French. So what?

He's promoted himself as a Texan and he's very popular in Texas. He claims the place, and they, largely, claim him.

No offense to the progressives of Texas, but you can't shove this guy off on the north. He's spoken to the south and been propped up by the south. His birth certificate doesn't mean much.

[triguy46]

32. All hat, no cattle...

they drive diesel duallies and hummers, dip snuff, two step, get elected to student government in college, go to work for a bank, marry a sorority girl who majors in elementary ed who will teach one year or until pregnant, but not to exceed 3 years, move to increasingly larger home 3 times in the first 5 years of marriage, divorce at 35, remarry another sorority girl at 40, run for school board, then state legislature, become visible in an evangelical church, etc.

Oh yeah, we see this all the time. The story doesn't change, just the color of the pickup/hummer.

[AspenRose]

42. *LOL!!!!!*

my GOSH that is FRIGHTENINGLY accurate!!!!!!!!

[Lone_Star_Dem]

35. Here's how I see this

I have had family in Texas since the late 1950's. I was born in LA, California in 1968 and spent some summers here until my parents moved here in the mid '70's. When my parents divorced a few years later one parent remained here and one moved back to CA. I spent the rest of my growing up years in both states and moved to Texas when I went to college in the '80's. Texas has been my home ever since.

I'm still considered to be a Californian by most of the people I know. If I can't be a Texan neither can that carpetbagger. :)

That's just my take on the issue. :hi:

[AspenRose]

38. Remember when John Sharp teased Poppy Bush about his TX "residence?"

Poppy's 'permanent' TX address was at Houston's Shamrock Hotel....

A HOTEL!!!! But he's a Texan, yep...

This was back around 1992...

[Lisa]

39. has anyone seen that clip from "Journeys with George", about his clothes

I couldn't believe it, the first time I saw it. Bush is standing there, describing in intricate detail all the different features of Western clothing.

He was like a costume designer, or perhaps some interpretive guide at an historical theme park. It seemed downright calculating, to me. Like it was part of the "aw shucks" persona he puts on to attract the voters.

We now know that he is cold and "snappish" in private. It's possible for a warm and friendly person to have a strict no-nonsense public face -- but by definition, a mean-spirited person who puts on a friendly facade is a phony!