The Bush Administration: Worse than We Can Imagine

In the old days, a dignitary who admired the horse of a foreign prince might find himself given that horse as a present. The dignitary would then face a hard choice: keep the present and risk raising suspicions about whether he had been bribed, or reject the present and risk offending the prince.

One thing the dignitary would not do would be to accept the horse and then sell it. That would confirm that he had been bribed--that he valued not the deed of friendship and generosity by the prince but rather the cash it could be turned into instead. And that would offend the prince--tell the prince that the dignitary valued not the particular horse and its connection with the prince but the cash it could be turned into.

In these new days, we have Colin Powell:

A Saudi Prince Tied to Bush Is Sounding Off-Key - New York Times: A few nights after he resigned his post as secretary of state two years ago, Colin L. Powell answered a ring at his front door. Standing outside was Prince Bandar, then Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, with a 1995 Jaguar. Mr. Powell’s wife, Alma, had once mentioned that she missed their 1995 Jaguar, which she and her husband had traded in. Prince Bandar had filed that information away, and presented the Powells that night with an identical, 10-year-old model. The Powells kept the car — a gift that the State Department said was legal — but recently traded it away...

Prince Bandar ibn Sultan--or someone in his entourage--went to trouble to find a good-condition car of the same year and model that Alma Powell had said that she missed and to have it maintained and spruced up. It may have been legal for the Powells to accept the gift of the car and then sell it for cash. It doesn't seem to me to be ethical.

Comments

[Barry]

It's also extremely odd - Powell had been working with Bandar since 1990, at the very least. Could it be that the Powells are getting financially screwed by the Bush family?

[Paul Neureiter]

The point of this story was that Prince Bandar had developed good relations with the U.S. government, but that perhaps he was now out of touch with the King. The story about Powell was to illustrate that one of the tools Bandar used to develop his relationships was an attention to detail. That's what Ambassador's do and Bandar did a great job--notwithstanding his current status or whatever you think of Bandar or Saudi Arabia.

In terms of the car, Powell had just left the State Department--was a private citizen--he can do what he wants, and yet the first thing he does is to check and see if acceptance of the gift was legal. Powell isn't short of cash, nor obviously is Bandar. Powell has a longstanding and well-known interest in cars, especially Jaguars. Among other traits, he's a very famous car collector, known for his knowledgeability about Jaguars. he traded the car away--he did NOT sell it for cash, according to the article.

Powell (like many others in the Government, Bush Administration, and the U.S. population) believes that America and Saudi Arabia share many common interests and goals. You can disagree with that (as I often do). But to imply that there is unethical behavior here, or worse, that somehow Powell was bribed by Bandar, is neither well-founded in this article or defensible from any other source of information that I know of.

[marc sobel]

Ah Ha! He did not sell it, he traded it away. My theory is to a minion of Satan in return for that portion of his reputation off of which the Bush excrement can still be scraped.