Morning Rant: Prince Hal, My *ss

By now you've probably seen the marvelous Salon piece about George W. Bush's "missing year." The basic arc of the story is that George H. W. Bush, the current White House resident's father, back in 1972 persuaded one of his political consultants and, at the time, close friends, Jimmy Allison, to find a job for his eldest son, George W., in the Alabama Senate campaign that Allison was then managing. No surprises so far; after all, G.W. was no stranger to sucking at the family tit, and owes pretty much everything he has to the peculiar political connectivity of the Bush clan.

The interesting part, though, is that the elder Bush apparently prevailed on Allison to find Georgie a job somewhere far from Midland because wild-party G.W. was becoming a political liability in Texas. In Salon:

"The impression I had was that Georgie was raising a lot of hell in Houston, getting in trouble and embarrassing the family, and they just really wanted to get him out of Houston and under Jimmy's wing," Allison's widow, Linda, told me. "And Jimmy said, 'Sure.' He was so loyal."

So, apparently, Bush spent the "missing year" -- during which he claims to have "honorably served" in the National Guard -- "com[ing] in late and leav[ing] early" on his campaign job, boasting about his drinking exploits, trashing his rented house (and neglecting to pay for the damages), and urinating on cars. (Well, O.K., let's be fair here -- he only urinated on one car.)

(As a side note, the Salon piece, which focuses on the point of view of Allison's widow, gives a glimpse at how willing the Bush Matriarchy has been to sh*t on friends when they cease to be useful. The Matriarch, Barbara Bush, emerges as a particularly loathesome figure.)

But oh, wait, I forgot. We're not supposed to hold G.W.'s "youthful high spirits" against him -- Born Again, yadda yadda yadda, Prince Hal, yadda yadda yadda.

Sure.