oil industry, it should be noted that he rode down to Texas on Dresser's private aircraft. He was
accompanied by his father, who at that time was one of the directors of Dresser Industries." "I hateit when people make statements about Mr. Bush's humble beginnings in the oil industry. It just
didn't happen that way," writes Mr. Wyatt. [fn 9] Dresser was a Harriman company, and Bush got
his start working for one of its subsidiaries. One history of Dresser Industries contains a photograph
of George Bush with his parents, wife, and infant son "in front of a Dresser company airplane in
West Texas." [fn 10 t1948? In any case, this most cherished myth of the Bush biographers is very much open to doubt. ris] Can this be a photo of Bush's arrival in Odessa during the summer of
Fawning biographies of bloodthirsty tyrants are nothing new in world literature. The red Studebaker
school goes back a long way; these writers of today can be usefully compared with a certain Gaius
Velleius Paterculus, who lived in the Roman Empire under the emperors Augustus and Tiberius,and who thus an approximate contemporary of Jesus Christ. Velleius Paterculus was an historian (^)
and biographer who is known today, if at all, for his biographical notes on the Emperor Tiberius,
which are contained within Paterculus's history of Rome from the origins down to his own time.
Paterculus, writing undefulsome when he came to write of Augustus. But the worst excesses of flattery came in Velleiusr Tiberius, gave a very favorable treatment of Julius Caesar, and became
Paterculus's treatment of Tiberius himself. Here is part of what he writes about that tyrannical ruler:
Of the transactions of the last sixteen years, which have passed in the view, and are fresh in the
memory of aaffairs, sedition has been banished from the forum, corruption fromll, who shall presume to give a full account? [...] credit has been restored to mercantile the Campus Martius, and
discord from the senate- house; justice, equity and industry, which had long lain buried in neglect,
have been revived in the state; authority has been given to the magistrates, majesty to the senate,
and solemnity to the courts of justice; the bloody riots in the theater have been suppressed, and all
men have had either a desire excited in them, or a necessity imposed on them, of acting withintegrity. Virtuous acts are honored, wicked deeds are punished. The humble respects the powerful, (^)
without dreading him; the powerful takes precedence of the humble without condemning him.
When were provisions more moderate in price? When were the blessings of peace for abundant?
Augustan peace, diffused over all the regions of the east and the west, and all that lies between the
south and the north, preserves every corner of the world free from all dread of premolestation. Fortuitous losses, not only of individuals, but of cities, the munificence of the prince isdatory (^)
ready to relieve. The cities of Asia have been repaired; the provinces have been secured from the
oppression of their governors. Honor promptly rewards the deserving, and the punishment of the
guilty, if slow, is certain. Interest gives place to justice, solicitation to merit. For the best of princes
teaches his countrymen to act rightly by his own practice; and while he is the greatest in power, heis still greater in example.
Having exhibited a general view of the administration of Tiberius Caesar, let us now enumerate a
few particulars respecting it. [...] How formidable a war, excited by the Gallic chief Sacrovir and
Julius Florius, did he suppress, and with such amazing expedition and energy, that the Romanpeople learned that they were conquerors, before they knew that they were at war, and the news of (^)
the victory outstripped the news of the danger! The African war too, perilous as it was, and daily
increasing in strength, was quickly terminated under his auspices and direction. [...] What structures
has he erected in his own name, and those of his family! With what dutiful munificence, even
exceeding belief, is he building a temple to his father! [...] Whe manage the raising of troops, a business of constant and extreme apprehension, without theith what perfect ease to the public does
consternation attendant on a levy! [ fn 11 ]
All of this was written in praise of the regime that crucified Jesus Christ, and one of the worst
genocidal tyrannies in the history of the world. Paterculus, we must sadly conclude, was a