Irony

This is something I just discovered. Back in 2002, Michael Kranish of the Boston Globe wrote about how Harken Energy bailed out George Bush by buying his failing company, Spectrum 7. The part that surprises me is that Harken was a George Soros company.

"President George Bush's business affairs remain in political focus, with the billionaire United States investor George Soros quoted as saying that Harken Energy bought a Texas oil company run by Mr Bush in 1986 because 'we were buying political influence'.

Mr Soros owned nearly one-third of Harken at the time the deal was done.

Mr Soros, who is one of the world's most powerful financial market players, was offering a reason why Harken bought Spectrum7, a failing oil company that was then run by Mr Bush.

In an article posted on the Web site of the magazine The Nation, David Corn, the magazine's Washington editor, said he happened to run into Mr Soros at a party recently and asked him why Harken had bought Mr Bush's company.

'I didn't know him,' Corn quoted Mr Soros as saying. 'He was supposed to bring in the Gulf connection. But it didn't come to anything. We were buying political influence. That was it. He was not much of a businessman.' "

In fairness to Mr. Soros the Spectrum 7 deal was not a Soros initiative. His executives made that decision. But it gives you an idea of why Soros is working so hard to get Bush out of office. He knows something about his true abilities (or lack thereof).