Reply #14: Bush spent a summer in Alaska

[Mabus]

Of course, his job was arranged by family friends, didn't involve much work and got him out of the way of his dad. But the press ignored it so it had no effect. I wouldn't be surprised if the press tried to use this against Hillary, playing up the part about her getting fired.

Neil Bergt, The New York Times' "richest man in Alaska" in the '80s, gave W a summer job in 1974, when he was in between years at Harvard Business School. Bergt says he doesn't know why the young Bush—still living, by his own account, the "wild and woolly days"—wanted to come to Fairbanks, where the company was based. But a Houston construction executive contacted him and asked him to hire Bush, who has been described by professors and friends as an out-to-lunch business student. Bush's father was then the chairman of the Republican National Committee, installed by President Nixon, and Bush Sr. would wind up that summer appearing on the White House lawn when Nixon resigned, waved farewell, and climbed aboard the presidential helicopter for the last time. Bergt concedes that the Bush job was "a political hire."

In several wide-ranging interviews, Bergt oscillated between demands that the Voice pay him $250,000 for "the real story" that "only I can tell" about Bush and insisting that there was "no story here" and that Bush spent a quiet summer preparing a business plan for him. Asked why Bush preferred a summer in Alaska to Wall Street or Houston, Bergt suggested that the motive was nefarious, and that a full account could affect the election, adding: "I'm not talking without money."

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0443,barrett,57857,1.html