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Bush and War - It's In His Blood

 
 
Reply Thu 27 Jan, 2005 08:33 pm
At least he's not Scottish!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1399353,00.html

It is perhaps not the best omen for US foreign affairs. Local historians in Wexford have discovered that George Bush is a descendant of Strongbow, the power-hungry warlord who led the Norman invasion of Ireland thus heralding 800 years of mutual misery. With a long line of Scots Irish presidents including Woodrow Wilson, the Irish are normally quick to claim US leaders as their own. But, despite President Bush's large Ulster Scots vote in the American Bible belt, Ireland had let his family escape the genealogical microscope.
But now Ann Griffin Bernstorff, an artist working on a tapestry to commemorate Ireland's Norman heritage, has discovered what she claims is the Bushs' missing Irish link.

Ms Griffin Bernstorff was researching Strongbow's son-in-law, William Marshal, when she discovered the connection. A descendant of Marshal married Anne Marbury Hutchinson, a famous 16th century religious dissenter who had already been linked to Mr Bush.

"It is one of those bizarre developments," she said. "We traced the Bush genealogy through a Republican source in Chicago and found it was correct. People here are absolutely shocked. I'm not sure what the wider reaction will be, Bush has not been seen as a great friend of the Irish."

Indeed, when Mr Bush visited a County Clare castle last year, radio talk-show hosts asked: "Is this the most hated American ever to set foot on Irish soil?" .....

Read the rest at the link above.
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PDiddie
 
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Reply Fri 28 Jan, 2005 11:20 pm
According to squin's citation above:

Quote:
"Strongbow ... is remembered as a desperate, land-grabbing warlord whose calamitous foreign adventure led to the suffering of generations. Shunned by Henry II, he offered his services as a mercenary in the 12th-century invasion of Wexford in exchange for power and land. When he eventually died of a festering ulcer in his foot, his enemies said it was the revenge of Irish saints whose shrines he had violated.

...But it seems that Strongbow is not the worst of Bush's newfound ancestors. The genetic line can also be traced to Dermot MacMurrough, the Gaelic king of Leinster reviled in history books as the man who sold Ireland for personal gain.

Even before MacMurrough earned the title of Ireland's worst traitor by inviting Strongbow's invasion to save himself from a local feud, the Irish chieftain had a reputation for gore. One English chronicler told how MacMurrough, recognising the features of a personal enemy poking from a pile of severed heads after a battle, snatched up the rotting flesh and tore it with his teeth in a 'hideous frenzy.' "


Given Bush's academic failings, lack of intellectual curiosity, and paucity of introspection, it's likely that all of this would come as news to him.

But the parallels are striking, wouldn't you say?

For our sake, let's hope he inherited Strongbow's susceptibility to foot infections.
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Mr Stillwater
 
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Reply Fri 28 Jan, 2005 11:35 pm
I don' see any references to this Strongbow chap getting out of a combat role by offering his services to the Amorican Air Guard and then not showing up. More likely that Bush's ancestor was Ethelred the Unready, who managed to have an exit strategy*.





He managed to run away and leave the country on Angle Force I to the maurading Vikings.
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