Wednesday, March 29, 2006

What a sweet lady

Barbara Bush steers donation cash to son's firm

HOUSTON -- Former first lady Barbara Bush gave money to a hurricane relief fund on the condition that it be spent to buy educational software from her son Neil's company.

The chief of staff of former President George H.W. Bush would not disclose the amount earmarked for purchases from Ignite Learning. Since Barbara Bush's gift, the Ignite Learning program has been given to eight public schools with high numbers of Hurricane Katrina evacuees, the Houston Chronicle reported.

''Mrs. Bush wanted to do something specifically for education and specifically for the thousands of students flooding into the Houston schools,'' Jean Becker said Thursday.

The money was donated to the Bush-Clinton Houston Hurricane Relief Fund, said Steve Maislin, president of the Greater Houston Community Foundation, which administers the fund. That fund has no connection to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund, he said. Barbara Bush chose to promote Ignite because she supports her son and has genuine enthusiasm for his company's program, Becker said.

1 comment:

schmidlap said...

Bill Maher totally nailed this one:

"The President's mother, Barbara Bush, donated tax-deductible money to the Katrina Relief after the flood. And now we find out that it was with specific instructions that the money be spent for educational software owned by her son Neil. Because who can forget those tragic images of the poor black people on rooftops in New Orleans holding up signs that said, 'Send Educational Software'?"