Can't argue with experience, can quibble with a theory.
Mattingly writes a Texas insider view of Perot vs Bush.

I can't argue with an account from experience, but I wonder if Mattingly's hypothesis is the most likely.

He points out that both Perot and Bush Senior were elite Texans who looked down on ordinary Texans. Perot was known as a 'Highland Park Presbyterian' in Dallas. His wife was a leader in Planned Parenthood. Mattingly guesses that Perot resented Bush for courting pro-life votes.

I recognize the type in Okie terms. The West Side of Enid was the same. Presbies and Piskies, bankers and oilmen. The Mungers spoke only to Champlins, and the Champlins spoke only to God.

And when those Presbies and Piskies spoke to God through their ministers, they were speaking to abortion salesmen. The ministers ran an underground referral service for the nearest quasi-legal abortion mill in KCK.

So the connection makes sense, but doesn't seem powerful enough to account for the hostility between the families. Everyone knew that Bush didn't mean what he said, and 'Highland Park' types simply don't focus on religion. It's not part of life or thought. You have to make religious noises to keep the plebeians at bay, and that's as far as it goes. Trump is the same type transposed to NYC. He emits religious phrases written by staff, but he clearly has no idea what the phrases mean.

I'd look instead for a more earthly connection through Perot's main business. EDS was an ancestor of Amazon AWS, providing Big Data storage and processing to corporations and government. EDS was thus part of Deepstate. If CIA chief Bush had tried to favor a competitor over EDS, that would account for a grudge in the meaningful part of life.

(Sidenote: I hadn't thought of this before. Those abortion-selling reverends were serving the interests of the elite by culling the herds of hippies and blacks. They knew what they were doing.)

Labels: storage

  ¶ 3:57 PM