The first George Bush on Earth

Ted Wimer publishes today a sarcastic article on the very first George W-less Bush on Earth (1796-1859), "first cousin of the president’s great-great-great-grandfather". He "was not exactly the black sheep of the family, to use a phrase the president likes to apply to himself. In fact, he was extremely distinguished, just not in ways that you might expect. Prof. George Bush was a bona fide New York intellectual: a dabbler in esoteric religions whose opinions were described as, yes, “liberal”; a journalist and an academic who was deeply conversant with the traditions of the Middle East".

(...) "In 1831 he drifted to New York City, just beginning to earn its reputation as a sinkhole of iniquity, and found a job as professor of Hebrew and Oriental languages at what is now New York University. That same year, he published his first book, The Life of Mohammed. It was the first American biography of Islam’s founder".

A lecture is worth.