Jeb Bush Was Not Shy About Using His White House Connections

Jeb Bush Was Not Shy About Using His White House Connections
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, left, makes a point as Kathleen Oropeza, the Orlando mother who helped create the Fund Education Now group, listens during the Florida Forward education reform forum, hosted by the Orlando Sentinel, Tuesday, September 20, 2011, in downtown Orlando, Florida. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/MCT via Getty Images)
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, left, makes a point as Kathleen Oropeza, the Orlando mother who helped create the Fund Education Now group, listens during the Florida Forward education reform forum, hosted by the Orlando Sentinel, Tuesday, September 20, 2011, in downtown Orlando, Florida. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/MCT via Getty Images)

The stream of requests to the White House from Jeb Bush, a young but well-connected Republican leader in South Florida, ranged from the weighty and urgent to the parochial and mundane.

In 1985, he sent an emotional letter pressing his father, Vice President George Bush, to investigate the detention of Cuban children in Texas, asking, “Shouldn’t there be some compassion?” (The vice president’s reply: “Heartbreaking.”)

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