The ultimate in family dysfunction

Back in the Bush I era, everyone thought that old Barbara Bush was this kindly matriarch. Not me. All you had to do was look into that woman's eyes and you'd see someone who could gut you from neck to crotch without ever mussing her hair.

It's been reported that George Jr. gets his pettiness and his vindictiveness from his mother; and yet you don't get the impression either that he's really the apple of her eye.

However, she seems more concerned than the old man does with the Bush Legacy; perhaps because she still has dreams of King Jeb dancing in her head. So, in true Mafia Don fashion, it seems she's looking to whack the person she has deemed responsible for the failed administration of her son.

Steve Clemons reports:

Barbara Bush is allegedly TICKED off at Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Andy Card, nearly all of them -- except Karen Hughes -- for how her boy is faring in the hearts and minds of Americans.

The matriarch of the Bush clan is colder than North Pole ice right now to those around her son who she thinks have undermined him. I'll tell who my sources are if Patrick Fitzgerald gives a call and makes me -- but the sources are very close to Poppa Bush (41), who has been traveling a bit with some of his old entourage, including Brent Scowcroft and others of the first Bush regime.

While TWN has been able to confirm that Laura Bush's mother-in-law wants to do more than put coal in the stockings of the Vice President and the other top handlers of her son's White House, we have not been able to confirm a slightly stronger bit of the rumor, which is that Barbara -- not Laura -- was planning to call on Nancy Reagan just to get a refresher lesson on how she took on and kicked out then Chief-of-Staff Donald Regan. (I embellish here; Barbara Bush is not going to take lessons from Nancy, it just sounded good. My source told me that Barbara was about to "pull a Nancy Reagan" on these attendants.)

Cheney may be tougher to dump than Don Regan, but then again, Barbara Bush is one of those wonders of nature (we hear) who knows no limits and can easily surge beyond category 5 hurricane winds.

Should be interesting to watch the role of the First Mother in the coming couple of months. Watch for a lot to change right after the State of the Union address, I've been told.

Never forget Rule #1 of the Bush family: Loyalty is paramount, until you make us look bad. Then we'll disappear you so fast it'll make your head swim.