Firm With Bush-Saudi Ties Buys Loews Movie Theaters

Just days before the release of Michael Moore's film "Farenheit 9/11" (which analyzes the Bush-Saudi relationship), the Washington Post reports the Bush-Saudi connected Carlyle Group purchased Loews Cineplex theaters. The $2 billion deal is part of Carlyle's larger efforts to buy up more telecommunications/media companies.

Carlyle, of course, is a firm with deep ties to both the Bush and Saudi Royal families. As the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported, President George H.W. Bush "joined the Carlyle Group, an investment firm that used its contacts in the government to secure lucrative contracts, including enormous ones in Saudi Arabia, and then sell them at a high profit." Similarly, the conservative Boston Herald pointed out Carlyle "has deep connections to the Saudi royal family as well as financial interests in U.S. defense firms hired by the kingdom to equip and train the Saudi military." Additionally, Bush Sr.'s Secretary of State James Baker is also a senior official at Carlyle.

Even the Carlyle spokesman commenting today on the media buy up is Bush-connected: "Clearly we feel this is a good time to be buying telecom," said Carlyle spokesman Chris Ullman. Ullman came to Carlyle after a stint as the top spokesman for the White House budget office in the current Bush administration.

The Carlyle buy up of Loews probably won't affect the screening of Moore's movies at Loews theaters...but it raises troubling concerns that such a wealthy and powerful company with connections to both the Bush and Saudi royal family is making aggressive efforts to control more of what we see and hear - right on the eve of a movie critical of the Bush-Saudi relationship, and just as the mainstream media begins focusing more scrutiny of that relationship. Coincidence?