I heard this on NPR a while ago, and it rings true to me.
From "Building a better Bush" an article by Paul Weldman in Salon magazine, postulates that Bush's lies go beyond not being able to keep it all straight, but in actuality his persona is a big Bubba act.
George W. Bush understood well the preppy image his father carried and was eager to stake out a contrast to it. But when he made a premature run for Congress in 1978, George W.'s opponent, Kent Hance, did exactly the same thing Yarborough and Bentsen had done to his father, running radio ads mentioning where Bush went to high school, and deriding Bush for coming from Connecticut. Hance won with more than 53 percent of the vote.
It was the last time anyone would ever out-Bubba George W. Bush. So when he was asked as he was preparing to run for governor what the difference between him and his father was, Bush would say, "He went to Greenwich Country Day and I went to San Jacinto Junior High School in Midland." In other words, he was a Connecticut Yankee, but I'm a real Texan. In truth, Bush attended San Jacinto Junior High for one year, then went to an elite private school in Houston, followed by spending his high school years at Andover. Bush seldom misses an opportunity to reiterate that he is a real Texan, down to his habit of attributing ordinary American sayings to Texas, as though by speaking them he reveals his provincialism (he once described "show your cards" as "an old Texas expression").
As in many areas, George W. was far more successful in posing as an anti-elitist than his father. Whether George Sr. actually enjoyed pork rinds as he claimed, nobody believed for a second that his snack-food preference made him an ordinary Joe. But the son, with his love for baseball and plain speakin', managed to make most people forget his Brahmin pedigree.
Please read the whole article, and discuss below. I think it's quite enlightening.
http://dir.salon.com/...