The other day, Donald Trump mentioned that Jeb Bush's brother, George W. Bush, used Eminent Domain (government seizure of private land) in order to build the baseball stadium that helped make his fortune and position him for a political career. Eminent Domain, of course, runs counter to private property values, which are dearly held by many Republican voters.

Fox News asked Jeb about this,  "I don't think eminent domain should be used for private purposes," the candidate said, looking awkward, as he so often does. "I don't know what my brother did or not."

In this case, Trump, who so often blows smoke, was spot on. And since Jeb is unfamiliar with the background, we've decided to reprint a chapter in my book on the Bush clan, Family of Secrets, dealing with the baseball team and the land deal.

It's about the privileges of the sort you and I don't have.

Feel free to send it along to Jeb.

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Here is Chapter 17 of the book Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years, by WhoWhatWhy Editor-in-Chief Russ Baker:

W. was not quite the baseball player his father and grandfather had been—but he was the master of a certain kind of pitch. In the days leading up to the 1988 election, W. was on the phone constantly making sales calls, though not for his father's candidacy. As Bush family adviser Doug Wead recalled: "It was interesting to sit and listen to him pick up the phone again and again and say: 'Well, we're gonna buy a baseball team. Want to buy a baseball team?' "

Maybe George W. Bush felt that his father's election was in the bag. Or maybe he was in a hurry because he thought it was less unseemly for the son of a vice president seeking the presidency to be soliciting funds for personal reasons than for the son of a sitting president to be doing so. Whatever his reason, at that particular moment, baseball was on his mind.

W. has genuine affection for "America's pastime," but his decision to acquire the Texas Rangers baseball team was not just about fun. He was creating a legend that would set him on the path to the presidency. How could a man with so few accomplishments be made into an impressive public figure? How could a fellow who had few prospects of honestly earning a fortune be set up in the sort of lifestyle he and his friends expected?

Such questions were certainly on the mind of his informal political adviser Karl Rove. Although the Bush forces would claim that W. had not seriously thought about running for higher office until well into the 1990s, as far back as Poppy's inauguration Rove had been letting reporters know that there was another Bush waiting in the wings. In fact, W.'s name was floated as a possibility for the 1990 Texas governor's race, but W.'s mother publicly opposed his bid because of concerns that a loss would be seen as a referendum on Bush Sr.'s presidency.