Small Names, Big Checks
Aside from the usual corporate suspects, there's a second tier of (deliberately) low-profile donors underwriting Bush's inaugural.
By Michael Scherer


Therese Shaheen, the former U.S. envoy to Taiwan, wrote a $250,000 check so that her Asian business clients can rub shoulders this week with George W. Bush. "Outsiders are fascinated by the president's inaugural, so it's nice for them," says Shaheen, who resigned her post as the head of the U.S. diplomatic mission to Taiwan last April and returned to the private sector. "The inauguration is always good for business development."

But only a few people, including the president's staff, know that Shaheen is responsible for the donation, which entitles her clients to tickets to top-tier events with President Bush and Vice President Cheney. That is because she donated the funds through the Strongbow Technologies Corporation, a company that lists no phone number and whose mailing address is a post office box in the Maryland suburbs of Washington D.C. According to the State of Delaware, the company no longer even exists under that name, having been reincorporated in December as U.S. Asia Strongbow Technologies Corporation. "I'm just starting it back up," Shaheen explains, adding that the company has several new contracts, which she would not discuss.