This scene was dramatized, but is based in fact. This "mano a mano" confrontation between father and son is a fairly well-known incident, noted in many of the Bush biographies. Here's one account from "Fortunate Son" by J.H. Hatfield --

Over the Christmas holidays in 1972, by then twenty-six, George W. went to Washington to visit his family. "After Junior arrived at the house, he took his 15 year-old brother, Marvin, to a friend's house, where they both drank too much holiday cheer. On the way home, Junior struck and dragged a neighbor's garbage can noisily down the street before turning into the Bush driveway. The elder Bush asked his son to step into the den. Junior, who recalls being drunk and belligerent as they entered the study, was ready to pick a fight.

"I hear you're looking for me," he shouted at his father, You want to go mano a mano right here?"

Both men were suddenly in each other's face, screaming at the top of their lungs, until Barbara ran into the room and literally pulled them apart and sent them into opposite corners of the room like a referee in a boxing match."

-- "Fortunate Son," Hatfield, page 50

See also "First Son" by Bill Minutaglio, pages 147-148; "The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty," by Peter and Rochelle Schweizer, page 220; and "The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty," page 306.

Younger brother, John Ellis "Jeb" Bush, the "favorite" son, watched the edgy scene unfolding and decided to intervene. He told his parents that W had just been accepted by Harvard Business School, something W had kept from them. They were stunned, and the potentially violent stand-off was defused.

“You should think about that, son,” Poppy said. “Oh, I’m not going,” W replied. “I just wanted to let you know I could get into it.”

W enrolled in Harvard Business School the following September.

(See "First Son," page 148-149, and "That Way Son," by Andrew Sullivan, The Sunday Times, November 12, 2006)

(http://mail.psychedelic-library.org/pipermail/theharderstuff/20061113/001309.html)