I heard some of the fawning coverage following George H.W. Bush’s passing, but mostly I’ve tuned it out. I don’t want to hear people gushing over him. He spent a lot of years serving in public positions, but from what I remember he mostly served himself and people like him — as in, other rich whites. Mostly. He had a distinguished Navy career, and there’s at least one brave vote in his political career that’s remembered. But Molly Ivins called him “the Weathervane President,” and there’s plenty of evidence that his core principle came to be, “whatever is best for me right now.”
Most of this is from Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She? and Nothin’ But Good Times Ahead. And I’ve included a little bonus story from Al Franken at the bottom.
- “While trying to express how close he is to President Reagan, Bush said, ‘For seven-and-a-half years I’ve worked alongside him, and I’m proud to be his partner. We’ve had triumphs, we’ve made mistakes, we’ve had sex.’ He didn’t mean that. ‘Setbacks. We’ve had setbacks,’ he quickly amended. There’s just slippage from time to time in the links between his mouth and his mind.”
- Jim Hightower: “If ignorance ever goes to $40 a barrel, I want the drilling’ rights on that man’s head.”
- “Bush got to Green Bay, Wisconsin, and told the crowd there how much he loves the Minnesota Vikings.”
- “… after Congressman George Bush voted for the 1968 Civil Rights Housing Act, there was hell to pay back in his right-wing Houston district. He stood up at a series of public meetings in front of God and everybody, took screaming, abuse, threats, and still refused to apologize for that vote. As it happens, it was also the last time I ever saw him do anything I admired.”
- “Calling George Bush shallow is like calling a dwarf short.”
- “Nixon named Bush chairman of the Republican Party in the midst of the Watergate scandal. It was not a happy moment in GOP history. Even so, Bush did more than just ignore the stench of that administration in its last months — the corruption, the arrogance, the lawbreaking, the signs of mental imbalance. Through it all George Bush burbled inanely and chirruped cheerfully.”
- “The man who ran on the slogan ‘Ready on Day One’ has been in office for a year, and the only issue for which he has shown real passion is a capital gains tax-cut to benefit all the rich pond scum who piled up boodle during the Reagan years.”
- Bushusuru: to “do the Bush,” that is, throw up in someone’s lap.
- “George Bush without a TelePrompTer can scarcely produce an intelligible sentence. I’ve been listening to him since 1966 and must confess to a secret fondness for his verbal dyslexia. Hearing him has the charm and suspense of those old adventure-movie serials: Will this man ever fight his way out of this sentence alive?”
- And, of course, the late Ann Richards: “Poor George, he can’t help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.”
BONUS: Al Franken told this story in Lies & the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.