George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

something good about a dead person, don't say it. Well, I consider him dead." Who was
dead, asked Donaldson. "Bush!" was Marshall's reply. "He's dead from the neck up."
Marshall added that he regarded Bush's chief of staff, John Sununu of New Hampshire,
the state Souter was from, as the one "calling the shots." "If he came up for election," said
Marshall of Bush, "I'd vote against him. No question about it. I don't think he's ever
stopped" running for re-election since he took office. Marshall and Donaldson had the
following exchange about Souter:
Donaldson: Do you know Judge David Souter?
Marshall: No, never heard of him.
Donaldson: He may be the man to replace Brennan.
Marshall: I still never heard of him. When his name came down I listened to television.
And the first thing, I called my wife. Have I ever heard of this man? She said, "No, I
haven't either. So I promptly called Brennan, because it's his circuit [the First Circuit in
Boston]. And his wife answered the phone, and I told her. She said: "He's never heard of
him either."
Marshall and Brennan had often been at odds with the Bush's administration's promotion
of the death penalty. In this connection, Marshall commented: "My argument is that if
you make a mistake in a trial and it's corrected later on --you find out it was an error--
you correct it. But if you kill a man, what do you say? "Oops?" "I'm sorry?" "Wait a
minute?" That's the trouble with death. Death is so lasting."
On this occasion, Marshall renewed his pledge that he would never resign, but would die
in office: "I said before, and I repeat that, I'm serving out my life term. I have a deal with
my wife that when I begin to show signs of senility, she'll tell me. And she will." [fn 16]
Yet, less than one year later, Marshall announced his retirement from the bench, giving
Bush the chance to split the organizations of black America with the Clarence Thomas
appointment. Those who saw Marshall's farewell press conference would have to agree
that he still possessed one of the most lucid and trenchant minds anywhere in the
government. Had Bush's vindictiveness expressed itself once again through its inevitable
instruments of secret blackmail and threats?
During June and July, domestic economic issues edged their way back to center stage of
US politics. As always, that was bad news for Bush.
Bush's biggest problem during 1990 was the collision between his favorite bit of
campaign demagogy, his "read my lips, no new taxes" mantra of 1990, and the looming
national bankruptcy of the United States. Bush had sent his budget to the Hill on January
29 where the Democrats, despite the afterglow of Panama, had promptly pronounced it
Dead on Arrival. During March and April, there were rounds of haggling between the
Congress and Bush's budget pointman, Richard Darman of OMB. Then, on the sunny