George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

frenetic. He still tends to make unpredictable snap decisions. He had often lost control of
his emotions in public, most often through rage, but also through weeping and other
forms of affective upheaval.
June 5: Bush addressed the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in
Atlanta, Georgia, and recounted his tearful Camp David decision to launch war in the
Gulf. "And the tears started to roll down the cheeks, and our minister smiled back, and I
no longer worried how it looked to others," Bush told the Baptists. As viewed by Andrew
Rosenthal of the New York Times, the scene proceeded as follows:
At that moment, Mr. Bush's voice broke, and tears filled his eyes. He brushed at them
with a finger. Then he turned to one of the cameras near the lectern, flashed one of the
incongruous grins that often appear in his moments of emotional discomfort, and pointed
to his cheek. "Here we go," he said.
Mr. Bush confessed to reporters afterward that he felt a little embarrassed by his display
of emotion before the delegates. "I do that in church," he said. "Maybe in public it's a
kind of a first, or maybe a third." [fn 51]
According to other accounts, Bush's "voice cracked," and he "grew husky and choked."
June 16: Bush visited Los Angeles to attend a party thrown by Malibu producer Jerry
Weintraub, who has been responsible for such films as "The Karate Kid" and "My
Stepmother is an Alien." Bush also played golf with Ronald Reagan, outdriving and
outputting the aging former president. One press account suggests that Bush maintained
his hyperhtyroid pace:
Apart from playing golf, Mr. Bush continued his usual mad dash of recreation. This
morning, he was in such a hurry to get to a tennis game that his motorcade roared off
without his personal aide, his personal physician, and, more important, the military
officer who carries codes for launching nuclear missles. Unnerved by this omission,
White House aides hurriedly rounded up transportation and sped the officer to the tennis
courts.
During this trip, Bush also experienced a rage outburst set off by a reporter's reference to
the 1988 Newsweek cover that explored "the wimp factor." This set Bush off as follows:
You're talking to the wimp. You're talking to the guy that had a cover of a national
magazine that I'll never forgive, put that label on me. [fn 52]
July 11-12: On July 11, Bush received a visit from Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki
Kaifu at Kennebunkport. He was asked about senate hearings on his nomination of
Robert Gates to be head of the CIA. (With anything but a rubberstamp Congress, the
Gates nomination would have had to be seen as a gratuitous provocation. Gates had been
up to his neck in Iran-contra and the coverup thereof, and had withdrawn during a
previous attempt to occupy the same office. Now Bush was stirring up the Iran-contra