George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

Bush: I'm leaving all this in the hands of the legal authorities and I am not going to
intervene in a court proceeding. I am not a lawyer. I don't want to have some 22-year old
prosecutor jump up and say that the President has -- (Laughter)-- frustrated the process
here. I don't know enough about that. You've got good lawyers that do. I don't know
enough about scheduling or how evidence before grand juries work, and I'm disinclined
to learn. But I do know a little something about fairplay. And all I'm trying to say is, let's
revert to that standard. Let's use that as the guide here and not get caught up in some
niggling, legal point.
I'm seeing a man's character getting damaged, just as I feel mine was challenged when
they said, hey, prove your innocence. You're guilty until innocent. Prove you weren't in
Paris on -- whatever the hell it was -- October 20th. And here he went to the front yard at
10:22. He was at the so-and-so embassy at 10:27. He was so and so. And finally, well,
that one just fades into the sunset and along comes a bunch of other allegations by
unnamed people that you can't find and can't put your -- like reaching out and touching a
handful of whipped cream, you can't get ahold of it. I don't want to --I've been through a
little bit-- but I don't want to see Bob Gates, a man of honor and integrity, go through it
anymore. That's all I'm trying to say.
Thank you. Have a neat day. [fn 53]
July 20: Bush was on a foreign trip that included a meeting with Mitterrand in
Rambouillet, near Paris, the G-7 meeting in London, and a trip to Turkey and Greece.
According to press accounts, he was examined every day by Burton Lee. As one
journalist travelling with Bush's party tells it, "Toward the end of the trip, [Bush] looked
tired. Last Saturday [July 20], he could not recall the details of a speech he was to give in
two days. 'It's a speech in the Rose Garden to some special group,' he told a news
conference. 'Don't ask me any more.'"
On Sunday, taking questions from reporters while posing for photographs with Suleyman
Demirel, leader of a Turkish opposition party, Bush testily objected to the tone of an
American radio reporter's question. "Now, wait a minute," Bush said. You don't ask in
that tone; just ask the question." [fn 54]
July 23: At a White House meeting with GOP leaders, even the New York Times could
not ignore Bush's "apparent irritation" on the Gates issue, a leading Bush obsession. Bush
was still furious about Gates being left to twist in the wind all summer. "I think the man
deserves to be confirmed, and I've seen nothing other than innuendo and reports that he
must have known this or something. I don't want to get started. [Understandable, after his
previous nonstop rage monologue.] I told the cabinet yesterday how strongly I feel about
this and so I will stand by this man." [fn 56]
August 2: One day after returning to Washington from the Moscow summit, Bush gave a
news conference in the Rose Garden that was heavily colored by obsessive rage, as can
be seen from a front-page photograph in the next day's Washington Post, which shows
him snarling and gesticulating. Bush's main theme was an attack on the Congress, "a