George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

Congress that is frustratingly negative on everything." "I'm getting fired up thinking
about it, Bush said. He then launched into a tirade:
We've got excellent programs, and the only way when the other party controls the
Congress is to defeat some of their lousy ideas and then keep saying to the American
people, 'Have your congressman try the president's ideas. We need more farsighted
people like me in Congress.
So please, American people, -- let me look over this way -- please, do not listen to the
charges by frantic Democrats who are trying to say we don't have a domestic policy when
we have a good one. Give it a chance. Let the president's programs come up, and let's
have some support for what he was elected to do.
According to Bush, the Democrats "seem to have a concerted policy...to tear down the
president." Asked about possible Democratic presidential candidates meeting with the
widow of his family benefactor, Bush responded with muted anger, "These fellows who
are very nice, very pleasant -- all go down to Pamela Harriman's farm down here, the
bastion of democracy, and come back and tell me that we don't have a domestic program.
C'mon. Lighten up out there." After the long diatribes, it was perhaps not surprising that
someone asked Bush how he was feeling. "Right now, I feel like a million bucks," he
replied. But he was adamant that it was time for his vacation: "I'm history...It's going to
be a vacation. I think I've earned it, like a lot of Americans, and I'm looking forward to it.
And it will not be denied." [fn 55]
August 14: Bush's rage profile was once more on display as he called for an extension of
the federal death penalty in a Pittsburgh speech that was also full of racist overtones.
Addressing the National Convention of the Fraternal Order of Police, Bush ranted that
"the time has come to show less compassion for the architects of crime and more
compassion for its victims. Our citizens want and deserve to feel safe." "We must
remember that the first obligation of a penal system is to punish those who break our
laws....You can't turn bad people into saints." Bush wanted courts to be able to use
evidence that had been seized illegally: "There's no reason -- none at all-- that good
police officers should be penalized and criminals freed because a judge or a lawyer
bungled a search warrant." Journalists noted that the speech and the setting were typical
of the standard campaign event of 1988, which was often a police group endorsing Bush,
courtesy of the CIA Office of Security. The photo of Bush in the Washington Post is
expressive of Bush's anger when making the speech. [fn 57]
August 21: The Soviet putsch was a trying time for Bush, who staked a great deal on his
deal with Gorbachov. A remarkable flare- up by Bush came in response to the opinion
expressed by Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the president of the Republic of Georgia, that
Gorbachov was part of the conspiracy behind the coup. Bush, asked for a reaction, was
incensed:
Bush: --say to him he needs to get a little work done on the kind of statements he's
making. I mean that's ridiculous. There's a man who has been also swimming against the