George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

eactive to the Democrats." Had calling off the trip somehow interfered with Bush's plans
for unleashing the next war? Bush reverted to his favorite theme of his war leadership: "If
I had had to listen to advice" of Congressional Democrats "to do something about the
Persian Gulf, we'd have still been sitting there in the United States, fat, dumb, and happy,
with Saddam Hussein maybe in Saudi Arabia." Bush also continued to deny the
depression: "I'm not prepared to say we're in recession." For him, an alleged growth rate
of 2.4% "is not recession. It does not fit the definition of recession." [fn 72]
November 12: Bush's countenance was once more a mask of rage, venom, and hatred as
he stumbled through another $1000-a-plate Republican fundraising dinner in Manhattan.
He appeared thin and drawn. The take for Bush's campaign was estimated at $2.2 million,
but press reports indicated that Bush's enraged monologue "prompted little applause or
enthusiasm as the president moved from one topic to another, rarely devoting more than a
few seconds to any theme." Bush's delivery was halting and confused, with signs of
evident dissociation and a truncated attention span. The essence of the speech was a
paranoid, self-righteous defense against critics named and unnamed. Bush labelled his
tormentors as "tawdry," "phony," and "second- guessers." He pounded the lectern as he
ranted, "I'm not going to be the javelin-catcher for the liberals in Congress anymore." "I
am not going to apologize for one minute that I devote to advancing our economic
principles aborad or working for world peace," postured the president of two wars and
counting.
November 12: Bush, speaking in New York and fumbling for bits of demagogy on the
economic situation, expressed a vague desire to see lower interest rates for credit card
holders. Many observers say that the two sentences on this topic uttered by Bush that day
had been interpolated by chief of staff Sununu; Sununu later accused Bush of having adlibbed
the pronouncement on his own initiative. One day later, the Senate
overwhelmingly approved a bill to cap credit card interest rates. With this, the secondary
market in credit card debt collapsed, threatening to blow off the coverup of the
bankruptcy of the largest US banks. On Friday, November 15, the Dow Jones Industrial
Average lost 4% of its value within a few hours, the biggest collapse since October 13,
1989. Bush, running for cover, hastily despatched Treasury Secretary Brady to denounce
the interest cap as "wacky." It was yet another impulsive volte-face by the erratic and
unstable Bush.
November 20: With Bush scheduled to sign a civil rights bill containing provisions which
Bush had stigmatized as quotas and sworn he would resist to the death, the White House
circulated a directive to federal agencies mandating the termination of all hiring policies
designed to favor minority groups or women. Bush had not wanted any civil rights bill to
be passed, preferring to keep the race issue in his quiver for the 1992 election, but he had
been intimidated by the threat that Sen. Danforth and other Republicans would support a
Democrat-sponsored bill, leaving Bush painfully isolated. That had already been an
impulsive decision.
Now Bush's attempted sleight of hand, signing a bill and simultaneously removing the
hiring policies, caused a furore. "The president would have to lose his mind to make this