gymnasium and here crossed paths with Wright.
Wright told Bush: "George, I'm not feeling kindly toward you. You took a cheap shot at me. And I
had just been defending you." Bush flew into a rage: "When did you defend me? You damn well
didn't defend me at your convention." "Well, George, you don't have any complaint about what I
said," was Wright's rejoinder. "You don't find me attacking your integrity or your honor." "You and
I just see it differently," said Bush as he stalked off in a rage. [fn 15]
Later, Wright turned to Sonny Montgomery to use his good offices to resolve the dispute with
Bush. Wright called Bush and offered the olive branch. "George, if you're President and I'm
Speaker, we've got to work together." "Jim, I'm very glad you called. I did not mean to be
personally offensive." By this point the reader knows the real Bush well enough to give thatassurance its proper weight. Bush attenuated his public attacks on Wright in the campaign, but the (^)
witch-hunt against Wright went on. After Bush had won the election, Bush is reported to have
promised Wright a truce. "I want you to know I respect you and the House as an institution. I won't
have any part in anything at all that impinges on your honor or integrity," Bush is said to have
reassured the Speaker. Before Bush took offithemes: the concentration of financial power, housing, education, health care, and taxes. ce, Wright was busy working on his favorite populist
In January-February, 1989, the House took under consideration a pay increase for members. Both
Reagan and Bush had endorsed such a pay increase, but Lee Atwater, now installed at the
Republican National Committee, launched a series of mailings and public statements to make thepay increase into a new wedge issue. It was a brilliant success, with the help of a few old Prescott (^)
Bush strings pulled on key talk show hosts across the country. Bush accomplished the coup of
thoroughly destabilizing the Congress at the outset of his tenure. Wright was hounded out of office
and into retirement a few months later, followed by Tony Coelho, the Democratic whip. What
remained was the meek Tom Foley, a pliable rubber stamp, and Richard Gebhardt, who briefly gotin trouble with Bush during 1989, but who found his way to a deal with Bush that allowed him to
rubber-stamp Bush's "fast track" formula for the free trade zone with Mexico, which effectively
killed any hope of resistance to that measure. The fall of Wright was a decisive step in the
domestication of the Congress by the Bush regime.
Bush was also able to rely on an extensive swamp of "Bush Democrats" who would support his
proposals under virtually all circumstances. The basis of this phenomenon was the obvious fact that
the national leadership of the Democratic Party had long been a gang of Harrimanites. The Brown,
Brothers, Harriman grip on the Democratic Party had been represented by W. Averell Harriman
until his death, and after that was carried on by hiwife of Sir Winston Churchill's alcoholic son, Randolph. The very extensive Meyer Lansky/Anti-s widow, Pamela Churchill Harriman, the former
Defamation League networks among the Democrats were oriented towards cooperation with Bush,
sometimes directly, and sometimes through the orchestration of gang vs. countergang charades for
the manipulation of public opinion. A special source of Bush strength among southern Democrats is
the cooperation between Skull and Bonethe infamous Albert Pike. These southern jurisdiction freemasonic networks have been mosts and southern jurisdiction freemasons in the tradition of
obviously decisive in the senate, where a group of southern Democratic senators have routinely
joined with Bush to block overrides of Bush's many vetoes, or to provide a pro-Bush majority on
key votes like the Gulf war resolution.
Bush's style in the Oval Office was described during this period as "extremely secretive." Many
members of Bush's staff felt that the president had his own long-term plans, but refused to discuss
them with his own top White House personnel. During Bush's first year, the White House was
described as "a tomb," without the usual dense barrage of leaks, counter-leaks, trial balloons, and
signals which government insiders customarily employ to influence public debate on policy matters.