George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography

(Frankie) #1

If you were a psychiatrist and you had such a fellow on your couch, what's your prognosis of the


way he's going to react to this situation? He'll react only when he becomes sly. And he becomes slyin the face of great pressure. He'll duck, he'll be sneaky, when he faces something he knows he can't (^)
cope with. And he'll duck and hope to come back to hit another day.
But now he's in a manic fit. He's the President. He said so at his press conference. "I'm the
President. I'm Queen of the May." So you've got a rage-driven man, with rage-driven obsessionwith impulses flowing from that, in a man who thinks he's the Queen of the May. In other words, in (^)
Aeschylean language, A LAW UNTO HIMSELF. What's your prognosis? [fn 47]
It was during these waning days of 1989 that Bush's mental disintegration became unmistakeable,
foreshadowing the greater furors yet to come.
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NOTES:



  1. Washington Post, January 21, 1991.

  2. Evans and Novak, "A Note From Saddle River," Washington Post, April 10, 1989.

  3. For Fukuyama's "End of History," see The National Interest, Summer, 1989, and Henry Allen,
    "The End. Or Is It?", Washington Post, September 27, 1989.

  4. Washington Post, December 8, 1988

  5. Washington Post, April 17, 1989

  6. See Jack Anderson and Dale Van Atta, "Another Test of Loyalty and Standards," Washington
    Post, April 26, 1989 and "Overseas Spoils for GOP Loyalists," Washington Post, September 22,
    1989; and Ann Devroy, "Bush Ambassadorial Nomination in Limbo," Washington Post, September
    12, 1989.

  7. "Off on the Wrong Foot: Gray takes on Baker," Newsweek, April 10, 1989.

  8. "Bush's Earthly Pursuits," Washington Post, November 18, 1988.

  9. See the transcript of Bush's statement and news conference, Washington Post, February 7, 1989;"With Signs and Ceremony, S&L Bailout Begins," Washington Post, August 10, 1989; and "Bush:
    S&Ls May Need More Help," Washington Post, December 12, 1989.

  10. "Bush Backs Increase in IMF Funds," Washington Post, November 23, 1989.

  11. "President Defends Pace of Administration," Washington Post, March 8, 1989.

  12. See House Democratic Study Group, Special Report No. 101-45, "Legislation Vetoed by the
    President," p. 83.

  13. Washington Post, April 29, 1990, p. F1.

  14. John M. Barry, The Ambition and the Power, (New York: Viking Press, 1989), pp. 621-622.

  15. Barry, The Ambition and the Power, p. 642.

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