A questioner cited a tabloid headline: "Read My Lips: I Lied." Bush had been prepped by
an historical review of how other presidents had allegedly changed their minds or lied,
which had convinced Bush that he, although a liar, was actually in the same class with
Lincoln. "I've been more relaxed about it than I thought I'd be," quipped Bush. "I feel
comfortable about that because I've gone back and done a little research and seen these
firestorms come and go, people who feel just as strongly on one side or another of an
issue as I do and haven't gotten their way exactly." Why had he said no new taxes during
the campaign? "Well, I don't think anybody did such a penetrating job of questioning...."
Bush's basic idea was that he could get away with it, in the way that Reagan had gotten
away with the 1982 recession. But for many voters, and even for many Republican
loyalists, this had been yet another epiphany of a scoundrel. Many were convinced that
Bush believed in absolutely nothing except hanging on to power.
It was also in the early summer of 1990 that it gradually dawned on many taxpayers that,
according to the terms of the Savings & Loan bailout championed by Bush during the
first weeks of his regime, they would be left holding the bag to the tune of at least $500
billion. Their future was now weighted with the crushing burden of a defacto second
mortgage, in addition to the astronomical national debt that Reagan and Bush had rolled
up. This unhappy consciousness was compounded by the personal carnage of the
continuing economic contraction, which had been accelerated by the shocks of
September-October, 1989. An ugly mood was abroad, with angry people seeking a point
of cathexis.
They found it in Neil Bush, the president's marplot cadet son, the one we saw explaining
his March 31, 1981 dinner engagement with Scott Hinckley. As even little children now
know, Neil Bush was a member of the board of directors of Silverado Savings and Loan
of Denver, Colorado, which went bankrupt and had to be seized by federal regulators
during 1988. Preliminary estimates of the costs to the taxpayers were on the order of $1.6
billion, but this was sure to go higher. The picture was complicated by the fact that Neil
Bush had received a $100,000 personal loan (never repayed, and formally forgiven) and a
$1.25 million line of credit from two local land speculators, Kenneth Good and William
Walters, both also prominent money-bags for the Republican Party. In return for the
favors he had received, Neil Bush certainly did nothing to prevent Silverado from lending
$35 million to Good for a real estate speculation that soon went into default. Walters
received $200 million in loans from Silverado, which were never called in. This was a
prima facie case of violation of the conflict of interest regulations. But instead of keeping
quiet, Neil Bush showed that the family tradition of self-righteous posturing even when
caught with both hands in the cookie jar was well represented by him: he launched an
aggressive campaign of proclaiming his own innoncence; it was all political, thought
Neil, and all because people wanted to get at his august father through him.
Sleazy Neil Bush's pontificating did not play well; Neil sounded "arrogant and flip" and
the result, as People magazine commented at the end of the year, was "a public relations
fiasco." Posters went up in Washington emblazoned with the call to "Jail Neil Bush,"
while out in Denver, the Colorado Taxpayers for Justice marched outside Neil's
downtown office (where Neil had answered questions about his ties to the Hinckley