budget agreement, which by that time was producing a budget deficit officially admitted
to be over $1 billion per day. Later, as the existence of the depression began to penetrate
the public consciousness, Bush had to backtrack on this tirade. [fn 61]
October 24: Attempting to focus public anger on Congress in the wake of the Clarence
Thomas hearings, Bush attacked the lawmakers as "a privileged class of rulers." "When
Congress exempts itself from the very laws it writes for others, it strikes at its own
reputation and shatters public confidence in government," he said. This was a transparent
bid to increase police-state attacks on the Congress by subjecting the legislative branch to
the oversight of law enforcement agencies which are part of the executive, a favorite
Bush obsession. Bush demanded a special prosecutor to investigate the leaks of FBI
information during the Thomas hearings, and said that FBI reports would henceforth only
be shown, not given to the Hill. As Bush read through his tirade, his face twisted and
tightened into a mask of rage and hate. At one point, perhaps in response to signals from
his handlers, he paused and apologized to the audience for getting so worked up, but the
issue meant a lot to him. [fn 62]
October 30: Commenting on Bush's surprising acceptance of a compromise civil rights
bill, Evans and Novak report that "Bush's capitulation on racial quotas has again chilled
conservative Republicans still suffering from the year-old wound of his tax retreat." The
columnists quote Democratic Rep. Vin Weber saying that "It's a sign that their reactions
in times of crisis are not good." [fn 63] For months, Bush had sought to attack this
legislation as a quota bill, and it was clear that he was preparing to use this as a way to
inject racism into his 1992 campaign. Indeed, the racism/quota issue was widely seen as
one of the few domestic wedge issues Bush could use for his campaign: his plan was to
tell the white middle class that their economic decimation was the fault of blacks and
other minorities benefitting from affirmative action programs. Then, in the wake of the
Thomas hearings, he accepted a compromise and lost the issue. Was this an impulsive,
hyperthyroid decision?
October 31: Bush held the first official event of his re-election campaign on Halloween; it
was a $1000-a-plate fundraiser at the Sheraton Astrodome in Houston. Bush offered an
irate defense of his tenure in the presidency. But the audience of 800 GOP fat cats gave
Bush only a tepid response. In the words of Elizabeth Ray, a local Republican candidate
for district judge, "I thought the dinner was very subdued. Halfway into [Bush's] speech,
people were still not clapping at some of the traditional times, and I thought to myself,
'This is a very odd crowd.'" "It wasn't a pep rally," agreed her husband, a Houston
business consultant. The heart of Bush's highly piqued performance was in these lines:
Anyone who says we should retreat into an isolationistic cocoon is living in the last
century, when we should be focused on the next century and the lives our children will
lead. And they should know America's destiny has always been to lead. And if I have
anything to do with it, lead we will...I'm not going to let liberal Democratic carping keep
me from leading.