begin to show signs of senility, she'll tell me. And she will." [fn 16] Yet, less than one year later,
Marshall announced his retirement from the bench, giving Bush the chance to split theorganizations of black America with the Clarence Thomas appointment. Those who saw Marshall's (^)
farewell press conference would have to agree that he still possessed one of the most lucid and
trenchant minds anywhere in the government. Had Bush's vindictiveness expressed itself once again
through its inevitable instruments of secret blackmail and threats?
During June and July, domestic economic issues edged their way back to center stage of US
politics. As always, that was bad news for Bush.
Bush's biggest problem during 1990 was the collision between his favorite bit of campaign
demagogy, hiof the United States. Bush had sent his budget to the Hill on January 29 where the Democrats,s "read my lips, no new taxes" mantra of 1990, and the looming national bankruptcy
despite the afterglow of Panama, had promptly pronounced it Dead on Arrival. During March and
April, there were rounds of haggling between the Congress and Bush's budget pointman, Richard
Darman of OMB. Then, on the sunny spring Sunday afternoon of May 6, Bush used the occasion of
a White House lecture on his ego ideal, Theodore Roosevelt, to hold a discreet meeting withDemocratric Congressional leaders for the purpose of quietly deep-sixing the no new taxes litany. (^)
Bush was extremely surreptitious in the jettisoning of his favorite throw-away line, but the word
leaked out in Monday's newspapers that the White House, in the person of hatchet-man Sununu,
was willing to go to a budget summit with "no preconditions." Responding to questions on Monday,
Bush's publicity man Fitzwater explained that Bush wanted budgeconclusions about positions taken in the past." That sounded like new taxes. t negotiations "unfettered with
Bush had been compelled to act by a rising chorus of panicked screaming from the City of London
and Wall Street, who had been demanding a serious austerity campaign ever since Bush had arrived
at the White House. After the failure of the $13 billion Bank of New England in January, WallStreet corporatist financier Felix Rohaytn had commented: "I have never been so uneasy about the (^)
outlook in 40 years. Everywhere you look, you see red lights blinking. I see something beyond
recession, but short of depression." [fn 17] At the point that Bush became a tax apostate, estimates
were that the budget defecit for fiscal 1990 would top $200 billion and after that disappear into the
wild blue yonder. The IMF-BIS bankers wanted Bush to extract more of that wealth from the bloodand bones of the American people, and George would now go through the motions of compliance.
The political blowback was severe. Ed Rollins, the co-chairman of the National Republican
Congressional Committee, was a Reagan Democrat who had decided to stick with the GOP, and he
had developed a plan, which turned out to be a chimera, about how the Republicans could gainsome ground in the Congress. As a professional political operative, Rollins was acutely sensitive to (^)
the fact that Bush's betrayal of his "no new taxes pledge" would remove the one thing that George
and his party supposedly stood for. "The biggest difference between Republicans and Democrats in
the public perception is that Republicans don't want to raise taxes," complained Rollins.
"Obviously, this makes that go right out the door. Pthat, Rollins was locked in a feud with Bush that would play out all the way to the end of the year. olitically, I think it's a disaster." [fn 18] With
But Democrats were also unhappy, since "no preconditions" was an evasive euphemism, and they
wanted Bush to take the full opprobrium of calling for "new taxes." The White House remained
duplicitious and evasive. In mid-May, pourpacomprehensive defecit-reduction agreement. The Democrats demanded that Bush go on narlers were held in the White House on a (^) tional
television to motivate drastic, merciless austerity all along the line, with tax increases to be
combined with the gouging of domestic and social programs. Bush demurred. All during June, the
haggling about who would take the public rap went forward. On June 26, during a White House
breakfast meeting with Bush, Sununu, Darman, and Congressional leaders, Congressman Foley