SEPTEMBER 2nd HAS BEEN A MEMORABLE DAY FOR GEORGE BUSH

SEVERAL SEPTEMBER 

SECONDS IN THE 

CALENDAR OF 

GEORGE BUSH'S LIFE 

Vice-President George Bush Photographed in 

His Old Executive Office Building Office 

Being Tough on Deregulation 

Published in the March 9, 1981, issue of BUSINESS WEEK (p. 64)   

"As one of his first official acts, President Reagan created a Presidential task force on regulatory relief and named Vice-President George Bush to head it." Key quote from the Vice-President: "We must get this country back to work." 

A few memorable September 2nd events in the life of George Bush, two from World War II, and one from the Cold War: 

September 2, 1944:  "Navy pilot George H.W. Bush was shot down by Japanese forces as he completed a bombing run over the Bonin Islands." (New York Times) 

September 2, 1945:  "On Sept. 2, 1945, Japan formally surrendered in ceremonies aboard the USS Missouri, ending World War II."  (New York Times) 

September 2, 1991: "The Bush administration officially recognized the three Baltic states [which had been part of the Soviet Union: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania] on September 2, 1991." (George Bush Library) [p.1] 

And then of course there is this September 2 in the life of the other George Bush: 

September 2, 2005: "President George W. Bush told Michael Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, 'Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" during a tour of Hurricane Katrina damage in Alabama.'" (New York Times) 

IT'S HIS HEART: GEORGE W. BUSH HAS SURGERY

BLOCKED ARTERY FOUND 

A STENT IS PLACED 

PRESIDENT 

GEORGE W. BUSH 

at the G-8 Summit 

St. Petersburg, Russia, July 2006 

Today in Dallas, Texas, at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, former president George W. Bush underwent a procedure to open a blockage in an artery discovered during his annual physical.  He is scheduled to go home tomorrow.  Details and explanations here and here and here. 

GEORGE W. BUSH COMING & GOING: A PHOTO-INTERPRETATION

REALITY CHECK

GEORGE W. BUSH

A real photograph doubled

PHOTO-INTERPRETATION

Here we go with the Bush Tax Cuts again (see here). When they were being negotiated, it was promised promised promised that they would expire in 2010, and they would not break the budget.

Someone apparently had his fingers crossed behind his back.

Already they have been extended for two years beyond 2010; and now-- ?

Anybody remember when we were looking at surpluses (as Clinton left, and handed off to Bush)? Anybody remember when the members of Bush's party -- say it, Republicans -- made no fuss about deficits?

ONE LEG AT A TIME: KOIZUMI II, NAZARBAYEV II, & PUTIN & BUSH TOO MANY TIMES TO COUNT

GET READY

SET

FIND YOUR MARK

JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER JUNICHIRO KOIZUMI

KAZAKHSTAN PRESIDENT NURSULTAN NAZARBAYEV

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN &

AMERICAN PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH (L-R)

find their marks for the Expanded Family Photograph

at the St. Petersburg, Russia, G-8 Summit (July 2006)

Only Nazarbayev is still in the same office, although Putin is running to reclaim his old post in fifty-five days' time (March 4, 2012). Another Koizumi is here (yesterday's post); another Nazarbayev here. For a sampling of the many Putin and Bush posts, see here and here (for more, please see the labels below). For one of the two of them, "Alone Together," see here.

U.S.-IRAQ, IRAQ-U.S.: December 12, 2000-December 12, 2011

U.S. SUPREME COURT

HANDS GEORGE W. BUSH

THE PRESIDENCY

December 12, 2000

GEORGE W. BUSH

TAKES THE U.S.

INTO WAR WITH IRAQ

George W. Bush makes his last trip to Iraq as President; holds a joint press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, December 14, 2008.

Al-Baghdadia TV Correspondent Muntadar al-Zeidi throws first one shoe, then the other, at the American president, shouting, "This is a gift from the Iraqis. This is a farewell kiss." The president ducks; both shoes miss him; the reporter is instantly apprehended.

IRAQI PRIME MINISTER NOURI AL-MALIKI MEETS WITH

U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA AT THE WHITE HOUSE

December 12, 2011

THE U.S. MILITARY IS OFFICIALLY ON ITS WAY OUT

DUELING TVs #6

ANN RICHARDS b. September 1, 1933

ANN RICHARDS 

September 1, 1933-September 13, 2006 

ANN RICHARDS, THEN STATE TREASURER, & 

LATER GOVERNOR OF, TEXAS (1991-1995), 

AS KEYNOTE SPEAKER AT THE 1988 

DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION, 

ATLANTA, GEORGIA 

It was one memorable speech.  Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen were the presidential and vice presidential nominees of the the Democratic party, running against Ronald Reagan's two-term vice-president, George Bush, and Senator Dan Quayle. 

The speech can be seen here. 

It is available to be read here. 

Two memorable points:  First, about what women can do: "if you give us a chance, we can perform.  After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels." 

I do not know how many times I have seen this quoted since then.  Richards did not claim to have invented this. It is credited to the Thaves's Frank and Ernest comic strip; the Astaire-Rogers one can be found here. Ann Richards is credited with popularizing the notion. 

A second vivid moment from the speech:  "Poor George, he can't help it -- he was born with a silver foot in his mouth." 

"Poor George" Bush and Dan Quayle went on to beat Dukakis and Bentsen. 

Ann Richards went on to become the first woman elected governor of Texas in her own right, serving from 1991-1995.  A nice summing-up can be found here. 

Then she "misunderestimated" poor George's son George W. Bush and lost her chance at a second term; W became governor of Texas, and used it as his launching pad to the presidency. 

BILL CLINTON HITS SIXTY-FIVE

BILL CLINTON

b. William Jefferson Blythe III

August 19, 1946

BILL CLINTON

AT THE 1988

DEMOCRATIC

NATIONAL CONVENTION

In four years he would win the nomination and then the presidency,

and keep it through eight years and one impeachment (and one acquittal).

So -- now we have the second of our older Baby Boom presidents turning Medicare age. George W. Bush is the elder by forty-four days; both he and Clinton are first year Boomers (the first year after World War II). Barack Obama, who just recently did fifty, was born near (1961) but not at the end (1964) of the Boomer years.

For both Bush and Clinton I have given you pre-presidential pictures to compare what the office and the years did.

I have a riff on the subject of age -- or youth ("Youthiness Can Be Overrated") -- of presidents American and Russian here (the March 5, 2009, entry).

More on Clinton as the "Russia Hand" here. More to come in RUSSIA REDUX.

The news of the day about Bill Clinton is that he has become a Vegan (see here).

For more on this Clinton, click the label "Bill Clinton," below.

*WHOSE* ENTITLEMENTS? THE BUSH TAX CUTS & THE DEBT CEILING DEAL

WHO IS 

FEELING 

ENTITLED? 

GEORGE W. BUSH 

ADDRESSES 

THE 2001 YALE COMMENCEMENT 

Ten years ago this past May, President George W. Bush wrangled himself an honorary degree from Yale, his grandfather's alma mater, his father's alma mater, his alma mater, and his daughter Barbara's alma mater-to-be. 

It was May 21, 2001.  George W. Bush was said to have been unhappy that Yale had waited more than a decade into his father's service first as vice-president and then president before bestowing on honorary degree on him. The son was not shy about making his displeasure known, and Yale got the hint (details here and here). 

So here was "Bush 43" getting his in his first year as president, only four months and a day after he had been inaugurated. 

Entitlement. 

He might have peppered his address with self-deprecating remarks (see photograph above) -- notably, about a C-student growing up to be president -- but there was definitely an assumption that he and his ilk were entitled. 

Five days later, May 26, this President Bush won the passage of the largest tax cuts "approved by Congress in more than two decades...."   Shoehorned into a $1.35 trillion cap, the cuts were programmed to expire at the end of 2010 -- that was the basis on which they were sold.  They would self-destruct rather than bust the budget. 

Once the cuts, tilted towards the wealthy, were in place, those who got them thought they were entitled. 

When the end of 2010 arrived, President Obama and the Congress extended them. 

With the August 2 debt ceiling deal we are reaping the whirlwind. 

GEORGE W. BUSH IS SIXTY-FIVE TODAY

GEORGE W. BUSH 

b. July 6, 1946 

GEORGE W. BUSH 

in the 

2000 New Hampshire Primary 

(He lost.) 

Here is the future president, sixty-five years old today, back then a mere fifty-three years old -- before Bush v. Gore, before Wars of Choice and Bush Tax Cuts, and before so many Americans came to fear for America's future. 

ALAN GREENSPAN & THE BUSH TAX CUTS: ON THE ONE HAND, ON THE OTHER HAND

THE BUSH 

TAX CUTS 

& 

ALAN GREENSPAN 

Back in the eighties 

Chair, Federal Reserve, 1987-2006 

Greenspan was for the Bush tax cuts before he was against them.  On the one hand, he was for them when George W. Bush proposed them, giving the president cover from his perch as Chair of the Federal Reserve Board.  On the other hand, he is against them now, out of office, because, he says, the deficit scares him. 

It is said that Harry Truman wished for a one-handed economist, so he could not be told, "On the one hand..., but on the other hand," when seeking economic advice.  Some sources credit this wish instead to Truman's eventual Democratic successor, Lyndon Johnson. 

More GREENSPAN here 

CONDOLEEZZA RICE b. November 14, 1954

CONDOLEEZZA RICE,

b. November 14, 1954,

HAS A BIRTHDAY AND A BOOK

CONDOLEEZZA RICE AT THE PUTIN-BUSH PRESS CONFERENCE OF THE 2006 G-8 SUMMIT, ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

Condoleezza Rice has written a personal memoir first, before tackling the hard issues of her time and performance as President George W. Bush's National Security Adviser and Secretary of State.

Rice, an erstwhile Soviet scholar, is shown above at the first, and so far only, G-8 summit to be held in Russia, talking to her counterpart, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. To her far right is Igor Ivanov, Secretary of the Russian Security Council (national security adviser); to her immediate right is Stephen Hadley, Rice's successor as U.S. National Security Adviser. Counselor to the President Dan Bartlett sits behind the Secretary of State.

MERKEL & MULTIKULTI

MULTICULTURALISM 

HAS 

"UTTERLY FAILED" 

-- THUS SPAKE THE OSSIE -- 

GERMAN CHANCELLOR 

ANGELA MERKEL 

HOLDS HANDS WITH 

GEORGE W. BUSH 

AT THE 2006 G-8 SUMMIT 

ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA 

A reporter for the Christian Science Monitor wrote of "multikulti" -- the German term for multiculturalism --as a concept in which "people of different backgrounds would live together happily." After more than two decades of German re-unification, is it a given that Wessies (West Germans) and Ossies (East Germans) "live together happily"? But this Ossie, this first Chancellor from East Germany, has something different in mind. 

RICHARD N. PERLE, b. September 16, 1941

RICHARD N. PERLE 

b. September 16, 1941 

RICHARD PERLE IN 

RONALD REAGAN'S PENTAGON 

The eminence grise of the neoconservatives.  Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute.  Chair of George W. Bush's Pentagon's Defense Policy Board.  Ronald Reagan's Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy.  Aide to Senator Henry ("Scoop") Jackson (D-WA) before that.  Author of HARD LINE, a novel.  A partisan of Ahmad Chalabi, and a vociferous advocate of war with Iraq.   Combative, and unapologetically so.