Slate has reduced Kitty Kelly's new Bush tome to its elemental core.
Page 271: Joke excised from Bush's 2001 Yale commencement speech: "It's great to return to New Haven. My car was followed all the way from the airport by a long line of police cars with slowly rotating lights. It was just like being an undergraduate again."
I know as a right-thinking sentient I'm supposed to hate the guy, but he keeps making jokes like this, and I just can't. If only he were Baseball Commissioner, he would be beloved.
The rest...
Academic Honors
Page 252: George H.W. Bush comes to the rescue when his sons run afoul of Andover honor codes. Jeb violates the school's alcohol ban, but he's allowed to finish his degree after his father intervenes. Years later, Kelley writes, school officials catch W.'s younger brother Marvin with drugs, but dad talks them out of expulsion and secures for his son an "honorary transfer" to another school.
Whatever. My parents talked a private school out of expelling me, but they were hardly throwing their political weight around.
Sex and Drugs
Page 49: Prescott Bush frequently shows up drunk at the lavish Hartford Club and never tips the bellboys. "Finally we figured out how to exact revenge," says one bellboy. "Whenever he came in drunk and wanted to go upstairs, we'd take him in the elevator and stop about three inches from his floor. He'd step out and fall flat on his face."
Page 79: In a letter to his mother during World War II, H.W. fulminates against the casual sex he sees at a Naval Air Station: "These girls are not prostitutes, but just girls without any morals at all."
If he wasn't being such a prissy nitwit, this would be a clever remark.
Page 266: George W. and cocaine. One anonymous Yalie claims he sold coke to Bush; another classmate says he and Bush snorted the drug together. Sharon Bush, W.'s ex-sister-in-law, tells Kelley that Bush has used cocaine at Camp David "not once, but many times." (Sharon has since denied telling Kelley this.)
This would be more interesting if the anonymous Yalie has purchased the cocaine from Bush.
Page 575: A friend says Laura Bush was the "go-to girl for dime bags" at Southern Methodist University.
I find this extremely hard to believe.
Ibid.: George and Laura visit Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax and his girlfriend Jane Clark in the Caribbean and attended pot parties.
This doesn't even make any sense.
Team Sports
Page 258-59: Under the moniker "Tweeds Bush," W. presides as unofficial chairman of Andover's stickball league. He manufactures a series of bogus membership cards that double as fake IDs in Boston bars.
God, this means my sister could be President someday.
Ibid.: W. introduces the school to the sport of pig ball, which involves throwing a football high in the air and then throttling a random player. As one ex-student puts it, "[T]o me he is the epitome of pig ball."
What the fuck?
Page 276: George H.W. challenges Yale chaplain William Sloane Coffin to a series of squash games. When Coffin takes four in a row, Bush refuses to quit until he wins. "That time I kicked a little ass and it felt good," Coffin gloats.
This is awesome. Again, what the fuck is up with that "pig ball" thing. Seriously. What the fuck? What kind of game involves throttling a random player? Is this on South Park?
Matriarchs
Page 191: At Yale, George H.W. asks Bar find a job to pay for her smoking habit.
I bet he also insisted she smoke the same brand all the time, so he'd know if she had any company over.
Page 467: An associate on Barbara: "She can make a clean kill from a thousand yards away. … [W]hen she delivers the life-taking blow, she does it with a thin-lipped smile."
I assume this is a metaphor. If not, then it's hardly crticism.
Page 534: After Bush loses the 1992 election, Barbara holds a White House rummage sale and hawks her lightly used ball gowns to staffers.
Again, unsettling image of one of my sisters living in the White House.
Black Sheep
Page 337-39: Prescott Bush III—"P3"—abandons his wife shortly after their wedding and, according to various accounts, is diagnosed with schizophrenia and moves in with members of the Weather Underground.
Huh? Awesome. I definitely want to know more about this story.
Compassionate Conservatism
Page 247: H.W. campaigns hard to be Nixon's running mate in 1968. Nixon goes with Spiro Agnew, a Greek-American, whom Bush derides as "Zorba, the Veep."
There's no way Bush is that clever. No fucking way.
Page 252: George W. hangs a Confederate flag in his dorm room at Andover.
I did that too. It gave me "personality."
Page 481: Miss USA visits the Oval Office in 1989 and affirms her commitment to world peace. After she leaves, H.W. tells reporters, "Did ya hear that, fellas? It's all about brains now. I liked it better when it was just bikinis."
Hardly an offensive sentiment. Only George H.W. Bush alone could sound like a twit saying that ( and how I hate typing his stupid fucking intials. Asshole.).
Power Plays
Page 454: After a testy interview with Dan Rather in 1988, H.W. remarks, "That guy makes Lesley Stahl look like a pussy."
Page 598: George W. to McCain during the nasty 2000 South Carolina primary: "John, we've got to start running a better campaign." McCain: "Don't give me that shit. And take your hands off me."
Oh, shit. That would have been an awesome fight.
Secrets of the Bushies
Page 95: George H.W. weeps during Skull and Bones initiation when describing his World War II heroics.
Page 213; 347: H.W. as Oliver Stone—hours after the Kennedy assassination, Bush phones the FBI and tells them about a 24-year-old Bircher who he says plotted to kill the president. The man is later cleared. As CIA director, for reasons no one quite understands, Bush demands to see many of the agency's assassination files.
Page 618: A friend says that during their famous Crawford summit, Bush treated Russia's Vladimir Putin as if he were an unreformed Communist apparatchik: "I told Putin that in this country we own our own homes and because we own them we take great pride in them. … I don't think the son of a bitch knew what the hell I was talking about."
To be fair, Bush told me the same thing when I knew him. Like I didn't what property ownership is. What a dipshit.
