Time: (Poppy) Savoring Victory, Family Style

[kskiska]

(subscription only)

(snip)

Former President George H.W. Bush was in the White House when the tally of his son's victory came through, and while he could feel the pride, his public demeanor was as controlled as it had been throughout the knife-edge campaign. "Our lives have never ended in the White House," he explained during the heat of the campaign's final days. "We don't live and die for the limelight or the head table or the plaque. George didn't think about losing, never discussed what it would be like to lose."

(snip)

The deluge of unproven scandal, rumors and ridicule thrown at the Bush family was unprecedented by almost any count. George H.W. had a copy of Kitty Kelley's dubious family chronicle in his desk, and he did not read it as a book but lifted it out when he got an outraged missive from somebody mentioned in the book and consulted the index to read the offending item, most times agreeing with the person who exploded. Then he put the hefty volume away and was more than a little gratified when it began to fade with the reading public. Michael Moore was another source of pique. Bush wondered why former President Jimmy Carter would sit in the box with "that slimeball" filmmaker during the Democratic Convention. Then he forgot about it as new attacks rolled in.

This political season, the media were the ogres in his view, piling on, distorting his son's character and record. And sometimes he would write a letter in his mind to the offender ("You threw everything at him, but it did not work"), and then when he was about to sit down at his PC and fire it off, a la Harry Truman, he thought better of it and swallowed the idea. Maybe that sort of thing will show up in any new memoirs he may write, but not now. Family first.

"The older Barbara and I get, the more we value our private time in Maine or Houston, and we love our little apartment at the (Bush) Library in College Station and being around the Texas A&M campus with the kids," he says. "I went up to Yale, and I was walking through the campus, and not once did anyone say, 'How are you?' or 'What can I do for you?' or 'Are you enjoying it?' They all looked the other way. Down at College Station they all say, 'Howdy.' I love going there." Even while racing across the country to help raise funds for George W., the father kept his BlackBerry handy and touched hundreds of bases.

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http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/election2004/article/0,18471,750688,00.html

[Ganja Ninja]

1. Poppy is probably sitting around lighting his cigars ...

with thousand dollar bills. That's what he was referring to when he talked about a thousand points of light.

[whistle]

2. Does that mean that Poppy Bush was given a young male virgin....

...to fondle? One who has an external heart valve installed for blood showers at the moment of orgasmic ecstasy (see the movie Dune).