President of the U.S., 1989-1993; Former Republican Rep. (TX)
Pardoned 6 officials in Iran-Contra scandal
In the waning days of the Bush presidency he pardoned former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger for lying to Congress and five other officials implicated in the Iran-contra scandal. For more than a year,
Bush and his lawyers had resisted demands of a special prosecutor to hand over the outgoing president’s notes about Iran-contra. His pardon of the scandal’s accused felons mooted the matter, rendering
Bush’s notes legally irrelevant and historically inaccessible, because there were no defendants left in the case to put on trial. Many Democrats and some Republicans believed it a case of the president, in effect, pardoning himself from possible
prosecution, because Weinberger’s indictment charged, in part, that he’d lied about the knowledge and active role of then Vice President Bush in Iran-contra.
It’s an emotional roller-coaster; Gore’s a sore loser
George Bush says his family has been on an “emotional rollercoaster” since the election but he believes his son will prevail over Gore’s challenges. “I don’t like sore losers,” he said, but quickly added, “I don’t want to be out there criticizing.”
“We
heard our son on national television declared the winner. We heard his opponent concede - I was in the house when it happened [when Gore telephoned to concede] - and it was a moment of euphoria. There has not been a euphoric moment since,” Bush said.
Source: Election Notebook, Boston Globe, p. A30
Nov 30, 2000
Memoir intended to show his heartbeat, via personal letters
When I left office in January 1993, several friends suggested I write a memoir. I was unpersuaded. I felt [Barbara Bush’s and Brent Scowcroft’s] books “got it right” both on perceptions of the Bushes as a family and on how my administration tried to
handle the foreign-policy problems we faced. But then along comes my friend and editor, who suggested that what was missing is a personal book, a book giving a deeper insight into what my own heartbeat is, what my values are, what has motivated me in
life. And then she said something that got me interested: “You already have done such a book. I am talking about a book of letters already written.”
This book is not meant to be an autobiography. It is not a historical documentation of my life.
But hopefully it will let you, the reader, have a look at what’s on the mind of an eighteen-year-old kid who goes into the Navy, and what a President is thinking when he has to send someone else’s son or daughter into combat. It’s all about heartbeat.
We meet on democracy’s front porch, a good place to talk as neighbors and as friends. For this is a day when our nation is made whole, when our differences, for a moment, are suspended. And my first act as President is a prayer. I ask you to bow your
heads:
Heavenly Father, we bow our heads and thank You for Your love. Accept our thanks for the peace that yields this day and the shared faith that makes its continuance likely. Make us strong to do Your work, willing to heed and hear Your will, and
write on our hearts these words: “Use power to help people.” For we are given power not to advance our own purposes, nor to make a great show in the world, nor a name. There is but one just use of power, and it is to serve people. Help us to remember it,
Lord. Amen.
I come before you and assume the Presidency at a moment rich with promise. We live in a peaceful, prosperous time, but we can make it better. For in man’s heart, if not in fact, the day of the dictator is over.
Source: Inaugural Address
Jan 20, 1989
Free markets, free speech, free elections
The totalitarian era is passing. This is a time when the future seems a door you can walk right through into a room called tomorrow. Great nations of the world are moving toward democracy through the door to freedom. Men and women of the world move
toward free markets through the door to prosperity. The people of the world agitate for free expression and free thought through the door to the moral and intellectual satisfactions that only liberty allows.
We know what works: Freedom works. We know
what’s right: Freedom is right. We know how to secure a more just and prosperous life for man on Earth: through free markets, free speech, free elections, and the exercise of free will unhampered by the state.
For the first time in this century,
for the first time in perhaps all history, man does not have to invent a system by which to live. We don’t have to wrest justice from the kings. We only have to summon it from within ourselves. We must act on what we know.
Source: Inaugural Address
Jan 20, 1989
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