President George H.W. Bush (41) appeared on Imus in the Morning on Wednesday morning. I didn’t hear the interview, but here’s a couple interesting clips from the transcript:
Imus: “We are talking with the 41st President of the United States George Bush… you also dispel the notion that the President went to war in Iraq to finish the Gulf War and you said essentially that it was nonsense. You told Paula Zahn that the President feels the Gulf War was finished and yet the President told the Washington Times that he did not intend on sending mixed signals to the Iraqi people and cut and run like they did in 1991.”�
Bush: “Yea, I didn’t like that much.”�
Imus: “It doesn’t sound to me like he thought that it was finished, does he?”
Bush: “Well he hasn’t said it again, has he?”
(laughter)
Imus: “No sir, he has not.”
(laughter)
Bush: “No I’m sure there was some background around that statement because I saw that and frankly it hurt a little bit but that’s you know. . .”
Imus: “You don’t need that do you?”
Bush: “I’m getting it from quite a few people. You’re asking about it but in a very gentlemanly way. I appreciate that and I understand the question. But I’m saying it’s a different time and different strokes and I’m sure that there are some people, in the current administration that think it could have been done differently. Well… I’m proud of what we did, proud of the way the war ended and very proud of the way this President is conducting this war which in my view is quite different.”
Bush continues to play the supportive father, but he was obviously bothered by some aspects of Gulf War II. I certainly had differences with Bush the elder when he was in office, but clearly he understands the world better than junior does. And we witnessed the difference once major combat ended.
On a less consequential note, here’s a weird exchange:
Imus: “It seems like the current President for whatever reason, has done, someone has said it�s like a reverse playbook of what you did. You were tough on Israel, he was not. You raised taxes unfortunate, he didn’t. He acts more like a Baptist then a Episcopalian…then this business of emulating Reagan.”
Bush: “He’s Methodist, I think, is what he is.”
Imus: “Is he?”
Bush: “I tell you one thing, you raise a point. I�ll tell you what annoys me. I just finished this book April 19 65 or whatever when Robert Lee surrendered and Lincoln was shot within oh what a few weeks. In that book they talk very convincingly about Lincoln�s faith and what it meant to him and how important faith was. He’d talk about it to the American people. Now in the liberal elite say the President shouldn�t be talking about faith. He shouldn’t have faith. He is not saying that other people ought to do it like he does, Methodist, Episcopalian, whatever the heck it is. He is just saying, this is what sustains me. Don, that is true. I know this guy. I can see it sustains him. Lincoln said you cannot be President without spending some item on your knees. I have repeated that and a bunch of Atheists got all over me. Wait a minute. Does that mean that you cannot be President if you are an Atheist? I say yea that does mean that.”
(laughter)
Bush: “One Nation Under God.”
Uh, 43’s faith is real important, and yet 41 isn’t sure what church he belongs to? That’s odd.