PART TWENTY ONE: THE HONEYMOON IS OVER
PART TWENTY ONE: THE HONEYMOON IS OVER
Transcript from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, October 29, 2009
Guest: James Duncan
Stewart (to audience): I am here with James Duncan, author of “The Son Also Rises: The Rise and Fall of the Second Bush Presidency”-
(Turning to Mr. Duncan)
Stewart: And Mr. Duncan, I appreciate you coming on the show.
James Duncan: Thank you Jon.
Stewart: I have to say, fascinating book. What seems to be so interesting is that George W. Bush seemed almost obsessed with the mistakes made by his father in his presidency.
Duncan: Yes, it really was a driving force of his presidency; in fact I almost named the book “Mistakes of my Father.” But it is strange because there were really two major lessons to learn from the presidency of 41: the first lesson 43 understood very well, and the second one he completely miscalculated on.
Stewart: What was the first lesson?
Duncan: It was ‘do not, under any circumstances, raise taxes.’ Bush was determined not to make that mistake that his father made, and it served him well. But the second lesson he got wrong. He thought the lesson was ‘somehow get Russia under control, make them a deal that they can’t turn down and get them to stop creating havoc all over the world.’ But that really wasn’t the second lesson of the first Bush presidency at all, and the great tragedy is how wrong 43 got it.
Stewart: What was the second lesson then?
Duncan: Basically, it was ‘don’t let the Russians ass-rape you.’
(Audience laughter)
Transcript from CNN’s Crossfire, February 19, 1992
Courtesy of CNN
Michael Kinsley: Clearly we can see after last nights New Hampshire primary that President Bush is more vulnerable that we previously assumed.
John Sununu: I am amazed that Democrats can honestly take last nights results as a sign of weakness. He won nearly 70% of the Republican votes. If I were Paul Tsongas or Bob Kerrey I would be very, very worried right now. George Bush looked unbeatable. Our friend Pat Buchanan spent millions of dollars and focused his entire campaign in New Hampshire and won less than 10% of the vote.
Michael Kinsley: But before he received an endorsement from Russian President Vladimir Zhirinovsky two weeks ago, Buchanan was polling as high as 40%-
John Sununu: And the Republicans in New Hampshire still came out and supported the President. This is a strong showing that will cement President Bush’s position as he heads into Georgia.
Michael Kinsley: I hope the Republicans, and Bush, believe that! Because nearly a quarter of Republicans in New Hampshire voted for Harold Stassen, which tells me that they are not happy with Bush on his policies regarding the UIS. Harold Stassen went from being one of the biggest jokes in politics to a contender overnight. He is now the man who showed America that Bush has alienated his base. They are mad because he broke his pledge of no new taxes, and they are mad because he is letting Russia play us like a fool.
John Sununu: I resent that. Harold Stassen is not a joke. He was a proud American who served his country in World War II. And the voters of New Hampshire were voting for him out of appreciation for a lifetime of service. He was the man who put New Hampshire on the map, politically, back in 1948. His ‘48 campaign turned the New Hampshire presidential primary into what it is today, and many Republicans simply were voting for him out of appreciation. Sometimes the veteran actor wins the Oscar because voters appreciate all he has done over his career.
Michael Kinsley: So you don’t think that George Bush should take this as a sign that he needs to toughen up on Russia, or perhaps cancel his upcoming meeting with Russian President Vladimir Zhirinovsky at Camp David next month? As far as I can tell, Harold Stassen’s only platform is ‘don’t trust the Russians’.
John Sununu: Of course not. The voters appreciate that President Bush has ushered this country into a new era of cooperation with our former enemy. I don’t think Mr. Stassen’s scare tactics will change the fact that Americans are happier that we live in a world where Russia is our ally and not our enemy. Mark my word; we have heard the last of Harold Stassen in politics.
Finland closes embassy in Moscow after fighting breaks out in Estonia
BBC
By William Sawyer
April 4, 1992
HELSINKI -- Finland said Wednesday that it had closed its embassy in Moscow and was giving UIS diplomats 48-hours to leave Helsinki.
The announcement came the day after thousands of armed Russian protesters stormed the Estonian Parliament, or Riigikogu, and executed dozens of lawmakers before Estonian policemen and soldiers were able to recapture the building. The Finnish embassy, citing evidence of similar acts of violence from Russian militias across the country, called the storming of the Riigikogu an “act of war” perpetrated by the UIS against the Estonian government.
Other Scandinavian nations have joined Finland in cutting diplomatic ties to the UIS for its support of the anti-government militias emerging across Estonia and Latvia, and numerous European nations have condemned the UIS for the attack.
British Foreign Secretary Gerald Kaufman said the attack could not have taken place without "some degree of consent and support from the Russian and UIS government."
Fighting erupts across Latvia and Estonia as Red Cross declares conflict a ‘civil war’
Economist
April 5, 1992
(TALLINN, ESTONIA)- Riots and ethnic clashes between Russian and Estonian protesters across the country have quickly descended into a full fledged civil war, declared the Red Cross in a statement addressed to the United Nations. The Red Cross cited numerous instances of street to street fighting in Tallinn, with heavily armed Russian militias clashing with Estonian police and military units. Across the eastern portions of the country, where federal control by the Estonian government was tenuous even before the riots began, the Red Cross has declared that there is clear and convincing evidence that Russian fighters have already begun a policy of ethnic cleansing, targeting Estonian villages around the predominantly Russian city of Narva.
“It is clear that this militia is well funded, well armed, and extremely well organized,” the Red Cross said in its statement, “regardless of who is funding and supporting these fighters, we cannot deny that the tragic effect of this organized military operation is to have successfully dragged this country into a civil war that it can ill-afford to endure.”
Riots broke out only three days ago across Estonia and Latvia after the televised murder of a Russian shopkeeper in neighboring Lithuania. However, the Red Cross has cited the clear organized nature of the escalation in violence as proof that the conflict is not a spontaneous protest, but rather a systematic policy of “terror and intimidation.” The Red Cross cited evidence that the militias in Estonia also appear to have coincided their attacks with those Russian militias in the neighboring Republic of Latvia, where fighters have clashed with Latvian forces throughout the capital city of Riga.
However, the UIS government dismissed claims of civil war, claiming that the conflict reflected the legitimate protest of “a clearly persecuted Russian population that seeks only to demand their rights.”
However, UIS statements minimizing the conflict fell on deaf ears across the international community, as Russian President Vladimir Zhirinovsky was recorded as saying that the Estonian and Latvian people now faced “extermination” during an emergency session of the Russian Parliament. The statement caused an uproar not only in the international community, but in Russia itself. Zhirinovsky has been criticized for what is seen as strong armed tactics used by the Russian government in enforcing martial law declared by the federal government just three weeks ago. The Russians have rounded up over ten thousand people in Moscow alone in the past two weeks, citing violations of the newly enacted gun protection laws, in which Russians who indicate a desire to relocate to volatile regions inside the UIS are entitled to a government issued firearm. The law is widely seen as an insidious attempt to arm pro-Russian militias in Central Asia and the Baltics.
SHOCKER! STASSEN STUNS BUSH IN UPSET!
Former Governor scores primary victory as anger over economy and Russia intensifies
By Paul Thorpe
April 8, 1992
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Former Governor Stassen greets supporters in St. Paul this morning after scoring the stunning win over the President
(ST. PAUL)- In what has already been called the biggest political upset in the 20th century, perennial Presidential candidate and former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen scored a stunning upset over President George Bush yesterday in the Minnesota primary. With 99% of the precincts reporting, Stassen led with 45.3% of the vote over Bush’s 44.1%. Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan, who, like Bush, has seen his campaign tarnished due to what many Republicans saw as his pro-Russians leanings, finished a distant third with 5.9%, barely beating out write in candidate Ross Perot (whose write in campaign captured 3.6% of the total votes despite the fact that he has already declared his candidacy as an independent).
Representatives from President Bush’s election campaign downplayed the defeat, citing low voter turnout (the Minnesota Secretary of State indicated turnout was the lowest in State history, at just over 13%) and what they called “the swan song factor.” Ari Fleischer, the Bush campaign’s deputy communications director, dismissed the loss, pointing to the President’s insurmountable lead in the delegate count, rendering the Stassen win in Minnesota “insignificant.”
“Minnesotans already knew that Bush was their nominee,” Fleischer told reporters at a press conference, “but they came out and voted for Stassen to tell their former Governor thanks for all his service over the years. Clearly, with over twenty primary victories since New Hampshire, including wins in Texas and Florida, we are comfortable in knowing that President Bush will have a smooth path to the Republican convention.”
However, many Republicans have expressed concern over the sudden collapse of the Bush candidacy and see the mind-boggling emergence of Harold Stassen as a dangerous sign of impending doom. The 85-year old Stassen was widely seen as a novelty candidate, and due to his advanced age, did almost no campaigning outside of a small number of TV ads. Many independent political observers saw the Stassen surge as a serious sign that voters have become discontent with the President.
“President Bush is in very, very serious trouble,” commented University of Minnesota political science professor John Williams on the Today Show this morning, “Considering President Bush has already wrapped up the nomination the only reason people would vote for Harold Stassen in this election, is because they wanted to make a point to vote against the President. He spent less than $100,000 in Minnesota. He did almost no campaigning. This should have been a shellacking. What will happen when George Bush has to run against a viable candidate after the primary?”
Although President Bush has seen his support with Republicans erode over the last six months due to the poor state of the economy, the Stassen victory may reflect a growing frustration over President Bush’s foreign policy measures in regards to the former Soviet Union. Whereas Bush’s strongpoint had always been foreign policy, many Republicans have expressed deep anger over “The Baker Plan”, in which the President authorized billions of dollars in aid to the UIS. When fighting broke out in the former Soviet Republics of Latvia and Estonia last week, many Republicans expressed outrage over what they described as the President’s mismanagement of the fall of the Soviet Union.
“I probably would have stayed home and jut not voted,” commented Rob Kelper, a mechanic from St. Paul, “but when I saw the Soviets shooting those folks on the news, and that same Russian President who Bush was chumming up with three weeks ago telling people he was going to ‘exterminate’ those poor folks, well, I couldn’t stay home. I am a lifetime Republican, never considered voting Democrat. But let me tell you, Reagan sure as spit wouldn’t have stood for what is going on in Russia
President Bush responds to questions from the press a day after his stunning upset loss to former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen in the Minnesota primary (AP)
CNN interview with James Baker, former Secretary of State under President George H.W. Bush
July 13, 1997
CNN: When did President Bush realize that he needed a different approach to dealing with Zhirinovsky and the UIS?
Baker: Right after things started to spiral out of control in Estonia and Latvia. We gave him every chance, and each time he burned us. But when he called for the “extermination” of the Estonian and Latvian people just weeks after he was smiling and joking with us on CNN at Camp David, well, that was a devastating moment for the President, both politically and personally. After that he called me into the oval office and told me that the honeymoon was over, we needed to play hardball with the Russians.
CNN: In your opinion, is that what caused the upset in Minnesota?
Baker: Although we didn’t admit it at the time, we knew we had problems over the economy. Buchanan was poling pretty high in the New Hampshire primary. And when his numbers plummeted after he received President Zhirinovsky endorsement we also knew that the recent Camp David meeting was not going to play like we had hoped. But our strong point was always foreign policy, and we kept playing to our strengths. After Buchanan fizzled out we figured it was smooth sailing until the general election. We won every primary after that and the election seemed in the bag. By the time the general election rolled around we figured we would have repaired our mistakes in regards to dealing with Russia and we hoped the economy would have bounced back. But Estonia and Latvia exploded right before the Minnesota primary, and that changed everything. After that, everything we did in regards to Russia looked like a feeble response to a bad election. After Minnesota it became clear that we lost our ace in the hole: we lost foreign policy.
CNN: How surprised were you at the result?
Baker: As surprised as everyone else in the country. We already had the delegates we needed. But with Camp David fresh in every Minnesotans mind, well, Zhirinovsky ended up killing us. They were voting against Camp David, not George Bush. But the end result was that it turned George Bush into a very weak candidate overnight, and nothing we did after that could stop the hemorrhaging. We never lost another primary after that, but the damage was already done. There is no recovering from losing an election to Harold Stassen in 1992: nobody was going to take us seriously after that.
Transcript from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, October 29, 2009
Guest: James Duncan
Stewart (to audience): I am here with James Duncan, author of “The Son Also Rises: The Rise and Fall of the Second Bush Presidency”-
(Turning to Mr. Duncan)
Stewart: And Mr. Duncan, I appreciate you coming on the show.
James Duncan: Thank you Jon.
Stewart: I have to say, fascinating book. What seems to be so interesting is that George W. Bush seemed almost obsessed with the mistakes made by his father in his presidency.
Duncan: Yes, it really was a driving force of his presidency; in fact I almost named the book “Mistakes of my Father.” But it is strange because there were really two major lessons to learn from the presidency of 41: the first lesson 43 understood very well, and the second one he completely miscalculated on.
Stewart: What was the first lesson?
Duncan: It was ‘do not, under any circumstances, raise taxes.’ Bush was determined not to make that mistake that his father made, and it served him well. But the second lesson he got wrong. He thought the lesson was ‘somehow get Russia under control, make them a deal that they can’t turn down and get them to stop creating havoc all over the world.’ But that really wasn’t the second lesson of the first Bush presidency at all, and the great tragedy is how wrong 43 got it.
Stewart: What was the second lesson then?
Duncan: Basically, it was ‘don’t let the Russians ass-rape you.’
(Audience laughter)
Transcript from CNN’s Crossfire, February 19, 1992
Courtesy of CNN
Michael Kinsley: Clearly we can see after last nights New Hampshire primary that President Bush is more vulnerable that we previously assumed.
John Sununu: I am amazed that Democrats can honestly take last nights results as a sign of weakness. He won nearly 70% of the Republican votes. If I were Paul Tsongas or Bob Kerrey I would be very, very worried right now. George Bush looked unbeatable. Our friend Pat Buchanan spent millions of dollars and focused his entire campaign in New Hampshire and won less than 10% of the vote.
Michael Kinsley: But before he received an endorsement from Russian President Vladimir Zhirinovsky two weeks ago, Buchanan was polling as high as 40%-
John Sununu: And the Republicans in New Hampshire still came out and supported the President. This is a strong showing that will cement President Bush’s position as he heads into Georgia.
Michael Kinsley: I hope the Republicans, and Bush, believe that! Because nearly a quarter of Republicans in New Hampshire voted for Harold Stassen, which tells me that they are not happy with Bush on his policies regarding the UIS. Harold Stassen went from being one of the biggest jokes in politics to a contender overnight. He is now the man who showed America that Bush has alienated his base. They are mad because he broke his pledge of no new taxes, and they are mad because he is letting Russia play us like a fool.
John Sununu: I resent that. Harold Stassen is not a joke. He was a proud American who served his country in World War II. And the voters of New Hampshire were voting for him out of appreciation for a lifetime of service. He was the man who put New Hampshire on the map, politically, back in 1948. His ‘48 campaign turned the New Hampshire presidential primary into what it is today, and many Republicans simply were voting for him out of appreciation. Sometimes the veteran actor wins the Oscar because voters appreciate all he has done over his career.
Michael Kinsley: So you don’t think that George Bush should take this as a sign that he needs to toughen up on Russia, or perhaps cancel his upcoming meeting with Russian President Vladimir Zhirinovsky at Camp David next month? As far as I can tell, Harold Stassen’s only platform is ‘don’t trust the Russians’.
John Sununu: Of course not. The voters appreciate that President Bush has ushered this country into a new era of cooperation with our former enemy. I don’t think Mr. Stassen’s scare tactics will change the fact that Americans are happier that we live in a world where Russia is our ally and not our enemy. Mark my word; we have heard the last of Harold Stassen in politics.
Finland closes embassy in Moscow after fighting breaks out in Estonia
BBC
By William Sawyer
April 4, 1992
HELSINKI -- Finland said Wednesday that it had closed its embassy in Moscow and was giving UIS diplomats 48-hours to leave Helsinki.
The announcement came the day after thousands of armed Russian protesters stormed the Estonian Parliament, or Riigikogu, and executed dozens of lawmakers before Estonian policemen and soldiers were able to recapture the building. The Finnish embassy, citing evidence of similar acts of violence from Russian militias across the country, called the storming of the Riigikogu an “act of war” perpetrated by the UIS against the Estonian government.
Other Scandinavian nations have joined Finland in cutting diplomatic ties to the UIS for its support of the anti-government militias emerging across Estonia and Latvia, and numerous European nations have condemned the UIS for the attack.
British Foreign Secretary Gerald Kaufman said the attack could not have taken place without "some degree of consent and support from the Russian and UIS government."
Fighting erupts across Latvia and Estonia as Red Cross declares conflict a ‘civil war’
Economist
April 5, 1992
(TALLINN, ESTONIA)- Riots and ethnic clashes between Russian and Estonian protesters across the country have quickly descended into a full fledged civil war, declared the Red Cross in a statement addressed to the United Nations. The Red Cross cited numerous instances of street to street fighting in Tallinn, with heavily armed Russian militias clashing with Estonian police and military units. Across the eastern portions of the country, where federal control by the Estonian government was tenuous even before the riots began, the Red Cross has declared that there is clear and convincing evidence that Russian fighters have already begun a policy of ethnic cleansing, targeting Estonian villages around the predominantly Russian city of Narva.
“It is clear that this militia is well funded, well armed, and extremely well organized,” the Red Cross said in its statement, “regardless of who is funding and supporting these fighters, we cannot deny that the tragic effect of this organized military operation is to have successfully dragged this country into a civil war that it can ill-afford to endure.”
Riots broke out only three days ago across Estonia and Latvia after the televised murder of a Russian shopkeeper in neighboring Lithuania. However, the Red Cross has cited the clear organized nature of the escalation in violence as proof that the conflict is not a spontaneous protest, but rather a systematic policy of “terror and intimidation.” The Red Cross cited evidence that the militias in Estonia also appear to have coincided their attacks with those Russian militias in the neighboring Republic of Latvia, where fighters have clashed with Latvian forces throughout the capital city of Riga.
However, the UIS government dismissed claims of civil war, claiming that the conflict reflected the legitimate protest of “a clearly persecuted Russian population that seeks only to demand their rights.”
However, UIS statements minimizing the conflict fell on deaf ears across the international community, as Russian President Vladimir Zhirinovsky was recorded as saying that the Estonian and Latvian people now faced “extermination” during an emergency session of the Russian Parliament. The statement caused an uproar not only in the international community, but in Russia itself. Zhirinovsky has been criticized for what is seen as strong armed tactics used by the Russian government in enforcing martial law declared by the federal government just three weeks ago. The Russians have rounded up over ten thousand people in Moscow alone in the past two weeks, citing violations of the newly enacted gun protection laws, in which Russians who indicate a desire to relocate to volatile regions inside the UIS are entitled to a government issued firearm. The law is widely seen as an insidious attempt to arm pro-Russian militias in Central Asia and the Baltics.
SHOCKER! STASSEN STUNS BUSH IN UPSET!
Former Governor scores primary victory as anger over economy and Russia intensifies
By Paul Thorpe
April 8, 1992
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Former Governor Stassen greets supporters in St. Paul this morning after scoring the stunning win over the President
(ST. PAUL)- In what has already been called the biggest political upset in the 20th century, perennial Presidential candidate and former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen scored a stunning upset over President George Bush yesterday in the Minnesota primary. With 99% of the precincts reporting, Stassen led with 45.3% of the vote over Bush’s 44.1%. Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan, who, like Bush, has seen his campaign tarnished due to what many Republicans saw as his pro-Russians leanings, finished a distant third with 5.9%, barely beating out write in candidate Ross Perot (whose write in campaign captured 3.6% of the total votes despite the fact that he has already declared his candidacy as an independent).
Representatives from President Bush’s election campaign downplayed the defeat, citing low voter turnout (the Minnesota Secretary of State indicated turnout was the lowest in State history, at just over 13%) and what they called “the swan song factor.” Ari Fleischer, the Bush campaign’s deputy communications director, dismissed the loss, pointing to the President’s insurmountable lead in the delegate count, rendering the Stassen win in Minnesota “insignificant.”
“Minnesotans already knew that Bush was their nominee,” Fleischer told reporters at a press conference, “but they came out and voted for Stassen to tell their former Governor thanks for all his service over the years. Clearly, with over twenty primary victories since New Hampshire, including wins in Texas and Florida, we are comfortable in knowing that President Bush will have a smooth path to the Republican convention.”
However, many Republicans have expressed concern over the sudden collapse of the Bush candidacy and see the mind-boggling emergence of Harold Stassen as a dangerous sign of impending doom. The 85-year old Stassen was widely seen as a novelty candidate, and due to his advanced age, did almost no campaigning outside of a small number of TV ads. Many independent political observers saw the Stassen surge as a serious sign that voters have become discontent with the President.
“President Bush is in very, very serious trouble,” commented University of Minnesota political science professor John Williams on the Today Show this morning, “Considering President Bush has already wrapped up the nomination the only reason people would vote for Harold Stassen in this election, is because they wanted to make a point to vote against the President. He spent less than $100,000 in Minnesota. He did almost no campaigning. This should have been a shellacking. What will happen when George Bush has to run against a viable candidate after the primary?”
Although President Bush has seen his support with Republicans erode over the last six months due to the poor state of the economy, the Stassen victory may reflect a growing frustration over President Bush’s foreign policy measures in regards to the former Soviet Union. Whereas Bush’s strongpoint had always been foreign policy, many Republicans have expressed deep anger over “The Baker Plan”, in which the President authorized billions of dollars in aid to the UIS. When fighting broke out in the former Soviet Republics of Latvia and Estonia last week, many Republicans expressed outrage over what they described as the President’s mismanagement of the fall of the Soviet Union.
“I probably would have stayed home and jut not voted,” commented Rob Kelper, a mechanic from St. Paul, “but when I saw the Soviets shooting those folks on the news, and that same Russian President who Bush was chumming up with three weeks ago telling people he was going to ‘exterminate’ those poor folks, well, I couldn’t stay home. I am a lifetime Republican, never considered voting Democrat. But let me tell you, Reagan sure as spit wouldn’t have stood for what is going on in Russia
President Bush responds to questions from the press a day after his stunning upset loss to former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen in the Minnesota primary (AP)
CNN interview with James Baker, former Secretary of State under President George H.W. Bush
July 13, 1997
CNN: When did President Bush realize that he needed a different approach to dealing with Zhirinovsky and the UIS?
Baker: Right after things started to spiral out of control in Estonia and Latvia. We gave him every chance, and each time he burned us. But when he called for the “extermination” of the Estonian and Latvian people just weeks after he was smiling and joking with us on CNN at Camp David, well, that was a devastating moment for the President, both politically and personally. After that he called me into the oval office and told me that the honeymoon was over, we needed to play hardball with the Russians.
CNN: In your opinion, is that what caused the upset in Minnesota?
Baker: Although we didn’t admit it at the time, we knew we had problems over the economy. Buchanan was poling pretty high in the New Hampshire primary. And when his numbers plummeted after he received President Zhirinovsky endorsement we also knew that the recent Camp David meeting was not going to play like we had hoped. But our strong point was always foreign policy, and we kept playing to our strengths. After Buchanan fizzled out we figured it was smooth sailing until the general election. We won every primary after that and the election seemed in the bag. By the time the general election rolled around we figured we would have repaired our mistakes in regards to dealing with Russia and we hoped the economy would have bounced back. But Estonia and Latvia exploded right before the Minnesota primary, and that changed everything. After that, everything we did in regards to Russia looked like a feeble response to a bad election. After Minnesota it became clear that we lost our ace in the hole: we lost foreign policy.
CNN: How surprised were you at the result?
Baker: As surprised as everyone else in the country. We already had the delegates we needed. But with Camp David fresh in every Minnesotans mind, well, Zhirinovsky ended up killing us. They were voting against Camp David, not George Bush. But the end result was that it turned George Bush into a very weak candidate overnight, and nothing we did after that could stop the hemorrhaging. We never lost another primary after that, but the damage was already done. There is no recovering from losing an election to Harold Stassen in 1992: nobody was going to take us seriously after that.
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