Who Let the Dogs In? (5 page)
Read Who Let the Dogs In? Online
Authors: Molly Ivins
The Washington Post
was driven to describe him as “the Cliff Barnes of American politics—blustering, opportunistic, craven and hopelessly ineffective all at once.” Which was as nothing, of course, compared to the fact that Bush voluntarily renounced his Texas citizenship in 1984, taking a $123,000 tax deduction by claiming his real residence is in Kennebunkport, Maine. It came as quite a relief for those of us who had been trying to explain how a Texan could behave so much like a Yankee.
THERE IS ALWAYS
a curious duality in reactions to George Bush. Some people listen to him and immediately say, “Preppy dweeb.” Others hear him on a good day and come away impressed, saying, “This guy has a lot of knowledge and a lot of experience. He is not a lightweight.” I have never forgotten his courageous defense of his vote in favor of the 1968 Civil Rights Act. There was hell to pay in his district back in Houston when he came home—screaming, abuse, threats—but he wouldn’t apologize, wouldn’t back down. He just said, “All in all, it’s a good law.”
As it happens, that’s the last time I can recall Bush doing anything that required courage. He is one of those people neither time nor circumstance has treated kindly. God knows, he started with enough gifts and talents and advantages, but somehow he seems to become less as he gets older.
Trouble with Bush is, he’s a lickspittle even when he has a choice. Go back to Watergate and look at his record.
Bush was named ambassador to the United Nations by Nixon and then Republican Party chairman in the midst of the Watergate scandal. The stink of corruption from that administration was the least of it—the arrogance, the contempt for the law, the killing, the despotism—Nixon was probably certifiable by the end. Through it all, George Bush burbled inanely, chirruped cheerfully, and ignored all sins large and small.
He was a toady, a bootlicker, and a sycophant. He didn’t have to do that. He didn’t need a job.
March 1988
T
OLD
YOU SO.
I
told
you George Bush was going to turn out to be more fun than a church-singin’-with-supper-on-the-ground. How can you not love his thing thing? They asked him why he thought he was trailing Michael Dukakis, and the veeper said it’s the problem he has with “the vision thing.”
He’s also having a little difficulty with the minority thing. A few weeks ago, Bush was commiserating with a black ghetto kid who said he hated homework. “Ah,” said Bush, “
comme ci, comme ça.
” Yo, mo’-fo’. Reporters traveling with Bush have taken to keeping track of his French. “He’s back on ‘
C’est la vie.
’ Three times today.”
Next, Bush was interviewed by Ted Koppel, whom he kept calling “Dan.” Koppel was finally reduced to pleading, “Please, Mr. Vice President, don’t call me Dan. It’s so Freudian. Call me Peter, call me Tom, anything but Dan.”
I think this is not a Dan thing but a word thing with Bush. While trying to express how close he is to President Reagan, Bush said, “For seven and a half years I’ve worked alongside him, and I’m proud to be his partner. We’ve had triumphs, we’ve made mistakes, we’ve had sex.” He didn’t mean that: “Setbacks, we’ve had setbacks,” he quickly amended. There’s just slippage from time to time in the links between his mouth and his mind.
The continuing debate over whether Bush is a Texan surfaced again during the state Democratic convention, when some fun-lovers rented Bush’s “home”—his address of convenience, a suite at the Houstonian Hotel—and held a Bologna Bash and Boogie here. The bookcases in Bush’s “house” feature
Reader’s Digest
Condensed Editions. Also, it should be noted for the record, real Texans do not use the word
summer
as a verb.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower, reflecting on Bush’s “stay-the-course” strategy, said, “If ignorance ever goes to $40 a barrel, I want the drillin’ rights on that man’s head.”
August 1988
I
HAVE JUST RETURNED
from a New Age spa. I am in harmony and in balance, I am integrated, in touch with Father Sky and Mother Earth, living in the now and open to the universe.
I went to get in touch with my body. High damn time, too. My body and I have not been on speaking terms for years. “Listen to your body,” they kept telling us, “listen to your body.” My body just rolled along like Old Man River, he don’t say nothin’.
Finally, on the fourth day, I said to it, “Body,” I said, “how’d you like to go to the Vigorous Toning with Resistance Class at 9
A.M.
?”
Clear as a bell, my body answered, “Listen, bitch, do it and you die.” Great, I’m finally in touch with my body and it turns out to have the personality of an unpleasant Mafioso.
I heard from it several more times that week. It stopped a mountain hike one morning by announcing, “You have a stone in your left shoe, stupid. Stop and take it out.” That kind of thing. Never got any friendlier.
I hardly ever get to be on the cutting edge of a trend, but here I am, fair chockablock with mind-body awareness. This is the latest development in the fitness craze. The people who brought you jogging are now out to aerobicize your spiritual life. Meditation has married the long-distance hike and the push-up can be improved by crystals.
The spa, Rancho La Puerta in Baja, California, is a lot like camp for grown-ups, just with different b.s. Instead of singing “Kumbaya,” we went to T’ai Chi and learned the Dance of the Five Elements. I tried meditation and seriously considered spending half an hour a day for the rest of my life concentrating on the sensation of air going in and out of my nostrils. I decided against it.
Spend a week eating nothing but baby vegetables in strange colors (the tomatoes are yellow, the lettuce is red, the bell peppers are purple) and it will make you feel better.
I just get tired of all the concentration on self. My body, my spirit, my right brain, my center, my chi, my chakras. Don’t any New Age people ever feed the hungry, clothe the naked, or shelter the homeless? They do spend a lot of time Visualizing Peace.
TWO YEARS AGO,
I went to an Old Age spa near Dallas, also known as a fat farm, where the ladies all wore their daytime diamonds to exercise class in the swimming pool. Even at Old Age spas, they try to improve your self-esteem. My friend Marlyn went to a walking clinic and the instructor told her she had perfect stride. I went to makeup class and the makeup lady assured me I have a
fabulous
space between my eyes. But Marlyn topped even that: Her masseuse told her she has
great
elasticity.
I knew we were in trouble one night at the Old Age spa when a lady proposed we go around the dinner table and each say who we were going to vote for in November. Instead of saying, “Bush,” as I had hoped, all the ladies in their daytime diamonds said, “George, of course.” Marlyn had to confess to being a Democrat. There was a horrified silence and the lady who had proposed the game asked, with perceptible disgust on her face, “Do you . . .
work
?”
I like the New Age much better, but I got in trouble there, too. I was stuck one afternoon when we were instructed, “Think of something about yourself you really like and then hold it close to your center: because before we can have peace in the world, all of us must each learn to love ourselves.” Oh hell, where’s my center? What do I like about myself? World peace depends on it. Then it came to me: I have a
fabulous
space between my eyes. I tucked that right into my center.
In keeping with the New Age spirit of detachment, I refused to become upset upon returning to Texas and finding that some tanker called the
Mega Borg
was leaking oil all over our beaches. (Sounds like something from a space-invaders movie, no? “We’re at Warp Six now, sir, and the
Mega Borg
is still gaining on us!”)
What is is meant to be, quoth I serenely. And you see how well it works? The
Mega Borg
stopped leaking, Congress refused to amend the Bill of Rights in order to deter flag burners, and George Bush came out for new taxes. Ommmmmmmmm.
August 1990
Y
OICKS
! THE PEROT-NISTAS
are upon us. Here in Texas, where the vertically impaired billionaire who sounds like a Chihuahua is running ahead of both President George Bush and Bill Clinton in the polls, the Perot-nistas are everywhere. It makes my populist heart beat faster, it does, it does, to watch all those ladies in polyester pantsuits and guys in lime-green leisure suits scouring the countryside for signatures on their petitions, not a natural-fiber snob in the whole herd.
They’re organizing themselves, you know. Choosing their own state chairs, setting up their own committees and work shifts. It’s almost like . . . well, it’s sort of . . . what I mean is, it looks a lot like democracy in action, friends. So naturally the entire Establishment is shitting bricks. Isn’t it lovely?
What a splendid year this has been: confusion, uproar, and upset. The three candidates who have enjoyed surges, much to the horror of the Insiders (I’m never exactly sure who I mean by that, but George Will looking as though his hemorrhoids were paining him always comes to mind), are Patrick Buchanan, Jerry Brown, and Ross Perot. What all three have done is crystallize and articulate our discontents and anger. Alas, none of them has put forth much of a program to fix things. Still, it’s been great fun to watch the Beltway Boys squirm.
Even My Man George is distressed. He sent for his son George the Younger, called Shrub, to fix his campaign. Shrub Bush told friends his daddy thinks “the speeches are not too good and no one is bringing him any initiatives.” One is left with an image of the president sitting in the Oval Office, pounding both fists on his desk like a hungry camper, crying, “Bring me initiatives, bring me initiatives.” Twenty-six years in government, and he hasn’t a single thought of his own about what might usefully be done to fix things.
