THE EUROPEAN IDEA OF MARRIAGE

I've been told that Europeans quite often stay in marriages of convenience while both partners keep affairs on the side. George Bush Sr. also did that European thing. Of course, he didn't divorce because he had designs on the presidency. Perhaps his father's infidelity, George Jr. being a momma's boy, was a source of the anger he felt toward George Sr. which caused him to want to fight his dad "mano a mano". Following from THE FAMILY, pp. 330-331:

[Open quote.]
In his mind George had slotted his wife into the mother-of-my-children category, a ranking of respect that was bracketed in steel. Like a Mafia don, he kept the wife category separate from the category of other women. While his attentions strayed over the years, his family commitment remained solid. That was Barbara’s insurance policy—knowing she would never be divorced—but in 1974 that was not enough.

“I don’t think there was much going on in that marriage by then,” recalled Nadine Eckhardt, who was married to Democratic Representative Bob Eckhardt of Texas. “We saw a lot of them in the days when George and Bob served in Congress together.

“I have given lots of thought to the duality of people like the Bushes. All of us have male and female in us; some more, some less. George and Barbara married young and had those kids when the hormones were working well. By the time I met them George was very ‘femme.’ Slim and silly and a hopeless flirt. In my book I say he was cute and we were attracted to each other. It was sort of like when you’re attracted to a gay guy and you know nothing’s going to happen so you just forget about it and be friends.”

Another congressional wife who observed the Bush marriage was Marian Javits, the widow of the late senator from New York Jacob Javits. “George needed more hugging and touching,” she said. “Passion was a need for him that was probably part of his great ambition . . . We visited them in China and while I do not understand Barbara, I do know she adored George. Pure love . . . I think she saw that her biggest strength was to imitate his mother, almost become his mother. . . Barbara let herself look the way she did on purpose. If George had wanted her to look any other way, she would have. Believe me . . . I know this as a wife . . . I think with Barbara her kids made up for everything.”

In later years other women would comment on the way Barbara “mothered” her husband. “I was working at CBS-TV when I first met the Bushes,” recalled Carol Ross Joynt. “He came into the Green Room with a gray-haired woman who I thought was his mother. Someone told me she was his wife, and I became fascinated by their dynamic because they were not a matched pair. . . He engaged women immediately. He’s not a lecher, but he makes eye contact with sexual energy. He’s polite and does not behave improperly—he’s no Bill Clinton—but the sexual message is there. She [Barbara] is oblivious to it all. She’s supremely confident and in charge of him like a mother overseeing her child. It’s clear that she’s the one in the relationship who totally wears the pants.. . and it’s also clear that he relies on her.”
[Close quote.]


THE CHILLY CHILE THING

I've always been infuriated with the Republican Party for encouraging and supporting the overthrow of democratically elected governments in Chile and Nicaragua. The ease with which their consciences support the overturning of elected governments shows me a party which contains people who are unable to accept ideas different than their own and a willingness to go to any length to destroy those they differ with. I think the ferocity with which they attack even fellow Americans shows that they have little control of their anger. As a Democrat who disagrees with them, you can understand my fear. Anyhow, the following from THE FAMILY sheds some additional light on Bush Senior's willingness to bend the rules to advance his own presidential standing. It's why I used to talk about the blood dripping from Senior's hands when he was president. Following from THE FAMILY, p.348:

[Open quote.]
He [Bush Sr. while head of CIA] refused to cooperate with the investigation into the Washington, D.C., bombing of the car of the former Chilean Ambassador to the United States, Orlando Letelier, that killed Letelier and Ronni Moffitt, a colleague from the Institute of Policy Studies. The murder was directed by Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s secret service, and the CIA knew that two of the assassins were in the United States at the time of the bombing. Needing to cover up the CIA’s involvement with the Chilean secret service, George directed the agency to leak the story that the bombing was the work not of the obvious suspects but of leftists looking to create a martyr for their cause.

“Look, I’m appalled by that bombing,” George told Justice Department lawyers. “Obviously we can’t allow people to come right here into the capital and kill foreign diplomats and American citizens like this. It would be a hideous precedent. So as director, I want to help you. As an American citizen I want to help. But as director I also know that the Agency can’t help in a lot of situations like this. We’ve got some problems.” George then turned to the CIA’s general counsel. “Tell them what our problems are.”

When George took his oath of office, he swore to uphold the laws of the country, which as of February 1976 included Executive Order 11905, known as the assassination ban: “No employee of the U.S. Government shall engage in or conspire to engage in political assassination.”
[Close quote.]
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"Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution yet." —Mae West