George Bush Senior speaking in an interview with
Sarah McClendon in December 1992
Sarah McClendon in December 1992
The above quotation has suddenly come to festoon quite a few crankish sites on the internet (such as this one). But I can't find any published source.
I was quite the political animal in 1992. If GHWB had said such a thing to McClendon at that time, I believe I would have heard about it. A quote of this sort surely would have seen a great deal of circulation during the elections of 2000 and 2004. Did you see it at that time?
Well, maybe I missed something. Can any of my readers find the original context or the earliest source for these words?
If the quote is concocted -- as I suspect it is -- then the progressive left really has reached a disturbing state. In previous times, manufactured quotation was a right-wing specialty. (See Morris Kaminsky's classic study, The Hoaxers.) Are modern progs really so naive as to believe that political villains announce their villainy, in the manner of a Marvel Comics heavy?
Of course, the quote also sees heavy circulation among the Ron Paul rightists. But one expects those loons to display a lack of critical thinking. The hell of it is, they actually think they're hip...!
20 comments:
What I have read is that Sarah McClendon overheard Bush say that at a party and she subsequently published the quote in her newsletter. I cannot verify that and doubt any version is true. And I usually see a June 1992 date, not December. So forget 2000 and 2004, this quote should have been huge news in the 92 election!
The quote seems dubious at best. I have trouble believing any oppo researcher playing with even half-a-deck wouldn't have found a way to inject it into the newstream.
Joe, the example you cite, from Norman D Livergood's page no less (!) has some cool graphics (I love images of hydras and monsters in general) but after reading a few lines and scrolling down I left the building, as they say, after the phrase "the elite is a demonic cabal" starting burning my eyes! :)
Eric, where did you read this alleged quote from Sarah McClendon? I think that's Joe's point: dodgy info hits the flashmob and away we go...
That quote is very old, and I know I have seen it before, but I do not know if it is real. It should be easy to find out for anyone willing to trapse to the library, though (assuming they have Sara's Newsletter isssues.)
THere is an archived 1995 post here
http://www.marijuanalibrary.org/MCCLENDN
that says this:
[The following interview with Lt. Commander Alexander Martin (retired) took place on Tom Valentine's Radio Free America program on July 10, 1995. Valentine's comments follow "Q" while Martin's follow "A".]
....
Q: Only 3 percent? That means 97 percent went somewhere else.
A: It went into people's pockets. General Secord certainly profited handsomely. General John Singlaub and a host of others did likewise. However, would it have been possible for these men to carry out such an enormous conspiracy, to traffic in such enormous quantities of illegal items, without the duplicity and complicity of the United States government?
Q: I don't see how it would have been possible.
A: It would not have been possible, and it was not possible at the time to do so. I think George Bush said it very well in an interview with Sarah McClendon, the grand dame of the Washington press corps. When Bush consented to an interview with Mrs. McClendon in June of 1992, he said on record, which she printed in her newsletter that month, when she asked him about Iran-contra and he said, (and I'm quoting from her newsletter): "If the people were to ever find out what we have done, we would be chased down the streets and lynched." This was a public comment by George Bush.
Q: George Bush actually admitted that?
A: He said it and it was printed in Mrs. McClendon's newsletter in June of 1992.
This was the oldest reference to the alleged quote I could find. While I would hardly call it "proof" and "credible" would be a stretch, at least it is "checkable".
Thanks, David.
I trust Tom Valentine about as much as I trust...well...George Bush. But we already can see the migration of the quote. Originally, it was about the Reagan administration's actions in the Iran-contra affair. Only recently were the words "what we Bushes have done to this nation" added.
When a quote mutates, you know that a myth is in the making.
Also note that in the Valentine account, Poppy says it on the record for McClendon, as opposed to McClendon "overhearing" the words. The idea of GHWB choosing Sarah McClendon -- of all people! -- for this revelation is absurd on its face.
I have never known Al Martin to be accurate about anything. There are some writers, like Wayne Madsen, who are too hit and miss to be reliable -- but Martin is the only one I suspect of actually making up stories out of whole cloth.
Martin seems to have been the person who fabricated the story about Karl Rove's grandfather being a Nazi gauleiter named Roverer. He also had some sort of fairy tale going about the whole Memogate fiasco being concocted to gain access to CBS files for certain GOP operatives. And there were others of his stories that I tried to check out and found neither confirmation nor any earlier source.
I don't know anything about Tom Valentine, but if Al Martin is the earliest source for the supposed quote, that in itself makes it almost certainly false.
There is really no further need to speculate abut the truth or falsity, or context, of the quote if anyone can simply access the June 1992 newsletter(s) published by McClendon (apparently published bi-weekly according to my internet search). Maybe the newsltters are accessible through Nexus, but I don't have such access privileges. Anybody reading this who does, or was a subscriber and has the collection going back to that date?
I don't know anyone who has McClendon's stuff from that period.
At the time, she was considered sympathetic to the UFO buffs, and there was a large degree of overlap between that crowd and the anti-Bush conspiracists. So that may be why Al Martin glommed onto her.
Martin himself seems to be one of those shady characters who combine deep-dish conspiracy theory with alleged "insider" stock tips.
My research turns up something close to what Dr. Stern found. The quote isn't fully accurate and from the start was second-hand, not a direct quote and not on-the-spot reporting.
Third-hand reports say McClendon casually said or wrote that Poppy said something like this about Iran Contra (not his family): In 1992, George H.W. Bush told White House reporter Sarah "If
the people were to ever find out the whole story about Iran Contra, we would be chased down streets and lynched."
I doubt anyone would quibble over the essential truth of that statement, do you? Remember the congressional hearings? The GOP and CIA were proud of what they did. I remember the smirks on Colson's and that other famed-but-unmemorable coward's faces.
Oh, and I took that to mean the streets of Nicaragua, not America. These cowards consider South Americans inferior human beings and no doubt chuckled at our "victory" in their secret war.
"He'd kill us if he got the chance." - Mark
"I doubt anyone would quibble over the essential truth..."
I knew that if these comments went on long enough, we'd get something like that.
The point is not whether the Bush family is a bunch of good guys. They're not. The point is that Bush would never say a thing like this to someone like McClendon -- just as Blofeld would never really say: "Let me explain my evil scheme before I kill you, Mr. Bond." In real life, bad guys simply don't say things like that.
And we have established that the "quote" has changed over the years. fifteen years from now, it will be change again.
Does anyone recall when Reagan used in a speech the notorious fake Lincoln quote that begins with the words "You cannot establish prosperity by discouraging thrift"? As I recall, the words were actually penned by an American fascist in the pre-WWII period. But Reagan's apologists justified his usage by muttering some nonsense about "essential truth."
Those of us who have made a small study of the political usage of false quotations understand the dangers. Reality gets beaten into new shapes by the kind of people who use the "essential truth" dodge to justify their actions.
I have heard of that quote, from as long ago as approximately the time frame suggested in which it was made (although I cannot be certain).
Another quote, with better provenance, to the same effect (from the NY Times coverage of Ms. Jeanne Kirkpatrick's death):
"Ms. Kirkpatrick was at the June 1984 National Security Planning Group meeting that began the secret initiative called the Iran-contra affair. Congress had cut off funds for the contras. The C.I.A.'s Mr. Casey wanted to obtain money from foreign countries in defiance of the ban.
Ms. Kirkpatrick was in favor: "We should make the maximum effort to find the money," she said. Mr. Shultz was opposed: "It is an impeachable offense," he said. President Reagan warned that if the story leaked, "we'll all be hanging by our thumbs in front of the White House."
--------------------
If Reagan himself said this, as his judgment of the effect of this story's leaking, directly to his senior national security staff, as it appears certain he did, then Bush's statement to roughly the same effect is relatively unexceptional.
Except for the public nature of it, of course. Is that enough to create doubt that Bush would have said such a thing to a reporter?
Well, the best proof (or DISPROOF) would be the published newsletter(s) of Ms. McClendon.
Especially if this was something she overheard, or if Bush thought the interview was 'off the record,' then he may very well have blurted out this apparently incriminating admission.
After all, Bush tried to deny his characterization of Reaganomics as 'voodoo economics,' despite how famously he had said so in public remarks when he was campaigning against Reagan for the nomination in '80, evidently thinking that no recording had been made of his public remarks. If he though his famous PUBLIC remarks could be credibly denied, how much more would he have presumed his private conversation with a fringe reporter could also be denied?
...sofla
Great article Joseph....
Briefly going through it reminded me of the past as when the family commented on those who are steering our direction really want to do with us. I just couldn't believe it! It sounded so hard hearted and cruel. As I quickly learned later, the really sad part is that what they said was totally true.
Another part to this is what appears to be a strong denial that exists within the family and others involved. Currently the family sits in the sites of more investigations than I can count. They see them yet don’t seem to be completely interested in getting out of their mess. My dad would ask me while I was a child if I had the common sense to get out of my house when it’s on fire? Looks as though they are all going to perish!
Marty Didier
Northbrook, IL
First, I can't imagine Poppy saying ANYTHING to McClendon unless he absolutely had to.
Second, the behind-the-scenes Reagan paraphrase or semi-quote to which you make reference seems rue, or truish. And I am guessing that this is the origin of the whole fake Bush quote.
Step 1: Reagan is alleged by the NYT to have said "we'll all be hanging by our thumbs in front of the White House," vis a vis Iran/contra.
Step 2: Years later, the egregious Al Martin "recalls" a similar quote -- also vis-a-vis Iran/contra -- only he attributes it to Bush.
Step 3: The quote transmogrifies into an admission by Poppy that everyone in his family is eeeeeevil incarnate.
Remember playing "Telephone" as a kid? That's how "False quotation syndrome" works.
The byline on the NY Times article on Kirkpatrick's death was Tim Weiner, a well regarded national security matters reporter, who put those Reagan remarks in direct quotation marks as an exact quote.
Of course, we should remember that prior to the young W's troubles with the English language, his father was famous for mangling the language as well as blurting out things he later regretted.
It is relatively shocking that in this day and age, there is no easy way to access old McClendon News Service copy and search for this or other remarks.
No substitute for the hard copy on the web in this case.
...sofla
Wow, I was initially impressed with your logical approach, in responding to the question. Unfortunately I am one of those Ron Paul "rightests" you chose to single out as the "only" source for such nonsense. I (like every Ron Paul supporter I know) was diligently researching the "facts" myself because I don't like to be mislead.
Those Ron Paul Rightests(as you so eloquently labled us) have the best interests of the likes of you, and everyone else at heart in their efforts to wake you up to the corruption of our American dream. The day is coming when we will no longer be able to, thanks to you and your kind.
Here might be a place for anyone persistent enough to try to isolate/verify/document that alleged g.h.w. bush quote: Sarah McClendon's papers are archived at the University of Texas at Tyler University Archives and Special Collections Department, under the title "Sarah McClendon Papers, 1910-2003".
Here's the web link:
https://archon.uttyler.edu/?p=collections/findingaid&id=8&q=&rootcontentid=1518
A review of the contents list provided on the linked page suggests the most relevant documents might be in Box 16, Folder 1 ("Letters about bush" a suggestive description); Box 16, Folders 6-8 (newsletters?) and Box 17, Folder 1. Good hunting.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/251765311/Sarah-McClendons-Washington-Report-1991-12-24
https://www.scribd.com/doc/251765311/Sarah-McClendons-Washington-Report-1991-12-24
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