George H. W. Bush, the 41st President of the United States, died November 30, at the age of 94.
I don’t remember Bush I particularly well. I was pretty young when he was president, so I wasn’t paying a lot of attention. He got us into the Gulf War, though, and a lot of kids I knew at the time had their dads sent off to war for that.
The thing I remember most was that at the time, if you had satellite TV, you could find raw feeds from various news agencies on different channels, showing footage from the Gulf. It was basically b-roll that news agencies were streaming back to their stations to be chopped up, edited, and played later on in the background while anchors did their thing.
A friend of mine had those stations playing pretty much 24-7 in her house. She was watching it in case her dad popped up on screen.
Bush I lied about Iraqis killing babies in hospitals to keep America ginned up and in favor of his war effort.
Bush I also arranged for a black high school kid to be lead into selling crack in front of the White House, so that kid could be arrested and Bush could go on TV to tell the nation that the drug epidemic was so bad, people were selling crack in front of the White House. He used this propaganda to kick off his War on Drugs, which has gone on to destroy the lives of, fuck, I don’t even know how many people.
He also helped shepherd the ADA into law, which I mention because this is the real world and almost no one is entirely bad.
He also insisted he wouldn’t raise taxes, and when he realized his tax policy was ballooning the deficit, went ahead and raised taxes anyway. This arguably lost him re-election because Clinton took him to school over it in the elections, but hey, it was fiscally responsible. It might have been the last time you’ll see a fiscally responsible Republican.
5 Things to Read Today
- The Atlantic: How YouTube’s Algorithm Really Works
- ProPublica: “I Don’t Want to Shoot You, Brother”
- CNN: How Trump Tower Moscow fits into Russian interference
- AV Club: Netflix is dropping a massive stand-up series to ease your New Year’s Day hangover
- Engadget: Tumblr will start blocking adult content on December 17th
Photo: President George Bush on the Texans sideline. Houston Texans Vs. New York Giants Reliant Stadium. Houston, Tx. Oct. 10, 2010, by AJ Guel. (Source and licensing.)
Notes & Thoughts 