"This is crack cocaine," Bush solemnly announced, holding up a plastic bag filled with a white chunky substance in his Sept. 5 speech on drug policy. It was "seized a few days ago in a park across the street from the White House . . . . It could easily have been heroin or PCP."
In 1989 the White House came up with the idea of having George H.W. Bush hold up a bag of crack on national television in order to illustrate how bad the US drug problem had gotten. They decided to have a drug buy set up in Lafayette Park, directly across the street from the White House, to obtain the props for his speech. They contacted a DEA agent who set up a drug buy with a Spingarn High School senior with no prior arrest record, but things didn't go as planned:
[more inside]
posted by Challahtronix
on Aug 20, 2010 -
86 comments
1989: The Lost Year. "Twenty years after the Berlin Wall came down, the end of the Cold War still inspires euphoria and triumphalism in the West. But even as we lift toasts once again to the victory of 1989, we should re-examine that momentous year.
Documents,
memoirs, and other evidence that have come to light suggest that for relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, it was also a time of missed opportunity." The first article in a series by Foreign Policy.
Also, check out the National Security Archive's Electronic Briefing Books section to access "critical declassified records on issues including U.S. national security, foreign policy, diplomatic and military history, intelligence policy, and more."
posted by cog_nate
on Nov 5, 2009 -
8 comments
Kennedy To Receive Bush Public Service Award Say Whaaat? "The George Bush Presidential Library Foundation announced that United States Senator Edward M. Kennedy would receive the 2003 George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service." The Elder Bush selects the winner of this award personally... This must mean either that (a) W. had stopped accepting phone calls from his dad or (b) he will now...
posted by wendell
on Oct 8, 2003 -
8 comments
A Blast from the Past. In 1998, George Bush, Sr. explains why Saddam was not removed in the Gulf War: "Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome."
posted by owillis
on Sep 12, 2002 -
19 comments
The Guardian reports that George Bush Senior, along with Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf, Dan Quayle and a number of other prominent Americans are unhappy that Botswanan authorities have banned the
trophy hunting
of lions in that country. The number of lions in Africa has declined by 35,000 to only 15,000 in the last
10 years, but many wealthy Americans still see it as their right to pay big money to hunt a big cat. This just makes me sick
posted by sixdifferentways
on Apr 27, 2001 -
28 comments
