Countdown To Crawford: Day 350

Over the years, many of George's critics have found his behavior to be juvenile and appalling. During George's "missing year" (May 1972 to May 1973, when he went missing from his National Guard service), he spent legendary amounts of time partying with booze and cocaine. At one point, he caused nearly $5,000 (adjusted to 2007) in party damage to a Montgomery, Alabama house he rented from an old woman confined to a nursing home-- which he never paid back.

In the book "The End of Faith", author Sam Harris recounted how during his career as governor of Texas, Bush mocked a female prisoner who appealed to him to lift her death sentence by mockingly imitating her pleas for mercy. On another occasion during his term as governor, he flipped the "bird" to a TV producer while on camera just before taping an appearance.

When Bush appeared on the "Late Show With David Letterman" during his 2000 campaign, he was caught on tape committing a heinous breach of social etiquette. During a commercial break, producer Maria Pope was on stage discussing something with Letterman-- and while she was standing there in front of Bush, he leaned forward, grabbed the back of her sweater, and used it to clean his glasses.

At the 2006 G-8 summit, presidential observers went crazy after George (while chewing with a mouthful of food) interrupted Tony Blair, using the word "shit". Later that week, he gave German chancellor Merkel an unwelcome neck rub while she was talking to the Italian prime minister-- which was dubbed the "love attack" by European press and earned him the nickname "Groper In Chief".

Another more recent example was in May of 2007, during a commemorative ceremony in which Bush presented the mothers of dead soldiers with a Presidential coin. George jokingly commented to one of them: "Now don't go sell it on eBay!"


Quotes For The Ages:


"I understand small business growth. I was one."

-- New York Daily News, February 19, 2000


"More and more of our imports come from overseas."

--Beaverton, Oregon, September 2000