We have Senior Bush to thank for Clarence Thomas, arguably the worst and most cynical nomination to the Supreme Court. That alone is enough to sink him in my book.
But wait.
Shouldn’t I give him credit for pushing through the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990?
Yes, I should, and that was a huge and worthwhile accomplishment. Thank you, Senior Bush, for doing something decent while you had the chance.
I remember when he picked Dan Quayle as his running mate. Frank Scott and I had a big laugh over that, as it made absolutely no sense.
I still used to watch debates back in those days, and when he ran for re-election I was watching on October 11, 1992 when he received a question about AIDS. His answer began well enough and he said things like “I am very much concerned about AIDS and I believe that we’ve got the best researchers in the world out there at NIH working the problem.”
But then he had to go and start blaming the victims:
…it’s one of the few diseases where behavior matters. And I once called on somebody, “Well, change your behavior.”
One of the few diseases where behavior matters? Really? Or is it that he had a problem with the kind of behavior? He being a Republican and all. I’m sure that Isaac Asimov, had he still been alive, would have been fascinated to hear that he was being blamed for his behavior in having a triple bypass heart operation where he ended up contracting HIV. Or perhaps that wasn’t the behavior that Senior Bush was talking about.
Few diseases? Like lung cancer? Did Bush also rail against cigarette smoking or was that all right because tobacco companies were protected by his Republican cronies.
When you get right down to it, any disease that is caused by a bacteria or a virus is essentially caused by behavior because if you didn’t come into contact with the pathogen, either with the person carrying it or in air particles or on a fomite, you’d never contract the disease.
What about the recent pandemic? How did it spread from China to the rest of the world so rapidly? By people who could afford to fly internationally. Without the modern jet set, it could never have spread so quickly. Sounds like behavior to me.
What about the hereditary diseases? Well, if your father never had that twinkle in his eye… Need I say more?
I’ve heard Senior Bush described as a decent man. Well, I read his lips. If he was a decent man, he hid it well.