American Presidents: Totalus Rankium - 41.3 George H W Bush

Episode Date: October 16, 2023

After a very eventful life Daddy Bush finally makes it to the top job! so what will he do with that? Sort out the economy! (Ah - maybe... there seems to be a couple of massive global political events going on also...)

Welcome to Totalus Rankium. This week, George H. W. Bush. Heart free. Hello and welcome to American Presidents Totalus Rankium. I am Jamie. And I'm Rob, ranking all of the presidents from Washington to Biden. And this is episode 41.3. It's Daddy Bush, George H.W. Bush. It's the Bush father. And it's part three. Part three. Yeah. Time we finally finished off this mother and rank him, this father, even.

You ready? Yeah. Yeah, I've just been really fascinated because he seemed relatively reasonable. Yeah. Seemed quite nice. But then I sent a message yesterday that made me doubt myself slightly. So I'm guessing we're going to take a bit of a right turn in this episode. Oh, well, not necessarily.

I mean, episode one, we were pleasantly surprised. Episode two, we started to see a few cracks and we were slightly unsure. Let's see how episode three goes. But we need our introduction for the episode, Jamie. So how are we starting? Yeah, I've already thought about this. So in the UK, in the 90s, we have this television celebrity that was very, very British. And he's called Mr. Blobby. Okay, yeah. So we're going to have Mr. Blobby on the very, very top of where the bridge is on an aircraft carrier, standing on top of there holding an American flag, going, Blobby, Blobby, Blobby.

That's where we're starting. So let's start on just blackness blackness and yeah then you see a glint of of light and you realize you're close up really close on a very plasticky looking eye here and then uh zoom out zoom out pan out sorry uh pan out and uh you realize it is the face of mr blobby and you're absolutely right you've already described it he's on top of that plane the plane's in the air flying and he's just straddled on top of it waving his flag and then he says in his very very british voice that he had he says and then he leaps from the plane and the camera jumps after him and you're just rushing and racing through the clouds and all you can hear is uh just shouts ofbby, but with the Doppler effect,

as for some reason it keeps rushing past and chasing and catching up the cameras. It's all very manic, and then suddenly burst out of the clouds. You've gone through the clouds and suddenly you can see the ground all of a sudden, and it's just a crowd full of people, loads and loads of people, and you realize they're surrounding a wall

and Blobby just smacks into the top of this wall and like dominoes the whole wall just starts to tumble and fall and you realize you're in berlin and you've just witnessed the fall of the berlin wall in the most uniquely british way possible yes you're welcome deutschland You're welcome. Yeah. And then David Hasselhoff walks on, points to the camera, and says, Daddy Bush, part three. And that's how we start today's episode. Nice. Yeah.

He's wearing lots of light bulbs on his jacket. Oh, even better. It's a real thing, by the way. You need to go and check out David Hasselhoff wearing light bulbs on a jacket at the Berlin Wall. Anyway, so here we go. As you can see, some things happen in this episode. So we left Daddy Bush becoming the president.

He beat Dukakis in an ugly election. It got a bit nasty. But Bush, he does it. He is president. He finds himself in an unusual position, a Republican in a third term. Huh? an unusual position, a Republican in a third term.

Huh? So this is the third term of someone in the same party. It doesn't happen very often in American history. In fact, the last time this happened was Hoover back in 1929. So, yeah, it's always hard being in the third term. But that's what he's going to do. And he had, through the election, fought himself into a bit of a tight corner because in order to appease the Reaganite right of the party, he had made promises to carry on with Reagan's works.

But he also believed, and let's be honest, for a very good reason, that some of Reagan's behaviour and policy was going to come home to roost soon and he was going to have to deal with some stuff. So the economy, to begin with, that was looking a little bit shaky, and the fact that Reagan had done nothing whatsoever to reduce the deficit would soon become a problem, Bush figured. During the election, he had also made it very clear, no new taxes. Read my lips, he literally said, no new taxes. And he kept saying it over and over again. Go on, just make a wild prediction. I mean, if I had to guess,

I'd suggest maybe taxes may have to rise a little bit. Maybe, maybe. It's all very well and good. It's the kind of thing that the Reaganites love to hear. It's what Reagan himself said a lot. But don't forget, Reagan often ended up raising taxes anyway and then just being forgiven

because, oh well, he doesn't want to do it. So it's fine. Was Bush going to be able to pull the same magic? Well, we'll find out. Reagan had personality as well. Anyway, that's what's going on at home. Foreign affairs, the state of the Soviet Union, very questionable

at this point. Also, the fallout of the Iran-Contra affair had still not been fully felt yet. So that might come up and raise its ugly head. So it's on some shaky ground that Bush comes into the presidency. In his inaugural address, Bush attempted to bend some of the bridges that he'd

broken by appeasing to the far right of the party. So in his speech he talked about a kinder America. We're going to be nice to people. We're going to stop pointing at poor people and laughing. Things like that. Yeah. Oh.

Yeah, let's do that. Let's talk about charitable work and activism. It's time we start looking after ourselves. It's time we start looking after our citizens. By we, obviously. I mean you. Yeah. For the charity work. We, the government, aren't going we, obviously. I mean you. Yeah, yeah. For the charity work.

We, the government, aren't going to do anything. No, of course not. Yeah, no, of course not. But still, that's arguably better than what was being said before. Yeah. And then, once he'd settled in, he decided to show the country that his administration would show new levels of bipartisanship between the parties.

So you don't often get that. That's a good thing to do. Yeah, no, this is definitely not something you get during the Reagan era, that's for sure. So, yeah, maybe this was a new, a bold new era for politics. Now, the question over the Contra was still going on, and Congress was still debating how much they could and would support the overthrow of the government in Nicaragua. Bush, to the annoyance of many in his party, appointed a Democrat, Jamie.

Oh. Yeah, yeah. A Democrat? He appointed a Democrat as his Assistant Secretary of State for Intra-American Affairs. So there you go. That's interesting. Very interesting.

Yeah. Yeah. By partnership. He's Big. Very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. By partnership. He's Big Ten. He's letting people in. Politics had moved in South and Central America, and international pressure had resulted in Nicaragua planning to hold an election. This was followed by the administration working with Democrats,

because they control the House and the Senate at this time, to push through the current plan. So here's the plan. They would stop military efforts to overthrow the current government in Nicaragua. And, oh, here is $50 million in humanitarian aid. That's right, humanitarian aid for the Contras, just in case. Just in case the elections don't happen, we'll have the Contras, just in case, just in case the elections don't happen, we'll have the Contras in place.

So the election resulted in a new party coming to power, not the socialist-leaning one that was there previously, which made America happy. It also wasn't the right-wing Contra, with its history of human rights abuses and atrocities. So that pleased many other people. with its history of human rights abuses and atrocities. So that pleased many other people. Instead, it was a centralist coalition government with its main aim of stopping all the fighting. And this was good enough for the US, especially Bush.

He put a big tick in the win column. The Contra affair has been put to bed. We can all forget about scandal now. Yes, I know what we did was illegal, and I know that we knew it was illegal, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Look, all the fighting there has stopped.

We can stop talking about it. Please stop talking about it. Yes. So he then turns to internal affairs. He has promised to get the budget under control. Remember, during the Reagan years, there was that unprecedented boom of the economy. Yes. Yeah.

Which Reagan just rode the wave of enjoying his time. Well, that's come to an end now. And that deficit is still very much there. So he's got to try and get it under control. However, I'm going to hugely simplify here. There was a problem. Oh, dear. Yes. This deficit is causing a huge problem. So here is the simple version of the problem. The government owed various companies lots of money. That's why they were in debt, yeah? Yeah. So in order to be able to borrow money still, they were promising higher repayments, higher interest rates.

Yeah. So they could still borrow money. This all makes sense. However, this in turn increases interest rates for everyone, because interest rates just go up across the land. This means that money starts to move around less. Yeah. Because if everyone holds onto their money, they'll be making more money. Yeah. So less incentive to spend your money. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Right. This is bad news for Bush because he needed more money. He needed money

to be moving around and generating more income yeah and he had promised no new taxes yes yes he said that now the only way he can make money is for the current taxes to generate more money and that could only happen if money is moving around more yeah yeah so you're with me yeah yeah okay Yeah. Okay, good. Right. That's my attempt to explain the economic problem in simple terms. Thank you. This was for my benefit. I was reading, reading the history books like I do. And then people would be saying economic terms as if I would understand them. And I was like, right, I need to actually get to the bottom of what is going on here. So that's what's going on.

Bush needs the country to be making more money, but he can't introduce new taxes. Now, this is bad enough. But then Reagan's economic plan, which had been bashed as ridiculous by a majority of politicians and economists, remember, before he got to power. Well, this finally starts to show the cracks. The savings and loan industry crashed again simplifying this the savings and loans company uh well they were various companies across the country they provided accounts for people to put their savings in yeah and then the companies use this money to provide loans for mortgages and the like yeah so yeah. It's just a way to pay your mortgage, basically. Yeah.

Now, as everyone loans, the higher the risk of being repaid, the more potential money could be made. Basic gambling, really. Yeah. So these companies have been around since the 30s, and to stop them from recklessly flinging people's savings around to hit it rich, they were very heavily regulated. Because, of course, you've got to do that.

You don't want them wasting everyone's money on stupid gambles. But the regulations made it hard for these companies to stay profitable. And in the economic slump of the 70s, these companies started to struggle. Well, don't worry. The GOP had a plan. Reaganomics. It was all about the free markets, making money, and generally living the American dream. Damn it.

So here's what we're going to do, said Reagan and the GOP. Those regulations are making it hard for the companies. Let's get rid of them. No more regulations for anyone. Problem solved. Problem solved. You want to make money getting rich on gambles? Go ahead and do it.

It's the American dream. So these companies could now do whatever they wanted, essentially, risk it all on black in an attempt to get ahead of the other SNL company down the road. Why not? Go for it. So regulations out the window. What's going to happen? The gamble won't work.

Well, I mean, before the gamble not working, corruption and theft and mismanagement will go through the roof because no one's regulating them anymore. Well, yeah. I mean, that goes without saying. Yeah, so that happens straight away. And then exactly what you say. Some companies, to be fair, do very well.

They're no longer being regulated. They can make risky gambles. It pays off. Brilliant. More of them, a lot more of them, crashed out. And this was people's savings that they were crashing out with. Oh. Yeah. In the economic boom that Reagan mostly presided over, these cracks were well hidden. But the boom was over now, and now it was time to pay the price. Exactly what Reagan's detractors had warned about as Reagan was campaigning to become president starts to happen.

Only it's not Reagan in charge. It's now Bush. And he's in a very tricky place because he can't blame the previous guy without losing his base. No. Why it's really hard to follow someone from the same party as the president. You can't fall back on, oh, well, yeah, this is bad, but it's all the other guy's fault. He could not implement the quickest fix. The easiest way to fix this is to introduce new taxes and start regulating these companies properly. But didn't he say, read his lips, he's not going to raise taxes? No, no new taxes. No new taxes. No new taxes. Yeah. Of course,

if he does this, he breaks his electoral promise exactly what you're saying there uh and that far right base uh in the gop will turn on him so he's in a tricky situation before being inaugurated bush had asked to be brought up to speed on this crisis he literally had a seminar on it and he was told in no uncertain terms, this is really bad. This is going to be something you are going to have to face. It's going to cost a lot to fix this problem. But if we don't spend the money to fix it, it's going to get even worse. So we are going to have to spend the cash to fix this. So in the end, they come up with a plan.

They put through a new law making sure that people were insured. And then they let the savings and loan companies fall in a controlled way. So those ones that are going bust, fine, let them go bust. And then, because we put in this new insurance, people can get their money back through the insurance. Now, in real terms, this meant foreclosures and repositions and long battles with insurance companies for the average person. Yeah.

And it cost the taxpayer $132 billion. Oh. Yeah. That's a lot. It must be really frustrating because you've worked all your life, you put all these savings there, and then suddenly because a bank or a business has made a dumb decision, you've lost all your money.

You can kind of see why people keep their money in the mattress. It is frustrating. And then you kind of assume that these people who are controlling all of this money probably are very intelligent people who really know what they're doing. And then it gets looked into afterwards, and you realise it's just a bunch of idiots who like gambling. And you realise that people are going to have to live in decades in economic uncertainty because of just that.

Could you imagine living through this time, Jamie? Could you imagine? I mean, we did actually live in this time. We're both alive at this point. That's true, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, all of this is putting huge pressure on an already very weak economy and Bush is determined.

No new taxes. read my lips got it tattooed on his lips by this point it was really determined so instead what he's going to do he's going to try and negotiate with the democrats in congress to cut back on spending more hooray yeah obviously spending on government had just been decimated by reagan already yeah so let's keep cutting back. It's the only way we can make money. It was not a popular move. Bush was criticised and was unable to point out

that he'd always suspected his predecessor's decisions would lead to this. He just can't say it out loud. He just mumbled it into the microphone. I was as such, it was Reagan's fault, but I strongly support him, even though it's all his fault. Yeah, pretty much. Still, fortunately for Bush, international affairs were going on that were so big that it covered anything that was going internally, pretty much. Because what's going on with the Russians?

Collapse! Well, how's Gorbachev doing? And how likely was it that he was going to be able to reform the Soviet Union before he was cooed hard and in the face? Well, that's what Bush and his Secretary of State, his Secretary of Defense and his National Security Advisor were all talking about. His Secretary of State was a man named Baker. Baker was all in for helping Gorbachev out as much as possible. He's trying to reform the Soviet Union. We help him. Maybe we will end

up with a situation where we are stronger than them and we actually get on with them for a change. That would be nice. The Secretary of Defense was a man who you will have heard of. It's Dick Cheney. Hey, Dick Cheney. Yeah, we're going to start coming across a lot of names that we know soon. Anyway, Cheneyy other end of the spectrum he thought goberchev was going to fail fail hard and fail quickly and that's a good thing because then the soviet union would be weak and the united states could pounce yes like a tiger he said in the meeting edge their chairs further away from cheney so yeah uh the national security advisor was somewhere in the middle of these two so he's got three advisors all telling him slightly different things now in

retrospect yeah i don't know in some ways that's good because then you can i guess arguments and make up your own mind it's better than just having yes men around you yeah that's when it makes sense george opens his drawer moves the the lemon, pulls out a magic 8-ball. Right. One way to settle this. You just hear the muffled shouts of Lionel as the drawer's closed. What can you do? Well, in retrospect, we can see how it turns out with the Soviet Union.

So we can look at it and go, yes, well done to the advisor who was calling it right. But at the time, obviously, no one had a clue how this was going to pan out. This was not a time where the experts in the country thought one thing and the politicians wanted something else and just ignored the advice. This was a time where no one had a bloody clue. So it's uncharted waters. Who knows what's going to happen here? Because of this, Bush paused on doing anything with Russia. Let's just wait and see. Yeah, essentially. It's like things seem to be moving quickly under Reagan.

Bush comes in and he just, hands off, hands off. No, let's just get the lay of the land. If we put a foot wrong here, it could be really bad. So let's just wait, see, watch. This led to some criticism. Reagan was making strides and now nothing. Who is this weak president we've got in? The heads of France and West Germany and Britain all tried to reassure Bush that Gorbachev was the real deal.

This was a chance for change. So why don't you step into the tent here and we'll all work together. In the end, world politics overtook Bush. Poland had elections and took a big step to south rule Hungary opened its borders Things are going on in Europe that make it clear that the Soviet Union is starting to collapse Now, Bush made it clear that the United States approved of things like Hungary opening its borders And Poland becoming independent

But he resisted offering financial aid to countries in the Soviet bloc that wanted to follow suit as an incentive, mainly because no new taxes, there's no money. He keeps staring at his lips in the mirror, just whispering read them to himself. So no, no money. But if you break away from the Soviet Union, the United States will give you a pat on the back,

a goodie bag with a pencil in. A commemorative sticker. Yeah. I was there. A tote bag. Oh, yes. That's what it is. Yeah.

So, as you can imagine, several countries eyeing up the freedom tote bag were thinking, oh, maybe we should follow suit. That's a damn good tote bag. Oh yeah. Says no new taxes on it. In the end, Bush decided that helping Gorbachev out was in the best interest for the United States. So he reaches out.

How about a meeting? How can we help you reform? So they decide they are going to meet up. They're leaders of the two superpowers. But again, world events overtake them. Before the meeting could take place, something happened in Germany. What? One can hear a plane in the sky.

Boopie boopie! The people in East Berlin were out in force protesting. Oh, you're holding something up, Jamie. What are you holding up? Supposedly, in fact, a chunk of the Berlin Wall. Oh, there you go. You're holding a bit of what I'm about to talk about. History made real.

I know. In the concrete, as it were. Anyway, yeah, that's the sound, listeners. That's the sound of the Berlin Wall falling. Imagine that, but much louder. That's what was about to happen. People in East Berlin were out in force protesting, demanding that the East German government reform in the same way

that Poland and Hungary and the like were. Now, the head of state was a man named Erich Honecker, and he ordered the military to attack the protesters, dispel them, Let's use force. That always works and ends up well, doesn't it? Yeah, always ends well. Well, fortunately, the military took one look at the crowd, one look at Hanukkah, and just went, nope, don't think so.

That doesn't sound good. So, yeah, Hanukkah was fired from his own party. Then there was an attempt by the party to introduce reforms. So let's calm everyone down. Okay, we'll do some reforming. The new party chief misspoke, however, when he was on television and said that there would be freedom of movement between East and West Berlin, effective immediately instead of what he should have said,

which was, we will do it at some point over time. Gradually. It's an aim. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, immediately is a bit of a push because there's like a bit of a barrier in the way. Well, yeah. Hearing this, people took to the streets.

Freedom of movement. Hooray. We can go wherever we want. So the guards, guarding the various checkpoints Where you could go through the wall Well, they had heard the announcement as well And they didn't really know what the rules were So I suppose I suppose they can go through

And also, that's a lot of people there And they're all looking quite determined to come through It's just me and Hans here Yeah Let's let them through, shall we? Yeah Open the gate Especially since they've got sledgehammers Yeah Um, yeah. Let's let them through, shall we? Yeah. Open the gate.

Especially since they've got sledgehammers. Yeah, so that night, people of Berlin started coming and going through the wall, and the sledgehammers come out, and there's no going back. The wall falls, Jamie. Oh. And here we have it, after covering over 250 people jamie after covering nearly 2 000 years of history we finally reach a moment that i remember oh you remember it yes this is one of my very earliest memories uh and i vaguely remember my parents trying to explain to me what was going on, and I was being far too young to understand.

Big wall falling down. Well, yeah, I remember growing up years later with a vague idea that there was a big wall that went all the way through Germany, and that David Hasselhoff had torn down the wall while New Kids on the Block was playing. Nice. Which apparently New Kids on the Block have nothing to do with it whatsoever. That was obviously something my sister was just watching

the same night that it happened or something. I don't know. So mixed, confused memories of it happening, but I do remember it happening. I suppose you don't remember it, do you? You would have been slightly too young. I was two. Figured you'd be a bit too young.

I was too young to have a clear memory, like I say. But yeah, there we go. Living memory for me. You'll have to let me know as soon as we get to something you remember might be a couple more episodes maybe we'll see right anyway bush that's who we're talking about bush immediately just like jfk did after the cuba missile crisis uh realized that now's not the time to gloat if we start pointing at at Russia going, ha ha ha ha ha, Russia will just get angry. So he warned his advisors, now is not the time to dance on the wall. Cheney, get down. I'd like to think was just advice that he quite often says in meetings, mainly because Cheney. Love to dance, Cheney. That's a fact. Look it up. Anyway, Bush at last

saw something he could work on. It seemed unlikely he would achieve this goal that he was coming up with in his presidency, but he had an idea and he wanted to set the ball rolling. This could help his legacy. He was going to help get a unified Germany. He reached out to the European leaders, who were somewhat surprised that Bush, having been very quiet up until this point,

suddenly wanted to reach for unification of Germany. Ooh, come on over here, Arkadym. Tell us what to do now. Yeah, where were you six months ago? Mr. Let's Wait and See. Yeah, well, they warned him that this just, unification was not on the radar. That's too much too soon.

Thatcher, in fact, told him, history here is living memory. him that this just unification was not on the radar that's too much too soon that thatcher in fact told him history here is living memory or in other words this is far too complex yes yes yes gobochev himself got word to bush um through france uh if germany unifies and becomes independent i will not be able to hold power i will be cooled hard and in the face. So call it with that talk if you don't mind. I'm trying to do some reforms here. Fair enough. Oh, wow.

No, Bush had it in his head, though. That's what he wanted to happen. A month later, the planned meeting between the two took place. The meeting was to take place just off Malta. Two ships would host and the Soviet and the US warships would be there and the premiers would just jump between the two. Probably not jump. Pirate style. Yes.

They would pirate swing between the two. That's what they'd do. That's how they met. They just kept swinging past each other and going, hello, hello. Yeah, it was great. But no, they didn't They couldn't do that because Mother Nature Had something to say about that

She came out of the sea, not the ocean Stop that, you two It's getting too surreal No, it was the worst storm in decades That's what it was That stopped them Yeah, it's awful, awful weather. The ships rocked in the battered sea.

Everyone was fighting seasickness. It was not a happy time. They had to just sort of rock up to Malta and just stay in the docks and stuff. Anyway, no agreements were signed at this summit, but Bush was able to get across to Gorbachev that him hesitating in support was not an indication that he wanted Gorbachev to fail more that he didn't want to rock the boat oh he said obviously doesn't translate well to Russian because Gorbachev's no no absolute silence got nothing back Gorbachev just faced like

a rock yeah um yeah so but generally it was agreed that the summit went okay. No. The next summit, however, that's going to be the good one. Yeah. That's when we're going to come closer. Yeah. Things are moving in the right direction. Good.

Then there were some uprisings in Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania. It really looks like the fall of the Soviet Union is only a matter of time now. Meanwhile, Bush looks closer to home. Panama. What's going on in Panama? Big canal. Yes, there is a big canal, which is exactly why the United States are interested. But also, there was a dictator there at this time named Manuel Noriega.

Manuel. The history of Noriega is long and complex. I'm not going to go over it all now. But just know that he was a drug kingpin who also headed the Panama Intelligence Agency and was paid by the CIA to be in place. Oh, brilliant. Yeah.

So this was another US economic coup in South America, essentially. He was ruling Panama with the United States blessing because he was providing information on various other South American states and Cuba, especially Cuba. Oh, and he was also helping the far-right Contra in Nicaragua, which the United States wanted to succeed. So there you go. The CIA just keep paying him money to stay in place. However, by the late 80s, his usefulness to the United States

was no longer good enough to also ignore the fact that he was smuggling drugs into the United States and selling United States secrets to other countries. Oh, well, yeah. Yeah, which, I mean, the CIA knew about, but kind of let it go because he was useful. But it's not useful enough anymore. So what can we get him on?

Well, maybe the drug thing? Well, they sort of do, and then they let him off because he gives more secrets. It's all very sort of underhand. It's too intertwined. Yeah. Dirty deals going on. Yeah. Anyway, the United States, by this time, when Bush is president, decide to withdraw their support. Noriega doubles down in

the country. No, I am in charge. In fact, we're going to have elections and they will show that I'm in charge because I will win the elections. I will make sure of it. Bush and his administration start to look for ways to remove, shall we say, their useless puppet. To close the door on this situation. Yeah, exactly. To remove the itch from the back. Yes, to put a bullet in the dictator's head. Yeah, things like that.

Yeah, anyway, it's not hard. How do we remove this useless puppet? Well, we just go and remove him. There's a blackboard up in the Pentagon. We have several plans. No, in fact, it's one plan. It's one plan. It's on the board.

Two words, remove him. Yes, that sounds good. Sounds good. And's one plan. It's on the board. Two words, remove him. Yes, that sounds good. Sounds good. And I look particularly like your photograph of the gun. Yes. Well, Noriega, realising his days were numbered, declared war on the United States. Or more to point, he didn't.

But the United States certainly made it seem like he had. What he actually had done was declared that the United States had been waging war on Panama for several years, attempting to create a coup. And he said that a state of war existed between the countries. Right. That's not quite the same as declaring war. The United States, however, went, yes, this is all we need. He's declared war, damn it. Right. countries right that's not quite the same as declaring war the united states however went yes this is all we need he's declared war damn it right let's go we go um but they then had more justification because there was reports of the united of a united states marine being killed

in the country and also an army lieutenant and his wife being attacked and beaten. So there you go. That's US military personnel being attacked. War is on. Bush announced it was time to implement. And at this point he pointed to the blackboard, swung it round because on the back of the blackboard, it says operation just cause. Oh. Yeah.

Oh. Yeah. We're in the era of operations jamie so five days after noriega had declared that a state of war existed between the countries 20 000 united states troops invade panama oh hello and that escalated very quickly it really did so quickly you could almost say that the united states were already prepared to do it. Just hiding around the corner. Yeah, in the canal. That's how they got there.

They swam up the canal. Yeah. All of them with snorkels. Yeah. Within nine hours, nine hours, the United States had control of the country. Wow. Yeah.

24 US servicemen died, but that's it. There we go. War's done. Noriega, however, was on the run. He de-legged it. He went to various places, various rich friends and stuff, but in the end he fled to a papal representative in Panama City and claimed asylum. I don't think that works.

Well, the United States didn't want to drag him out of the Pope's house. I mean, that's, it's not a good look, is it? After all, they were there to liberate the country, to help the country. So they've got to be careful here. So what did they do, Jamie? How did they get him out of the house? Cook some delicious food and tempt him out that way. You're not a million miles away.

Think more stick rather than carrot, though. Oh, just like gas bombs through the window kind of thing. Not quite that big of a stick. No, they set up massive speakers outside the house and start blasting rock music in an attempt to break him. Apparently he was a huge opera lover, so he would hate the playlist. You can find this playlist on Spotify because it was released in a Freedom of Information request.

Oh no, Jamie, don't do it immediately because I can see it lighting up in your face. You were about to look immediately, weren't you? I'm dying to see what's on. Oh yeah, you can have a up in your face. You were about to look immediately, weren't you? I'm dying to see what song it's on. You can have a look in a moment, but just know it's around 100 songs, which I think they missed a trick there. If you want to really annoy someone, you play the same song on repeat shortly.

Yeah. Which makes me think this was just the soldiers just putting on their music. But anyway, I had to look through the list. Quite some actual good stuff here. We've got Kenny Loggins, Danger Zone oh yeah that's good sounds like a rave, it's going to sound great

I spotted New Kids on the Block were there which I've only put down here because it's like that's weird, I don't think I've thought of New Kids on the Block in the last 10 years I'd only just written their name in the notes from earlier and then they appeared again. House Scouter from the Beatles is in there, there's rolling stones guns and roses david bowie um

some song choices were a bit more inspired than others to play to a man held up in a house on the run we have got your time is going to come by led zeppelin we've got born to run by bruce springsteen we've got run like hell by pink floyd and. We've got Run Like Hell by Pink Floyd. And in a choice that makes you almost drown in the 80s American culture, at one point they blasted out Jimi Hendrix's star-spangled banner. Oh. Imagine all the American soldiers sitting on their Humvees. Just that blasting out.

Tears rolling down their cheeks. Yeah. Yeah, Noriega gives up. Just that blasting out. Tears rolling down their cheeks. Yeah. Yeah. Noriega gives up. He finally gives up. There you go. You can have a look at the playlist yourself now if you want. I'm intrigued.

Oh, here we go. Yeah. Yeah, if you just type in, if you're listening. Alice Cooper. Nice. Paranoid. Well, I knew they'd do a Guns N' Roses song. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, definitely some Guns N' Roses. And they played this on Panama by Van Halen. Oh, yeah. That makes sense, doesn't it? Yeah. Never Gonna Give You Up. Oh, that and Repeat for 12 Hours would get anyone out, wouldn't it? Yeah.

This is quite impressive. Yeah, quite a few Black Sabbath. Paul Simon. Billy Joel. Everyone likes Billy Joel. Oh, that is absolutely wonderful. It's a pretty good playlist, isn't it? Mr. Blue, The Fleetwoods. Oh, that is absolutely wonderful. It's a pretty good playlist, isn't it? Mr. Blue, the Fleetwoods. Oh.

Patience. Quite a lot of Judas Priest. Haven't seen any Metallica yet. I'm slightly disappointed. Oh, Twisted Sister. Yeah. Oh, Metallica not used. Oh. But they are used. Yes, I've heard. In an upcoming war. Yes, in Guantanamo

Bay kind of way, aren't they? Yeah. But yeah, I've heard. In an upcoming war. Yes, in Guantanamo Bay kind of way, aren't they? Yeah. But yeah, that happened to come up in an article whilst I was looking at this list. Play Dead or Alive or Bon Jovi. Brilliant. Yeah. So there you go.

I was listening to this playlist whilst writing up my notes. Nice. Yeah. So there you go. That's a nice themed playlist to. Nice. Yeah. So there you go. That's a nice theme to listen to. Yeah. Anyway, like I say, Noriega gives up. Bush was able to put another tick in the win column for himself.

And it's a military win as well. Hurrah. The stain of Vietnam has fully been washed away. No one will even remember Vietnam. They will just remember this invasion instead. And the winds start coming in because things are moving fast in Europe still. In Berlin, plans for a gradual political reform were thrown aside. Instead, elections were going to take place in early 91. And then that was thrown aside. That's far too far in the future. We want reform now, damn it. So in March of

1990, elections were held. And the shock result was a Christian Conservative Party won. Essentially a centre-right party. It would change and merge a little bit, but essentially this is the party that

Angela Merkel led recently. So they're still around. Yeah, this was a party that wanted Merkel led recently. So they're still around. Yeah, this was a party that wanted unification and it wanted it quickly. Seeing this as the will of the people, the rest of Western Europe fell in line. And Bush's call to support this no longer seemed far-fetched, but instead it made it seem like he had his finger on the pulse. So things are looking pretty good for him. However, this was all putting a lot of pressure on Gorbachev,

who was facing usurpation within his own party. Yeah. Understandably. Yeah. Yeah, it was bad enough that the likes of Poland and Germany and Hungary were revolting, but now even the Baltic states were kicking up a fuss. So Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were talking about increased independence. Many in Russia were furious by this point that Gorbachev was destroying their country.

Gorbachev imposed energy sanctions on the Baltic states in response, just to try and show up some support. Yeah. Yeah. Now, seeing Gorbachev in trouble, Bush made the call not to push for the Baltic states to become independent, a move that earned him

the name hypocrite by some. He said, everyone should be getting independent. Why can't you publicly say they should? But Bush saw it as a step too far for the stability of the Soviet Union. Thought it was too much too quick. So he just stayed quiet about that one.

International pressure grew for the United States to announce the support for the states. So Bush wrote to Gorbachev essentially saying, look, I'm under a lot of pressure to impose sanctions on you for the sanctions you're putting on the Baltic states. I'm going to have to do it, but I'm still on your side, okay?

No hard feelings. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of agree with where you're coming from, but I can't say it publicly. Yeah. Anyway, in May of 1990, Gorbachev comes to Washington so they can have another chat, and it was a dramatic meeting. Bush and Gorbachev were talking about a unified Germany

and whether Germany would be allowed to join NATO. Now, obviously, the Soviet Russia at that point did not want Germany and NATO. Nope. It saw that as just the West getting stronger. Gorbachev had already admitted that a unified Germany was inevitable. It's going to happen. But no, NATO was a step too far but when bush asked him if it

was the right of any free nation to be able to choose to join a group of nations such as nato gorbachev shocked everyone by just sort of shrugging his shoulders and then saying yeah this was national policy being overturned in real time whilst he was just on a visit. And Aid very quickly passed a note to Bush saying, hang on, no, get clarification on that. That's actually huge if he means it. So he was asked again and Gorbachev made it clear, yes, Germany could be in NATO if they wanted to be in NATO because they'd be their own independent country. Bush later let Gorbachev know that those sanctions he'd mentioned, they're not going to happen anymore

because we are really grateful that you're not pushing us on NATO. So, yeah, we'll do that for you. Do you mind just going easy on Lithuania, though? Yeah, let's do that. Yeah, we're not going to say anything publicly, but do you mind? going easy on Lithuania, though? Yeah, that's blessed. Just sort of a, yeah. We're not going to say anything publicly, but do you mind? Maybe? Yeah?

Great. Okay. I'll take that stony silence as a yes. Anyway, the summit ends, and it was seen as a huge success for Bush. Bush is doing very well. He's riding the highs. He felt, therefore, that it was finally time to fix the mess reagan had left with the economy and uh there was a tight deadline this wasn't something that he could just kick down the road because in 85 congress had passed a law stating that if the

deficit in the budget went above a certain amount automatic budget cuts of 40% would happen across the board. So that includes like military... The federal budget would be just utterly gutted unless it gets sorted. This was clearly put in place to make sure it was bloody done. We need to get it sorted. No one wants to see this. Obviously no one wants to see this. So it's a huge incentive

for people to actually get on the problem. Bush faced an uphill struggle here because he needed to get the deficit down to 64 billion. Have a guess what it is currently. Right now or in 19... As in where it was for Bush at the time when he needed to get it down to 64. I imagine hundreds of billions. It was 171 billion. Ooh. And he needs to get it down to 64. Right. So I've got to knock off 106, 7 billion pounds.

Yeah. That's a lot. Well, by this point, Bush realised he's going to have to go into the toilet and he's going to have to get a skin graft on his lips. Because that tattoo's going to come off. People are going to have to read his lips and read the new thing on his lips, which was new taxes. Yes.

Sorry. Yeah, we're just going to have to do it. There is literally no way we can do anything other than bring in some new taxes. He also knew that the far right of his party was going to rebel if he did this. They hated taxes, damn it. And the punishment, gutting the government, well, they didn't mind that. The far right hated the government. Yeah.

They want to see the small a government as possible, so absolutely gutting it was not that much of a punishment. Okay, so that's a problem. He also knew that he had to get the Democrats on board. They control the House and the Senate. Nothing's going to happen without the Democrats. So he got to work on mending bridges with a Democratic party that was still very bruised by Reagan,

and he just hoped his own party would fall in line. F fingers crossed. But just as he sat down to fight the political fight of his life, the second world event that would define his presidency happened. Because Iraq invaded Kuwait. Of course, yes. Yeah, yeah, I'd forgot about that, didn't you? Looked like a shock on your face there. Yes, that's about to happen. The history of the middle east is as ever complicated it's full of death and invasions and atrocities we've covered a lot of them in our roman series i'm going to be very brief and just sum up a little bit of the history here but as ever this is simplified uh kuwait was an independent state dominated by the ottomans. That's right, Jamie,

linking the two podcasts. It's the Ottomans. It's like we're doing the Romans again. Yeah, so it was dominated by the Ottomans. In the 1890s, under political pressure from within and also by the Ottomans, Kuwait signed an agreement with the major colonial power in the region, Britain. Can we be your vassal, please? And will you protect us? A powerful ruling class were then able to flourish within the kingdom of Kuwait. Between 1946 and 1961, the country flourishes economically and becomes, for the region anyway, very liberal in its views on culture and religion and stuff. It then gains its independence from Britain and it continues to grow economically. So small little kingdom doing all right for itself.

Incidentally, I was looking at a map here and just getting a lay of the region and I had a really weird moment because I'm so used to looking at maps from the Roman era and I'm used to seeing maps in the modern era. I suddenly had a flash of them over lighting each other. And I realised mentally in my head where I put Kuwait in modern times, it's not actually where I put it on a Roman map for some reason, even though I know it's in the same place. It's like, oh, that's like on the other side of the Ottoman empire rather than, oh, that's just down from Iraq. For some reason in my head, the two things hadn't quite aligned until I looked at that map, and it was really weird.

Anyway, that's an aside. Yeah, so Iraq. Talking of Iraq, had always maintained that this region was actually part of Iraq because Kuwait had been part of the Ottoman province of Basra. Basra is in Iraq. However, the main reason, let's be honest, for the claim was the same reason for the British claim on the region and the reason for the economic success of the country. Oil. Yeah, of course. It's rich. There had been threats of invasion before, and then in 1990, the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, started making moves to do so again.

The Bush administration were aware of this, but didn't treat it as hugely important. There's a lot going on in the world, and this is just Iraq flexing its muscles a bit. After all, Iraq was broke after the Iraq-Iran war of 88. This is clearly a bluff. There were some warnings from experts in the CIA. This might be different, sir. We might need to actually pay attention to this. This guy, Saddam Hussein, is obsessed with expansion, but they were told to be quiet. There's other stuff going on, dammit. Go and sit with Sensible Simon in the corner.

Yeah, the administration were busy with Europe. They were busy with the deficit. They haven't got time to deal with this. Saddam Hussein, meanwhile, gathers his forces on the border of Kuwait. Bush's administration, at this point, realise, OK, we do need to inquire. So Bush calls up the leaders of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, allies in the region. Is this serious? And he gets the reply

from all three Nah, he's bluffing. Don't get involved in Arab affairs. That will just make it worse. Just stay out of it. We're sure it will calm down soon. And then Saddam Hussein invaded with 120,000 men and 850 tanks.

So interesting that pretty much everyone just thought this was a bluff to begin with, including the people in the region. So an emergency meeting was called. Oh dear, this is actually happening, is it? Right. Okay. Well, first of all, let's call out this action as an act of naked aggression. That always sounds good, doesn't it? Yeah, sounds dramatic.

Yes. But let's not commit to anything just yet. We'll see how it pans out. So Bush held a press conference saying exactly that. This is wrong, but we're not doing anything just yet. Many criticised him for being weak and indecisive yet again. But Bush just ignored this. He attempts to kill two birds with one stone instead.

Could he use this crisis to shore up support for closer ties to Russia? So he writes to Gorbachev, how about we work together on this? Show the world that we are now together. We're friends. This is a new era. And this would be huge if it could happen

because Iraq was a Soviet ally and had been since 58. They got most of their weapons from the Soviet Union. Oh. Yeah. So if the Soviet Union come out and say it's wrong, well, this would be a big deal. While waiting for a response,

he met with Thatcher, who was in the country, and she made it clear. If Iraq wins, no small state is safe, she said. Profound words. Yeah. And Bush was very relieved to hear this because that meant that at least one of the leading heads of state was with him in his thinking yeah because there was very little else coming from anywhere else saying that they should do anything well it's far away isn't it i don't have to worry about it uh well um internally yes it's far away, isn't it? I don't have to worry about it. Well, internally, yes, it's far away. But other heads of state were also saying things like, don't get involved.

The heads of Egypt and Jordan both told him that an Arab solution was possible. Don't get involved. If you come over here, it's just going to make things worse. Please don't get involved. The Saudis made it very clear to Bush. They compared Saddam Hussein to Hitler, but then pointed out that Saddam Hussein was worse because he was also crazy, not just homicidal, genocidal. So we need to take him out. So when Bush said, okay, how do we help? The reply came, oh, no, no, no. Now, when we say he needs to be taken out, we don't mean by you. Please don't come over here.

The US coming over here will make things much worse. So... Skip forward 20 years. Yeah. So hearing Thatcher saying that the United States should get involved really cheered him up somewhat. And Britain's close to the Middle East. Yeah.

I mean, they controlled it for all those years They know what they're talking about So effectively as well No problems at all Anyway Bush comes to the conclusion If the United States and Russia were going to forge This new future where they cooperated Bringing peace to the world

How could he allow a dictator to invade Another country at the very start of this New world order What sign would that show So he's determined he's going to do something about this his thinking went even further because he wrote down in his diary things along the lines of if he allows iraq to invade kuwait what's going to stop a future germany invading the rest of Europe and World War III breaking out. Germany's like, hang on, hey, hey, come on. Hang on, hang on, we wouldn't do that. Yeah, too soon, man.

Yeah, so this is where Bush is coming from. He's thinking we need to police the world to keep it peaceful. His advisers were torn. Baker, so his Secretary of State, pointed out that he would be getting into a war, the type of which brought down three of the last five presidents. This will be messy. It'll be long.

It'll be messy. You try and make it look quick and clean, but it's the kind of thing that's going to keep coming back and biting us on the arse for decades to come. No. Go and sit with Sensible Samuel. Yeah. Ruining democracy. Bush was determined by this point, however.

It was the right thing to do, damn it. Saddam Hussein was clearly a crazy dictator, and he is invading other countries. We've got to do something about it. So Bush sends out Baker across the world, trying to get financial support for the upcoming war. And this was successful, shall we say. By the start of the US invasion, Saudi Arabia had pledged $17 billion.

Kuwait had pledged $16 billion. Both countries were convinced that Iraq were coming for them. I mean, Kuwait, obviously, but Saudi Arabia as well. Germany pledged nearly 7 billion. It was their interest to keep the United States happy because they were going to be helping with reunification. And generally any country who saw a financial benefit

to the oil production of Kuwait not being disturbed, put some money in the pot. I'm now going to say a statement that I possibly find the most horrifying thing I've ever written in all of Totalus Rancium. Oh dear. In the end, the United States made a profit on the war. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Oh no. That's a statement that kind of explains a lot since then, doesn't it? Yeah, it's just boiled the last half an hour down into one sentence.

It's just absolutely horrifying. Absolutely horrifying. They go around the world, they take money from countries who are afraid of being invaded, and they make a profit. That's a load's deficit, though, I guess. Excellent, no new taxes. Anyway, we're getting ahead of ourselves. However,

the war hasn't actually started yet. In August of 1990, the United Nations condemns the invasion by Iraq and approves sanctions. This is clearly an awful invasion by a crazy dictator. Shortly after this came the first test. Five oil tankers were heading to Yemen from Iraq to sell oil. So they're going to make money for Iraq, basically. Should the United States destroy them as part of the sanctions? No, maybe confiscate. Well, would it be seen as heavy handed? Would it annoy the Russians,

who were still unsure about these sanctions? And how much force were they allowed to use to enforce the sanctions? It hadn't actually been decided. The United Nations had said yes to sanctions. They hadn't decided how to enforce it yet. And this might be seen as a bit too much. Bush didn't want to ruin anything

that would jeopardise the growing relations with Russia. So he was unsure what to do. Thatcher weighs in again at this point. Can't get rid of her at this point. Seems like she's spending all her time in America. When talking to Bush and hearing about his rationale for letting the tankers go through,

she said, well, alright, George, but it's no time to go wobbly. George was annoyed by this, but he stuck to his guns, however. He would not fire unless the United Nations and the Russians agreed that any force necessary could be used to enforce the sanctions. I'd say that's sensible. Yeah, that is sensible, ignoring Thatcher, who'd have thought it? Milk snatcher.

In the end, it worked. Gorbachev had spoken to Saddam Hussein, had failed to get him to back down, so then, in turn, had backed the UN resolution. Now, by this time, the tankers had passed, so it was a moot point, but Bush saw it all as a win because the United States now had Russia on side,

and in the future, they could enforce sanctions. So, excellent. Much to Bush's annoyance, however, that hard deficit deadline was approaching and it could not be moved. It's about to be a bloody war on, and now I'm going to have to focus on this. Right, okay, can't delay it, so let's talk about this then, I suppose. Now, by now he'd finally publicly admitted he was going to have to break his vow new taxes everyone loved that he tried

to persuade everyone that there used to be a comma and every time he was saying it before i used to say no comma new taxes whilst nodding my head when people that's what he tried to persuade people but no they're having none of it. So what were they going to do? Well, the different parts of the government were coming up with different solutions. Bush and the administration wanted to tax tobacco and alcohol and also cut healthcare for the elderly, Medicare.

Of course, yeah. I can't think of a worse... I just want to be in that meeting Where it's like, what could we do that would Really annoy people and make us look Like heartless b****es Why don't we tax the two most popular things And kill the elderly Yes, I like it

Anyway That was the administration's approach Meanwhile, in Congress, the Democrats wanted to get the rich to pay some more And also raise tax on gasoline The Democrats had realised that in the United States They paid hardly any tax on gasoline compared to the rest of the world It was ridiculously cheap So why don't we just get ourselves in line with everyone

else and then that will almost pay for everything again people are not gonna like that though it's not they like their gasoline in america they do they do better or worse than tobacco and alcohol debatable but at least they're not saying let's kill off the elderly. Yeah, and also you need gasoline to get in the car to go and buy your tobacco and alcohol. Yeah, that's true. And finally, we've got the GOP in Congress. They were in a minority and they were in a bit of turmoil at this time. Lots of infighting. But the far right was still a very strong factor of the party.

And they wanted no new taxes. So what was the plan? No new taxes. Yeah. Yeah, okay, so what's the plan? No new taxes. So they didn't really have a plan, but they knew what they didn't want to do.

So anyway, all of these groups are debating, and that deadline's fast approaching. As they debated, Bush goes to Helsinki to meet Gorbachev once more. They released a joint statement supporting the use of all means to stop Saddam Hussein. So this is unprecedented Soviet and United States declaration working together. It turns out that getting the United States and the Soviet Union to agree on something was far easier than getting Congress to agree on anything, because at home there's still lots of arguing going on. Bush is all too aware that the budget and the war were going to come

to a climax at roughly the same time. This was the worst possible timing for him. So in a bid to speed up the budget talks, he caved to some of the Democrats' demands. And something was bashed out. Restraints on federal spending was put in place. Also a new law that meant that any new spending initiative had to be put through with a new tax or a plan of spending reduction that would actually cover it. One of those things that you go, you mean that wasn't in place before? Yeah. You had to actually say how you were going to pay for something?

Okay. Crazy, crazy. Who would have thought it? Anyway, the budget plan is long and convoluted. I'm not going to go into details. Just know that it's the kind of compromise that works. As in, neither the White House or the Democratic Congress were happy, but neither of them hated it either.

So, yeah, it was kind of working. However, what Bush didn't foresee was an attack from his own party, because the far right revolted. And here we introduce Newt Gingrich. Sounds like a character from Harry Potter.

Well, I have briefly mentioned him before But you might just want to pop him in a volcano He can live there in his lair With a big tank of fresh rabbits Yeah, I mean, obviously people have different political opinions But I think there will be few who would disagree with the statement that his actions are in large part responsible for the mess that US politics is in today. Right.

Yeah. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We are going to come across Newt quite a bit. Now, Newt was part of the far right faction. He was a believer in Reagan tactics. They had worked in the White House and he wanted to get them to work in Congress as well. In other words, talk tough, give nothing, take everything, no compromises. Fair enough. As the GOP's minority leader in the House, he was going to act as if he was the majority leader. He would push forward the far-right plan and just stall everything. If

Congress did not fully agree with him, Congress would grind to a halt and the public would blame the Democrats because the Democrats were in charge. So that was his plan. Now to understand how this works, you need to understand that parties in the United States are not necessarily a unified group in the House. As we have seen you get republicans that disagree with each other a lot you get democrats that disagree with each other a lot now this time the democrats may have more numbers but if gingrich could convince enough dem democrats and republicans to rebel against something he could easily stall progress we have seen this very recently, spectacularly, with Kevin McCarthy. Technically, the Republicans

control the House at the moment, but they can't even get a Speaker in because they are too busy in fighting. So it's a similar sort of situation going on then. Anyway, Gingrich launches an attack on Bush by, at first, privately agreeing to this budget.

So he says he's all for it, he'll vote for it, and his faction will vote for it. So Bush thinks everything's going to go through. And then publicly, without warning, Gingrich comes out and attacks the deal instead of attending the presentation of the budget in the Rose Garden, which he was meant to be at. So he waits until Bush is literally saying to the country, haha, we have solved it. And that's when he says, no, no, you've not. I don't like it. 218 out of the 246 Democrats supported the bill, so almost all of them, but Gingrich had managed to convince 140 out of the 168 Republicans to oppose it. Yeah, a brief shutdown occurs.

Yeah, it's all getting very, very messy in the House. The Democrats saw this internal fight by the GOP as them falling apart, and this means that we can be stronger. So the Democrats go back to the table and say to Bush, we want more. I know we said we were happy with it,

but actually, your party's falling apart and it's not even supporting you. So actually, we want more say. In the end, the bill that did pass looked very much like the one that the Democrats had wanted in the first place. This was seen as a huge loss by Bush. And it all comes from his own party. So, as you can imagine, Bush looked very weak in the public eye, and his popularity plummeted. If only he had something coming up that would, uh, just really raise his public image somewhat. Oh, what's that? Oh, look, there's a war. Yes. But if a war's going to happen, Bush needs a trigger, something to start it off. I mean, yes, Iraq have invaded Kuwait, but that was a while ago now. What's the reason for us right now to start attacking them?

So we need something, the sooner the better. Bush toyed with the idea of sending a rescue mission to rescue 130 diplomats being held by Iraqi forces. Now, the reason why they'd not done this before is because it was deemed as incredibly unlikely to succeed. Yeah. Far too dangerous. But Bush figured that it would probably be enough to get the country well and truly behind an invasion of Iraq if it failed.

Oh. Because diplomats would be killed and the United States troops trying to rescue them would be killed. Yeah, that's right. Bush was actively thinking about sending some US troops to be murdered so he could start the war.

Oh, yeah. No. He shared his idea with who else but Margaret Thatcher. Incidentally, it's strange that we're seeing more of her in this episode than Reagan's episode. She's on her way out by this point, isn't she? Oh, yeah, yeah, very much so.

Yeah, Thatcher didn't like it. Thought maybe that was a step too far. And for her sake, now that it really is. Yeah, when you've got Margaret Thatcher saying, ooh, hold your horses there slightly, she says, stepping over the corpses of some miners and some hungry babies. Yeah, you know that maybe you're going a little bit too far there.

Yeah. So anyway, Bush decides that maybe, no. Thankfully, he realises that's a bad idea. But with nothing triggering the war, Bush was left with the United Nations deadline. Iraq had until the 15th of January of 1991 to withdraw from Kuwait. That would have to be the trigger. Bush started to compare Saddam Hussein to Hitler in his speeches,

obviously trying to... Emotionalise it all. Yeah, yeah, build up support in the country. But his diaries confirm that he genuinely is believing this This wasn't something he was just saying as a tactic He had started to believe that Saddam Hussein was truly evil And the biggest threat to the world at the time In fact, I'll quote the diary here

He not only has to be checked, but punished Now, I mean, it's hard to disagree That Saddam Hussein was a big danger to the politics of the world. He was not a good man, let's put it bluntly. But let's not forget that the United States had also put a lot of not good men into power in various countries. So it's interesting that this was one that Bush really decided

that he's got to go for. Anyway, at this point, Bush decides to use the war to help his lack of control in Congress. So again, we're seeing a little bit of political maneuvering from him here. He puts forward to Congress the decision to abide by the United Nations deadline of the 15th. So in other words, are we going to agree with the United Nations? By this time, the country was fully expecting to go to war. The preparations had been made. The train was moving.

So Congress, even though it is a mess there at the moment, votes its approval. And Bush was able to use this as a win. Look, I've not lost control of the country. Congress is behind me. Which is, which again, it's a little tick in the wind column, but he puts it there anyway. Anyway, the 15th comes and goes. And on the 17th, Operation Desert Storm begins. It's another operation.

Yes, it starts with airstrikes. Do you remember any of this? No. No, nor do I, interestingly. I remember the Berlin Wall coming down, but I don't remember the first Gulf War Anyway Bush was convinced that the Iraqi people

Were going to overthrow their tyrant of a leader Once it was shown That he was going to be defeated by the might of the United States That was the plan Show of force The people overthrow him Job done In fact he privately was worried about showing too much force because it would

look like to the world that they were just bullying this small estate. So it's like there was no doubt in his mind that there was going to be, it was going to be tricky here. It's going to be like Panama. We're going to go in, take it over, leader will fall. Nine hours. What Bush didn't expect was for Saddam, as soon as the bombs started landing on Baghdad, ordered an airstrike on Israel. Oh? Yeah, now this was a clever move. A horrible one, but a clever one.

The politics of the Middle East is convoluted. But some things are easy to sum up. No, a lot of the Arab world did not like or trust Saddam. But they disliked Israel even more. And him attacking Israel just really muddies the political waters at a time where the United States really did not want them to be muddy. If Israel came into the war, those Arab states that were currently supporting the invasion would find it impossible to be on the same side as Israel. Yeah. So, yeah, clever but horrible move.

Yes. Bush immediately sent the Secretary of State to Israel to assure them, please don't get involved. You get involved, it'll just cause a mess in the whole region. Yeah. Where have I heard that before, said Bush to himself. Yeah, so don't get involved. This will mess everything up.

Trust us, we will protect you. So just hold on. Then Bush got a call from Gorbachev. Could you call off the airstrike, please? This show of force is not doing me any good in Russia. In fact, I might get cooed hard and in the face if you keep this up. He says that a lot, doesn't he? He does.

Bush told the Soviet leader that he could not stop. He's started now. It's like going for a wee. You can't stop midstream, can you? It's very hard to stop midstream, yeah. Anyway, the bombing continued and continued and continued. The target list was reduced to rubble. It ran out of things to bomb.

But the people still hadn't overthrown their leader. And that was the plan. In fact, it really wasn't going to plan. The longer the bombing went on, the worse the United States looked to the world as images of dead civilians filled the screens of everyone watching. Yeah. Yeah. They're not breaking, thinks Bush.

A month after it started, Saddam announced that following a visit from a Soviet envoy, he would withdraw his troops from Kuwait. Not giving any credit to the United States for that happening, obviously. It was because a Russian came and told me to do it, honest. Bush was not happy. This wasn't enough for him. He was invested now.

In fact, I'm going to quote him again from his diary. My emotion is not one of elation. We have some unfinished business. How do we solve it? How do we guarantee future peace? I don't see how it will work with Saddam in power. I'm very, very wary. Fortunately for Bush, when the details of the withdrawal were published, it was obviously unrealistic. Amongst other things that were already unrealistic, it included solving the Arab-Israel problem. Just sort out that, and then I'll withdraw my troops. Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course, that would be simple. Bush was able to dismiss it with political ease. Everyone realised that

Saddam was talking nonsense. So, the bombing's not worked. It's time we go in. Ground invasion. A date was put in place, February the 24th. Hours before the deadline, Gorbachev called up and asked for some more time to persuade Saddam to back out peacefully. You don't need to go in. Bush refused again. He stated to Colin Powell.

There we go. There's another name that you should recognize. He's the chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff at the moment Yeah, so he said to Powell that it would be better to crack Saddam under force Than to have a negotiated withdrawal Saddam had to be punished We can't let him walk away peacefully So, the ground invasion starts There was a plan involving troops pulling Iraqi forces into a trap of US, French and British forces.

But this plan just falls apart almost immediately because the United States had overestimated the strength of the Iraqi forces. Over or underestimated? Over. Overestimated? Yeah. The Iraqi forces collapsed immediately and retreated. They collapsed so quickly, they weren't able to funnel the troops into the trap

that they were setting up for them. Right. Yeah. So the United States were able to get into the country at the planned speed, but they were not raking up the victories that would destroy Saddam's support because they couldn't fight the Iraqi forces because they were all legging it.

Yeah, well, yeah. Yeah. Bush found himself in a dilemma. The invasion had worked so well that Kuwait was well and truly liberated. There was no reason to be in the country anymore, according to what he had promised the UAE that he was there to do. He'd achieved all his war goals. So he could now go home and be thankful.

Yeah, however, he was determined that the actual end of the war was the removal of Saddam. That's what his own war goal was. So he was not happy, but he couldn't really do anything about it. He was very frustrated when it dawned on him that he could not continue without looking like the aggressor rather than a liberator so after 100 hours after the invasion began because that's what idiots do sorry i'm just reminded of uh the end of world war one and i'm waiting several hours just so it looked nice and neat on the form oh yeah yeah this 100 hour thing was very arbitrary it was wouldn't it look neat if we say it's 100 hours after we began yeah and i'm assuming people high up in the military said lots of words under their breath.

Yeah. Or maybe choose the sensible time to finish, not one that looks nice on a piece of paper. Yeah. Maybe. Anyway. Our people are dying. Yeah. After 100 hours, dead on, with no other options, Bush was politically forced to claim victory.

You will claim victory. Well, I'll quote him here. Again, the diary. Still no feeling of euphoria. He's got to go. Now, he still had one hope. He hoped that as the defeated forces got back into Iraq properly and got to the capital, the people would realise how

much they'd been defeated. Saddam wouldn't be able to twist this. He's obviously lost the war. And surely they would chuck him out. So that's Bush's hope. His hope is that the Iraqi government would collapse. And it did. A few days later, after the government collapsing, Shiite opponents of the regime led an uprising.

But Saddam was still strong enough to fight back, and the fighting that broke out resulted in around 50,000 deaths. Oh. A further uprising of Kurds then resulted in a further 20,000 deaths. At this point, Britain got in contact with the Americans. Should we be doing something about this? There's a lot of atrocities going on over there. A lot of blood being spilled. Bush and his team got together and they hashed it out.

Well, we could help the Shiites and the Kurds, but if we do that, we'd probably end up with a splintered Iraq. We'd end up with new states in the region. We don't want that. We want Iraq to be there because Iraq keeps Iran in check. Yeah. So, shall we just do nothing? They said.

Yeah, we'll throw the grenade in. Just to see what happens. So, they all just start shuffling their papers and whistle a bit and they all just leave the meeting. I'm sure it'll be fine. I'm sure it'll be fine. It's so far away. Well, we'll support the UN's humanitarian support that's what we'll do yeah yeah back home bush is winning however

it might be awful in iraq at the time for the people who live there but bush is winning his approval rating went to get this 89 89 89 that's ridiculous he had proved to the world that the Eighty-nine percent. Eighty-nine percent? Eighty-nine percent. That's ridiculous. He had proved to the world that the United States was king still. No defeating the US of A. However, as he was soon to realise, this was an inflated poll. People were just caught up in patriotic jingoism. As soon as people started to think about Bush as president rather

than leader of the war, they started to have questions. Things like, do you remember how poorly he did with the budget crisis? And do you remember how he said no new taxes and there's new taxes? This amazing poll soon crashed and crashed hard. Meanwhile, in Russia, Gorbachev was facing problems. He was being cooed hard and in the face. Ah, see, I told you. Yeah, reforms had led to Moscow getting an elected mayor. Leningrad had changed its name back to St. Petersburg. Boris Yeltsin was elected as the new Russian president. All of this was too much for the hardliners in Russia, and a coup took place.

Long story short, it didn't work. Yeltsin took charge. Gorbachev was out. Slovenia and Croatia then declare independence. A war in East Europe starts breaking out. Serbian forces seize the capital of Bosnia. And a lot of messy fighting took place that I'm not getting into in this podcast, but we now have my second memory. I do remember this fighting. I don't remember the First Gulf War, but I do remember the stuff in Bosnia. Yeah, I remember the Bosnian War. Yeah.

It was on Newsround. Yeah, probably. I was about five. Yeah. I had no idea what was going on. I did not understand it. I certainly didn't realise it was all linked to the fall of the Soviet Union, that's for sure. Anyway, Bush and his administration largely stay out of this because...

It's far away. It's far away. Yeah, it makes sense to stay out of it from the United States' point of view. So they do. Anyway, Bush is trying to get re-elected, after all. Yeah. People around him weren't sure whether he should try and get re-elected. Getting a fourth term for the Republicans would be very tricky.

He was getting quite old now. He was approaching 70, and no one could imagine a president in his 70s. Oh, no, that'd be ridiculous. Far, far too old. It'd be ridiculous. So, yeah. But Bush was determined.

He doesn't want to be one of those one-term presidents. They're just embarrassing, aren't they? Can you imagine? So he's going to get re-elected. It was seen as a fool's errand almost from the start. It was, like I say, very hard to get a fourth term in a row for a party. The previous four years, although historic, had not been one of plenty for the average American.

And they were looking at those golden years in the 80s and thinking it was all glorious and full of yuppies and coke uh why why can't we go back to that uh but no um bush was seen as a continuation of the failing of reagan by the left and a traitor of reagan's ideals by the right. So all he really had was the centralists, but the centralists had someone far more charismatic to look towards. The young saxophone playing governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton. I've heard of him.

You've heard of him. Oh yes. Now Bush at first was not convinced he'd struggle against Clinton. The man had a lot of faults. There were plenty of rumors about his womanizing and his general attitude towards women. I mean, it's scandal is going to surround this man and it will surely bring him down, he said to himself, smugly. But as the weeks went on, it would appear that this Clinton fella, he's one of those damn politicians where scandals kind of slip off him without damaging.

That's how greasy he is. It's always weird when you come across these politicians. And my God, have we seen some recently. It's like, why aren't these scandals hitting them? This would have brought anyone else down. But yeah, Clinton's charisma was seeing him through. Bush realised he's definitely got a fight on his hands. After proof of Clinton's infidelity came out, he and his wife Hillary simply went on TV to talk about it. That's not fair. You can't do that.

On-screen marriage counselling? No. Yeah, you're caught cheating on your wife as a politician, you're hauled over the coals and then you're out the race you don't go and admit it on tv and say sorry and then be forgiven god damn it yeah uh much to bush's annoyance if anything this seemed to actually help clinton's uh popularity with the public they saw him him as an imperfect everyman. But, oh, look at this smile and this saxophone. Is that a cigar case in his pocket, or is he just happy to see it? It's not a cigar case.

Oh, okay. Yes. But we don't mind. But we don't mind, apparently. It's fine, said the electorate. Anyway, more on that next time, because we're here to talk about Bush, not Clinton. Anyway, it gets worse for Bush

because this was one of those rare elections where a third candidate came out of the woodwork. This was a businessman billionaire called Perot. Perot? Perot. Didn't look up how to pronounce his name. I'm guessing you don't say the T. But it's American, so I'm going to say Per-ot. Perrot? Perrot. Didn't look up how to pronounce his name. I'm guessing you don't say the T. But it's American, so I'm going to say Perrot. Perrot.

Perrot, yeah. Let's say that, and I'm sure we won't be corrected. Anyway, Perrot was not politically aligned with the far right of the GOP, he said, a lot. But he did like the extreme economic plans they had, so he ran with that. Which a lot of people were interested in. It's like, oh, I can support the extreme economic plans of no taxes,

but I don't have to say that I'm agreeing with the far right of the GOP. Sounds good to me. So he told people he was going to go to Washington. He was going to shake up those politicians, train the swamp kind of thing. And also, strip all those laws that were stripping him from getting richer. Of course, yeah. Yes. I mean, it was very clear that's what he was in it for. He wants people to stop taxing him because he was a billionaire. Anyway, it was a depressing time for Bush as he saw Perot stripping his support away. It became very clear to all that there was no way he could beat Clinton,

especially with three people in the race. And then the LA riots of 92 happened. It's a real feeling that the country was falling apart after the glory of the 80s, that some fault had happened. Yeah. I should probably stress at this point, this idea that everyone thought the 80s was great in america is not true there are a lot of people who weren't rich businessmen getting richer

in the 80s in fact almost all americans uh but there was definitely this idea that the 80s were a good time based in the social consciousness uh and it really does seem to have come to an end people felt um i'm not going to go into the LA riots because it didn't really affect things too much, but that was depressing. How much do you know about the LA riots? Absolutely nothing at all. Oh, nothing at all. Oh, it's race riots again. Oh. Oh.

We're done by now. Yes. No, surprisingly, racism's not been fixed yet. I can only assume it happens in the next few episodes. Policemen were let off after beating Rodney King to death. Oh, that rings a bell. Yeah, because they were let off.

The city rioted. Military called in and all sorts. Yeah, it's not helping make Bush's America look like a good place anyway. In the end, Bush loses to Clinton 37% to 43% in the national vote. Perot gets 19%.

So that's actually quite high there. It really was almost like a three-way race, although he wins none of the electoral college seats. Yeah. Bush gets 30 of them. Clinton gets 168. So well and truly defeated. Bush had gone from a president with an 89% approval rating to losing an election in just

over a year. And nothing major had happened within that year. No. It really was a fall from grace. Anyway, Bush then goes on to feature in our story quite a bit more. Because, obviously, he is the father of the future President Bush. Eight years time. Yeah, I'm just going to stop talking about him

there. I will mention he died really quite recently in 2018 after we started this podcast. Struggle with Parkinson's. But I won't mention anything else he did after his presidency at all because he'll be popping up in our story once more. So there you go. That is George H.W.

Bush. Daddy Bush. Anything to say before we judge him? Um, no. Fair enough. Let's do it. Statesmanship. Okay, so statesmanship, good. He handled the fall of the Soviet Union well.

He did. Now, it's easy to say that it would have happened regardless, but Gorbachev needed enough support, but not too much support from the United States, in order to not be cooed hard and in the face. And Bush and his administration seemed to thread that needle fairly well. Yeah, I'd agree. Yeah. Was he responsible for winning the Cold War?

Because, I mean, it's over now. Well, obviously not, no. No more than Reagan was. But, just like Reagan, he was an mean, it's over now. Well, obviously not, no. No more than Reagan was. But, just like Reagan, he was an important factor in it. Yeah. So he should get some points in statesmanship, I would argue. If you supported the war in Iraq, it was a relatively clean and quick war that achieved its publicly stated aims. And then it ended.

Yeah. You could argue, along with Panama, that the wars were quick and ended. Yeah. You could argue, along with Panama, that the wars were quick and efficient. Yeah. And didn't have a sort of goal stretch. No. What's that called? Creep, that's it.

Yeah. Now, from a United States perspective, this is good. You could argue you should get some points here. From a humanitarian one, the deaths of tens of thousands of people due to the fallout of the war, not so good. You could argue you should get some points here. From a humanitarian one, the deaths of tens of thousands of people due to the fallout of the war, not so good. No.

Not so good. No. Really could have handled coming out of that war a little bit better. I think so. You could argue. I'm sure the Red Cross had something to say afterwards. Yes, definitely. So mixed bag, shall we say, on that one.

More solid ground here, though. He was bipartisan. Yes. He realised that compromise was needed in government, and he was willing to give and take. This made sure that the government functioned. Yeah. So, yeah, genuinely impressive. He also worked in the House in the United Nations.

He was an ambassador to China, remember, and he was the vice president before becoming president. So he did a lot of being a statesman. Bad. It only came out afterwards, but he let his personal feelings cloud his judgment in the Iraq war. He didn't listen to international advice and forced the war to happen. He was told by several leaders of states it would be a bad idea to go in. It would cause more trouble than it's worth. And he just ignored it. Obviously, this is not to say that Saddam Hussein was not in the wrong. He was very much in the wrong invading Kuwait in the way that he was. But let's be honest here.

If Kuwait wasn't a Western-friendly, oil-rich state, this war would not have happened. Saddam was a brutal dictator. But like I said a moment ago, it's not like the world didn't have many brutal dictators, many of whom were put there by the CIA. So, yeah, you've got to question the motives of this war. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Invading Panama.

I mean, that's not great, is it? Invading Panama to take out a dictator who you put there and paid to be there just really sums up the United States foreign policy post-war, doesn't it? Yeah. It wasn't George Bush that put him there, was it? No. He'd been there a few decades, isn't he? Yeah. But I mean, this is bad, but it's also no worse than we've seen a lot of recently. Pretty much all post-war presidents have been up to this kind of thing. He's often been criticised for his handling of the economy and the saving and loans crisis. But actually, to be honest, I've got a lot of sympathy for him here.

The far right of his party had enough control that he was handcuffed to the Reagan policies that had actually caused the problem. Reagan to this day is generally seen as a president who handled the financials of the country brilliantly, and Bush is seen as weak on the economy. I really think that's unfair. It is unfair, yeah. Yeah, so I'm not going to knock points off him for this one. Or at least I wouldn't if it wasn't for the fact that

he was the vice president and publicly supported these policies. But he agreed to, didn't he, though, with Reagan? He did agree to, but he had personal doubts. He didn't think Reagan's economic plans were going to be good for the country, but he supported them anyway because he wanted to be vice president. Now, you can call that loyalty or you can call that weak. You can call it both the world is a complex place uh so what do you think statesman how good of a president was he i'm thinking around the four mark oh you're going quite low well i was thinking between four and

five but i think the way the iraq was handled as president, the fact they made a profit from it, again, really bad. That is really bad, isn't it? But I can't think of how better he could have navigated everything else in the presidency as well. So maybe I'm being slightly harsh. What were you thinking? I was thinking more like six, because I think for America, he was actually a good president he was handed a bad it he got a

rough deck uh it was not an easy time to be the president and i think he did about as good as he could with his internal policies and everything he did for america there yeah um his external stuff i mean he handled russia really well yeah but i'm the way he almost gleefully jumps into the war with iraq though just yeah you gotta take points off oh definitely if you're the leader of a country uh why are you why are you doing that war and i mean is it a coincidence that uh he worked in the oil business for so long? And, oh, what's this huge support for Kuwait with all its oil ties? It just doesn't seem good, does it? So, yeah, I'm going to go.

No, I'm going five. I'm going middle of the road. I'll go five as well. That's ten. Five, ten. Okay. This is crazy. Okay, we really don. That's ten. Five, ten, okay. Disgrace! Okay, we really don't have much here.

No, not really. He was part of the Iran Contra scandal. He was not a major player, however. But he knew what was going on. He knew that it was illegal. He liked the public about it. That, to me, shows

a bad character, shall we say yeah uh but as we covered in previous episodes he's really free of personal scandal he seems a bit a bit of a weak politician potentially but a decent bloke potentially yeah i out of all the presidents we've covered he's got to be up there and definitely in the top 10, maybe in the top five of just nice people, or at least so he comes across. He could have a meal with them. Yeah, he doesn't seem very scandal-like. He doesn't seem horrible, a bit spineless in politics, maybe. And he didn't stand up for his own beliefs, as you'd like.

He got into bed with people he disagreed with. But is that really worthy of points? No, because it's not a scandal. I'm going to give him a point for being a minor player in the Iran-Contra scandal. Maybe two.

One for agreeing to do it. Two for lying to the public. Yeah, I'm going to go for two. I'm going to go for zero because I think the two's enough. Fair enough. Okay, that is two for Disgrace Gates.

Silver Spoon. Would you watch the H.W. Bush film or miniseries? He was born into a rich family. He has, like, summered on boats and things like that. It's been a while since we've had a Silver Spooned born-into-a-rich-family kind of guy. He did okay at school, but then World War II starts. Remember, he's still being educated when that starts.

So he signs up. He's just old enough to be trained. He meets his future wife, Barbara. He goes to basic training and he learns to fly. And then he got engaged to Barbara and then he heads off to war. I mean, all of this is very good on film, isn't it? Tearful goodbyes on the train station kind of thing. Then he is shot down in the Pacific.

Yeah. He's shot down. He's got to jump out of his plane. The two people with him die, but he survives. He's about to be picked up and made a prisoner of war, but he is saved just in time by a submarine and he goes and lives in the submarine for a while.

Again, you'd watch that. He makes it back to the naval aircraft carrier. More missions happen. He survives. He heads home, and he gets married, and the war ends. He then goes to Yale, married and with children, so it's a bit unusual. He finishes Yale.

Not many stories from this time period, but he didn't want to go into banking like everyone was telling him to. He was going to make his own way, damn it. So he went off to Texas with nothing but a huge bundle of cash from his family. But apart from that, nothing at all. Going to make his own fortune. Yeah, he starts an oil company. He and Barbara's daughter dies, remember, in the first episode.

All very sad. He is successful enough that he's courted by the political parties he wants to be a moderate Republican but the far right are on the rise so he sides with them. Bush then loses a race for the Senate decides to run for the House and he wins and off to Washington he goes

he works in the House for several years he decides to go for the Senate again and loses again so he works for the UN then he works as an ambassador to China. So that might be interesting, going to China. You get to see all of that stuff. He's riding around on his bicycle around the city a lot. And his room's booked.

You might get some fun stuff out of that. Then he becomes the head of the CIA. That would be interesting. That would be very cool. And we can make up stories for that period that we don't really know much about. It's fine. Then he runs for president, but Nixon beats him in the primary. So he becomes the vice president instead.

He is very loyal, despite disagreeing with the man personally. And then he becomes president, and he tries to weather the storms left by his predecessor. You've got the fall of the Soviet Union and you've got the Iraq War. And then you have him losing to Clinton. I think that'd be a really good film or series to watch. It would be good. And let's be honest, I know we don't rate him really on post-president life and stuff,

but let's not lose sight of the fact that his son then becomes the president. I mean, that's going to be factored in as well. A lot of stuff happens. It is an interesting life. I don't think it's going to be up there at the highest. I'm thinking around 8, though. Oh, you're going as high as 8? I was thinking more 7.

I think with everything going on, it's going to be quite dramatic of this, and now, then, this, and this, and everything at home. Yeah, that's true. You've got all the oil stuff in there, and you... Actually, yeah, that's true. You've got all the oil stuff in there. Actually, yeah, you know what? You've persuaded me, and I'm just looking at my list again. That is a lot of stuff, a lot of different stuff.

It is an interesting life. And his presidency is short, but lots of stuff happens. All that in four years. Yeah, okay. I'm going to go for eight as well. Okay. Let's say 16. Okay. What's his official portrait look like? There's a painting of a painting. Oh, my goodness like there's a painting of a painting oh my goodness

there's a painting of a painting he's stood in front of um yeah that's that's grant isn't it yeah it's yeah it's a famous painting we even looked at it uh during grant's episode i'm sure we did uh i think they are is is that self giving up or is that them planning uh i can't remember anyway we're not supposed to be looking at the painting in the painting. Well, I think the one on the right is painting a painting. No, no, no, because I know the painting. We just keep saying the word painting. He's just gesturing with his hand.

I think Lincoln might be in that, but you can't see him. Right, I need to look up that painting. Hang on a sec. It's the Peacemakers. That's what it's called. Yes. Interestingly, now that I can see the actual full painting uh you can't see grant even though we both said there's a painting of grant behind him because that guy you can see is not grant uh it just looks like

a little bit of him that elbow you can see is lincoln and then grant is behind bush's head no yeah you're right i can see it now yeah No, yeah, you're right. I can see it now. Yeah. So there you go. I mean, I'm very impressed that there is a painting of a painting in the painting. But we should be looking at Bush. Bush is looking happy to be standing next to a painting and a globe. And he's got a piece of paper in his hand that probably says no new taxes on it. Oh, definitely.

Definitely. Yeah. His suit is very black. Very dark. It's a very black suit. It's got a red tie. The globe looks very realistic very black, very dark. It's a very black suit. It's got a red tie. The globe looks very realistic. It's very shiny.

It does. It's the most realistic thing in the painting. Yeah, oddly so, because the chair doesn't look realistic. It's like they couldn't be bothered. Right, so just him, I'd be thinking middle marks. It's a guy in a suit holding a piece of paper. I mean, he could just be, be like coming in with a telegram and just asking for directions or something couldn't he however as a whole painting i'm

giving bonus points for the painting of the grant and lincoln in the background even though you can't see them yeah definitely uh yeah i like the fact i saw it and went i know that painting that was good so i'm i'm gonna i'm gonna give him a few bonus points I'm going to go up to 7 I will match that 3.5 for canvas ability Okay, and he gets 1 point for terms No one tried to kill him No points

And he gets 1 point for election He won but was not a landslide So that's a score of 29.5 for Daddy Bush. He's probably going to be disappointed in that. Not getting him to the 30s club. No, but I say that was very fair, considering he's often laughed at. I don't think he's laughed at.

I think people see him as a decent but not great president, I think. So I think that score probably puts him where he is usually judged. Again, I think I was surprised just because I always think of his son and I just assumed he would be very much like his son. Maybe he is. Maybe we'll have a very different impression of Dobbyer when we get to him. But that's for a future time because that's not next. Because next up we have Bill Clinton.

The Clintmaster. That's what he calls himself, probably. It's going to be an interesting one, Bill Clinton. I think so. I get a feeling. Yeah. Do you know much about Bill? Only bits and pieces as in his personal life.

Yeah. I feel like we'll have stronger opinions on his personal life than we have with George H.W. Bush. I definitely think that. But that is not this time. It is next time. So for now, we will say thank you very much for listening. No, no, we forgot. We forgot the most important round, Jamie.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Of course course is that because it's a foregone conclusion let's find out no i was gonna say yeah you ever saw the fall of the you ever saw the fall of the soviet union it was the first you know it was happening in the east with sadami saying that kicked off everything that's happened that we're still living with. He's a nice guy. I think, you know, he did his best in a really tricky time. I think it needs consideration. Okay, I'll consider

it. I'm going to count to five in my head and really think about it. No. Okay, five. Yeah, it's just not it's not good enough i mean there's not enough there for me to go yes that really impressed me or that was really interesting or he almost died in a plane crash yeah no it's good it is good okay maybe i was i was quick with my no maybe i didn't need to say no quite so quickly.

Maybe I should have considered it for a while. But I'm still going to say no. Okay, well, I'll bow down. Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah, okay then. That is a no from us.

He is not an American. But he wasn't an awful president. No. Apart from some awful things. but we've seen worse let's put it like that uh yes so right anyway now we can say goodbye then so thank you very much for listening thank you for downloading us where you download us as well it's really helpful yes we are appearing on november the 4th at intelligent speech this this year. Yay! So go and get tickets. Use Totalus as a code and you'll get 10% off the tickets.

You can watch us live or you can watch us after the event because you'll have access to all the recording. There's going to be lots of people from lots of podcasts there talking about interesting things all day long. So go to intelligentspeech.com and you'll be able to find your tickets there. Is there anything else we need to say? No. Oh, we're doing Didius Julianus, by the way.

Oh yeah, that famous American president. Yes, he was an American president from 1642 to 1683, I believe. Yes. Yes, you can find more facts about about him if you come along and listen. Right, anyway, we really are going to say goodbye this time, so thank you very much for listening.

Goodbye. Goodbye. I'm not coming out. I refuse to come out. I refuse to come out. You have to come out. I'm the orders of the president. No, stay. Staying in here.

You will exit the building, or we're going to play the song. What? What do you mean you're going to play the song? The song that will make you come out. So come out now before we play it. You can't play anything that won't make me come out. You sure about that? Yes, I've been micro-dosing myself with Guns N' Roses.

Been listening to five seconds a day for the last month. No rock music will scare me. Then prepare yourself. What is this? Ha! I laugh at the face of this. Are you ready? That's odd Does it usually go pop there? Not this version There is no resolution to this song

Unless you come out of that building What? Come out of the building And you will hear the resolution and the pop No What are you doing? Come out of the building and you will hear the resolution and the pop! No! What are you doing? Where's the pop? Where's the pop? God damn it, man! Make it pop! Make it pop!

You know the terms. Fine! I'm coming out! I'm coming out! Just for the love of everything please, for the love of God, make it pop, make it pop, make it pop, okay I'm here, here, just make it pop. Oh, thank you.