What It Takes

by Richard Ben Cramer

  The horrifying fact was, he didn’t know any other way. He was using everything he ever knew—and some things he wished to God he knew better ... but all he had to go on, all he could bring to the job, was his own life before he hit the bubble. And God knows, he was spending it—pouring it out, to do this job. Mr. Smooth was working his withered old buns off.

  And heaven help the fellow with whom George Bush did not want to be friends—especially if that fellow happened to run some small troublemaking nation, one of those “little wiener countries.” The personal coin, like any other, had two sides.

  Manuel Noriega, the Panamanian strongman, was once an informant to DCI Bush. In the eighties, Bush knew him as one of the Reaganoids’ unsavory anticommie pals. By ’86, when Noriega’s goons started killing off his opponents, the General became an embarrassment—even to the Gip. Worse still, though the Reaganoids blustered—the Justice Department indicted the General, in a U.S. court in Florida—Manuel Noriega refused to leave power! Worse still, Noriega had shown his most cheeky recalcitrance in the middle of George Bush’s campaign.

  Noriega may not have known, but his life was dogfood. He made his great mistake December 15, 1989, eleven months into George Bush’s term. An off-duty U.S. Marine was shot by Noriega’s troops at a roadblock in Panama. At that same roadblock, a Navy lieutenant and his wife were arrested, the man was beaten up, the woman was threatened with sexual assault ... and that was the end. George Bush was once a young Navy lieutenant, with a young wife ...

  The next day, a Sunday, George Bush broke away from his Christmas Party and went upstairs to the White House residence to hear the Pentagon’s plans for invasion. Bush had on his bright red socks, one of which said “Merry,” and one of which said “Christmas.”

  Twenty-four thousand U.S. troops would destroy Panama’s force of sixteen thousand (only three-thousand Panamanians were considered “combat-ready”). The U.S. would take over the country, depose its government, swear in the new guy, and prop him up while he cleaned up the mess. As for Noriega, they meant to snatch him, and bring him to Miami for trial, like a street criminal.

  “Okay,” Bush said. “Let’s go.”

  Two years later, there would be millions of words expended about the “emergence” of the Warrior Bush in the Persian Gulf. There would be foreign-affairs dissertations about the way he made himself the linchpin of a worldwide alliance against Iraq. There would be high-level semiotic analysis of the steps by which Bush personalized the war—turned it into a crusade against one man, Saddam Hussein, whom Bush used (so the savants said) as the focus for public enmity, to build support for a war about oil.

  Two years later, even Washington people well known to be in-the-know were amazed (and not a little horrified) to discover the miracle of combat-ardor in this friendly, well-bred President Bush.

  But George Bush found the leitmotiv of his administration on Christmas Eve, 1989. He needed no calculation to personalize his combat—or the conduct of alliance. What it took was a lifetime’s training—and he had nothing else to throw at a crisis.

  U.S. troops shot up Panama in a hurry. They controlled all the strong points and the city streets. They held the water and electric plants, the canal, the bridges and airports. The invasion went better than any God-fearing man would have dared to hope. It was over in one night. By the time the U.S. news crews got there, Panamanians were celebrating in the streets.

  But no Noriega.

  The second day, the news crews showed looting. And no Noriega.

  The third day, weeping Panamanian widows, wounded Americans! Snipers, still firing! ... And no Noriega.

  George Bush had sent twenty-four thousand young Americans in harm’s way—twenty-three servicemen were dead. Bush had gone on TV and said the purpose of this extravaganza was ... to get Noriega.

  And he had no Noriega.

  The fifth day was Sunday, Christmas Eve ... the President and family had gathered at Camp David ... and George Bush was wound so tight that his back seized up—he was hunched, walking like a hundred-and-eight-year-old man. Where was that sonofabitch Noriega? Was he headed for the hills like Augusto Sandino? Was George Bush going to spend months—years?—greeting body bags at Dover AFB?

  It got so bad with Bush’s back, he couldn’t even play sports with his sons. He didn’t sideline easy when a game was on the line, but ... Mr. Smooth couldn’t even stand up.

  So it came to pass, that Christmas Eve, Bush was standing on the white-tiled balcony of the squash court. (The game at hand was wally-ball—a volleyball, rocketing around a closed court—fast, and rough.) And all Bush could do was watch his sons, George W., Jeb, Neil, and Marvin, dividing into teams, with a couple of Marines, contesting for the wally-ball championship of the Camp, and the clan. It was a tight match—hard fought, long, and near its brutal climax ... when the phone on the balcony rang.

  George Bush talked on the phone for a minute ... and then he was back at the rail of the balcony. Suddenly six-foot-two again, looming on his clean white perch over the white court, George Bush held up one hand to still the game below.

  “Noriega,” he said, “has given up to the Papal Nuncio in Panama.”

  And with that, the entire male line of the Bush clan let the ball bounce to standstill on the gleaming white floor, and ... looking up at the white balcony, applauded their father, who had become President.

  In 1991, after the Persian Gulf, when Bush was over eighty percent in the polls, Dick Gephardt was deciding not to run for President. He couldn’t pull the trigger—couldn’t leave the House, not after he’d stood for a full term as Leader. Reporters and wise guys came after Dick, demanding an answer: Why don’t you run? Gephardt shot back: “Why don’t you run? You talk about it like it’s goin’ across the street for lunch!” He was uncharacteristically snappish. He made the smart move, but it didn’t feel quite right. What he’d lost was a matter of attitude: Do it now! That, and a certain faith. “It’s just kind of an accident who you get. The system doesn’t work too well.”

  I saw Joe Biden early in ’92. People were trying to get him to run, too. Joe didn’t even nibble. He was doing what he wanted. We were in his house—scaffolding everywhere outside, workmen in masks and hardhats appearing in the windows like moon-people. The gutters gave out, see, and the drainpipes, fabulous copper, were set into the walls between courses of brick ... anyway, it was a lot of work. But these days, Joe just sat and let his insurance pay contractors to do what they could do. Biden said he was content with the house, couldn’t think of moving with the market so rotten ... except, maybe—he’d been thinking this out—maybe he and Jill could get a place in Washington ... get involved with the life of the capital, outside of work. Might be important—you know, for people-in-the-know to get to know him better.

  Dole went out to Topeka for Kansas Day, January 29 ... and the press jumped him. It’d been more than a year he’d been playing footsie about reelection. He had a press conference. “So ... you running?” Dole made his one-word announcement: “Yes.” He’d been hanging back because his doctors told him he had prostate cancer. But he’d had his operation, and they got it—every bit. He also announced he’d be campaigning in each of the 105 Kansas counties—and maybe a bit around the country, too. Who could tell? Might hit a hot streak, things could happen ... might pick up a couple of seats, get up around forty-six, forty-seven votes, he could do some things—might not be bad. A few nights later, he went on Larry King, promoting early detection for prostate problems. A caller asked if Dole would run for President again. Said the Bobster: “Never say never.”

  Dukakis was not a man to give up easily. But the comeback never took root in the poisoned last two years of his term, and he finally had to concede, the Massachusetts Miracle was dead—the state was in a slump. In ’92, Michael took a job lecturing at Florida Atlantic University, which put him and his bride near their special place—Tyke and Viv’s in Fort Lauderdale. Kitty was training to become a substance-abuse counselor. She’d fou
ght through ups and downs, a couple of them horribly public ... but she fought on. She said now, she never would have survived if they’d won the White House, if she’d had to live her life on display. Michael thought about speaking out, during the new campaign, to defend Bill Clinton. Somehow, the Clinton people never spotted just the right opportunity for him. ... Occasionally, there’d be a story about them—Michael and Kitty—or you’d see them on TV, side by side in beach chairs ... he looked a bit grayer, she looked fragile. She didn’t say much in the interviews. Michael always said, they were fine.

  Hart’s book came out the end of ’91—it traced the ideas that propelled Mikhail Gorbachev to greatness. But alas, the same week the book came out, the Moscow coup marked the beginning of the end for Gorby. The New York Times did not see fit to review Hart’s book, but poked fun in a bottom-of-the-page editorial. The Washington Post ran a box on the front of the Style section, with the headline: GARY HART’S SECOND MISTAKE. Of course, Hart got hundreds of calls when the press (led by the tabloid Star) started snouting out Bill Clinton’s Karacter. But he ducked the questions.

  They were still having parades for Desert Storm, in the summer of ’91, when the White Men and the pundits started pecking on Bush to get out there—start thumping the tub for four more years! He had to get a campaign team in place, get down to business in the states—polls were slipping with the economy—he had to define himself, make some speeches ... that kind of thing. He delayed. He didn’t want to turn to it. Didn’t want to turn himself over. Shouldn’t have to. Of course, he had to.

  When he did, of course, it wasn’t enough. People said the new team wasn’t good enough—faceless white people. Atwater was dead, alas; Ailes wouldn’t play this time; no Jimmy Baker, he was busy at State; Fuller was out of the loop, successful as the head of a consulting firm (like his predecessor, Dan Murphy, and his successor, John Sununu: they were all well known to know the President) ... people thought the President’s speeches didn’t pack any punch, so they sacked the speechwriters and gave Bush new words to prove he cared about the recession ... for a while, with Pat Buchanan raising cain, and the polls in a terrible swoon, Bush was riding Air Force One everywhere across the South, yelling at rallies—vows and threats ... but people said that wasn’t Presidential, so he stayed in the White House again. He didn’t look well. For God’s sake, he puked on his pal, Miyazawa. The White House doctor diagnosed hypertension. He said Bush never got a chance to unwind.

  The odd thing was, you didn’t hear a word anymore about that friendly, eager, granddad-goofy George Bush ... who was so nice. There were no more stories about his horseshoes, his speedboat, his wave-washed rocks (a storm made a wreck of the big house in Maine) ... no sneaking out to the movies, Peking duck at the mall, no ... tours of the third floor, pictures on the Lincoln Bed, tourist-greetings at the White House gates, no ... nor phone calls to his thousands of friends, to keep him in touch with the world. What world? This poor bastard was so cut off, he didn’t know from supermarket scanners! Or so the papers said. Marlin Fitzwater had to screw a statement out of Bush, that he did know scanners. A White House communiqué affirmed, the President had seen a supermarket.

  In the spring of ’92, I checked with Bob Boilard in Maine. Bush did call. “Let’s go fishing!” So they did. Boilard raced out there, and Bush came out in his boat, with the Secret Servicemen and Brent Scowcroft—Bush always had Scowcroft along now, like a Pocket New World Order Doll. There were chase boats, and the chopper, boats from the press cutting four-foot wakes, tourists making noise like fireboats—There he is! Eeeeeeeeeeeee! Eee Eee Eeeeee! The nearest sentient fish had to be three miles away. After twenty minutes, Bush had to go. It’s tough to have friends when you’re the President ... and they’re trying to take it away.

  You do things you have to do. Nothing personal. He’d look better once he had an opponent in the crosshairs.

  Bush did give one interview before he dived back inside the bubble. He told the celebrated David Frost that he would do anything—whatever it took—to win again. It caused a lot of comment. It did sound kind of hard-edged. People wondered ... why would he say a thing like that?

  Afterword

  Just Like Us

  Another election is past. George Bush lost big time—32 states—enough to send the pundits into anthems on the dawn of an era, the Age of Baby Boom Action, a new national alignment. For months after the vote, there was a hint of warmth on the national breeze, the sense that collective action might transpire, perhaps even for the common good. Bill Clinton’s inauguration capped a national festival of self-congratulation. America, it was said a thousand times, had once again shown its genius for renewal, had reached boldly for a brighter future.

  But like any election that involves a sitting President, the campaign of ’92 was fought as a referendum on the term past—on him.

  That’s why Bush didn’t think he could lose.

  It wasn’t just the polls, though no President (no grownup boy in a suit) could stay numb to 90 percent approvals more than halfway through his term. People liked, trusted, admired George Bush—that seemed to him not unreasonable. He felt he’d handled the job, kept the Great White Ship off the rocks. He’d done the sound thing at every alarum that blared from the squawkbox on the bridge. And when the fuel of the Ship (Mideast oil) was at stake, Captain Bush seized ferocious command, as if born to the helm—which he was.

  In his summer of triumph after Desert Storm, he told me in the Oval Office: “I don’t think anyone who really knows me is surprised by how this came out.”

  He meant, I think, anyone who knew of the Wise Men in whose time he came of age: they were guardians of world order, as he had newly proclaimed himself. He meant, I’m sure, anyone who knew his genius for friendship, how he worked at it every day, how he counted on friends in the crunch. He meant, too, anyone who knew his fever to win—every game as bloodsport, every contest personal—it was always personal with George Bush. ... He meant, in sum, that this was the triumph of his Presidency and his life. This victory of global proportion (so it was then described) was achieved by him, by his own life’s method.

  And he was right. There was no other President who could have built the world coalition against Iraq ... because there was no other President (maybe no other man on the planet) thirty of whose friends just happened to run countries.

  But alas, in his last eighteen months, when confronted by problems of systemic failure, or collective unfairness—the slump in the U.S. economy, the riots in Los Angeles—Bush had only the same personal coin with which to pay his way. Suddenly, he seemed every bit as clueless as his political opponents contended.

  He couldn’t snap a pic on the Lincoln bed for everyone from South Central L.A. He couldn’t send Christmas cards to nine million unemployed. He couldn’t make sense of his refusal to gear up the government to help. He couldn’t even make stick his claim that he was hamstrung: Wasn’t he the Caesar of the Gulf?

  The obvious conclusion was that Bush didn’t get it—and that, to his eternal regret, was the claim that stuck. His gee-whiz at the supermarket scanner was just the start of a sorry mudslide. He claimed (for a year!), to a chorus of public jeers, that there was no recession. When at last he admitted there was a recession, he insisted at the same time that we were pulling out of it. When some friend finally beat into his skull that woe was upon the land and persistent, Bush burst out of the White House to affirm that neither he nor the U.S. would be beaten down. But the line that he double-thought out of his mouth was: “Don’t cry for me, Argentina!”

  Other friends adjured him to show he felt the pain of the common man. But by that time Bush was reduced (like old Dutch Reagan before him) to reading from “talking points” that someone stuck in his hand. These notes were supposed to shock-start some long-stunned synapse in his brain. Bush instead read them word for word. “Message: I care.”

  The cruel joke was, of course, he did care—enough to spend half his life trying to do something great for
the Republic. In November ’92, when four out of five Americans told pollsters their President “didn’t care” about people like them, George Bush was, at that moment, proposing to give up his last, most active years on the planet to prove he could be the President who made them glad of their vote.

  In the end, we lost all sight of that avid George Bush, who’d spend himself so personally (and so promiscuously) to the point of exhaustion. We only saw the exhaustion. Despite (maybe because of) the millions of words, thousands of soundbites, that issue from the West Wing over the course of four years, the guy inside the suit behind the desk in the Oval Office disappears altogether. The White House is the thickest and shiniest bubble of all.

  It’s not just that we can’t see him. From the White House, he can’t see anything outside.

  Why didn’t Bush get it?

  Well, the White House was running like a top! Everyone who walked into his office had a wonderful job—and all were excited by the swell things they were doing for the country and its people. Every microphone over which he peered had a thousand faces upturned to his, ready to cheer his every applause line. If he left Washington, every tarmac on which Air Force One touched down had a line of prosperous people in suits, to pump Bush’s hand and tell him things were, we were, he was ... great!

  By that time, Bush had lived in the bubble for fifteen years straight. By that time, it was apparent, he couldn’t see us at all. It’s an easy slide to the notion that he must not have tried to see out.

  Presidents do try. Compare the portraits of Presidents-elect—those powerful men in their prime—to the gray, aged figures who wave good-bye from the helicopter steps on the South Lawn ... we can all see the toll of trying.

  Bill Clinton, with his lively understanding of what brought him to the Oval Office, has been vowing several times a week that he will not be swallowed, and will not go blind in the fog. Still, it was two days into his term when The New York Times noted “much talk about how Mr. Clinton, once so attuned to his middle-class constituency, seemed to have lost touch with popular opinion.” The new President is fighting back. As I write, he’s recovering from his latest bus trip, this to thump the tub for his tax plan.