The Cellar - Is there anybody out there............

......although reading these once again makes my gills turn green:

President George W. Bush

Saturday, November 4, 2000
San Francisco Chronicle

Stung by the disclosure of his 1976 drunken-driving arrest and his effort to keep it secret, George W. Bush went on the offensive yesterday, calling the reports an example of ``dirty politics.''

Bush was arrested while returning to his parents' home in Kennebunkport while accompanied by his sister, tennis star John Newcombe and Newcombe's wife. Bush's blood alcohol level was found to be 0.10. The legal limit in California is 0.08.

It was also revealed that the Texas governor had himself removed from a 1996 jury pool in a drunken-driving case after it became apparent that he would be asked under oath whether he had ever been arrested for a similar offense.

The Dallas Morning News disclosed that two years ago one of its reporters asked Bush whether he had been arrested since 1968. ``No,'' the governor responded, according to the paper.

President George H.W. Bush (like Son, like Father)

Republican National Convention, 1988

“And I'm the one who will not raise taxes. My opponent now says he'll raise them as a last resort, or a third resort. But when a politician talks like that, you know that's one resort he'll be checking into. My opponent, my opponent won't rule out raising taxes. But I will. And The Congress will push me to raise taxes and I'll say no. And they'll push, and I'll say no, and they'll push again, and I'll say, to them, ‘Read my lips: no new taxes.’ “

At the end of June,1990, Bush released a statement stating that "it is clear to me that both the size of the deficit problem and the need for a package that can be enacted require all of the following: entitlement and mandatory program reform, tax revenue increases, growth incentives, discretionary spending reductions, orderly reductions in defense expenditures, and budget process reform."

President Richard M. Nixon

Washington Post Sunday, November 18, 1973

Orlando, Fla, Nov. 17 -- Declaring that "I am not a crook," President Nixon vigorously defended his record in the Watergate case tonight and said he had never profited from his public service.

"I have earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life I have never obstructed justice," Mr. Nixon said.

"People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got.

Under pressure of certain impeachment, Nixon, on August 8, 1974 said on national television:

“Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office.”

Shortly thereafter, President Gerald R. Ford interrupted due process by stating:

Now, therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from July (January) 20, 1969, through August 9, 1974.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this eighth day of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and seventy-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and ninety-ninth.
Gerald R. Ford - September 8, 1974