Adjectives That Describe George W Bush George W Bush Clip Art

Vice President George H.Westward. Bush-league accepts the Republican nomination for president in 1988. In that voice communication, he laid out a hope that he would after break, hurting his chance at re-ballot and changing his political party. AP hide explanation

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Vice President George H.W. Bush accepts the Republican nomination for president in 1988. In that spoken language, he laid out a promise that he would later break, pain his gamble at re-ballot and changing his party.

AP

Rarely have six words meant so much, then many unlike things, to and so many.

They rang out in the Superdome in New Orleans in August 1988 as the vice president of the United States, George H.Westward. Bush, accepted the Republican nomination for president:

"Read my lips: no new taxes."

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And the crowd, as they say, went wild. A roar had been building, even in that vast and airy stadium, as Bush built upward to his payoff line:

"My opponent won't dominion out raising taxes. But I will. And the Congress volition push me to heighten taxes, and I'll say no. And they'll push button, and I'll say no, and they'll push button again, and I'll say, to them, 'Read my lips: no new taxes.' "

There were other memorable moments in that address, drafted by a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan named Peggy Noonan. The before long-to-be-famous "thousand points of light" were mentioned, along with a reference to a "kinder and gentler nation." Both would follow George H.W. Bush for the residuum of his life.

Simply it was the "read my lips" quip that ignited the convention and defenseless the attention of the media. Tough-guy talk was non Bush's usual métier. Information technology was far more associated with Reagan, the moving-picture show role player, who, as a politician, borrowed from flick scripts from time to fourth dimension. A few years before, Reagan had delighted his fans by quoting from a Clint Eastwood movie, where a cop with a very large gun taunted a criminal crawling toward a weapon nearby:

"Go alee," said Muddied Harry. "Make my day."

So when Reagan was against Democrats and other "tax increasers" in Congress, he lifted that line to dramatize his veto threat.

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Where the phrase came from

"Read my lips" sounded like a moving picture, merely information technology wasn't from one of Clint's. William Safire researched the phrase for his column for the New York Times Sunday Mag. Safire was a lexicographer as well equally a political columnist and former speechwriter for President Richard Nixon.

He constitute the first widely public use of the phrase in a vocal title in 1957 (by Joe Greene) and later in a 1978 album championship (by singer Tim Curry) and several vocal titles in the 1980s. Information technology so migrated into the world of sports and sports clichés, from which information technology was a curt spring to political spoken language.

A Reagan aide used information technology in 1981 about the release of American hostages held by Iran, and even past Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee used it in congressional questioning.

Safire ended, the phrase simply meant "Listen closely" or "Go this straight."

What was important, though, was that it sounded tough. Bush-league, all likewise frequently, did not. In fact, his campaign had suffered from a perception problem regarding his virility.

Newsweek had pictured the former World State of war II fighter pilot and college baseball player on a boat on its encompass with the headline, "Fighting the 'Wimp Factor.' " That'south something the editor of that article now says he was incorrect about, only in the 1988 entrada, information technology was a narrative that stuck — and Bush's primary task of his New Orleans convention speech communication was to dispel that epitome tout suite.

George Bush-league wades through a crowd in Houston later his victory spoken language in the 1988 presidential election. Mike Spague/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

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George Bush-league wades through a crowd in Houston after his victory speech in the 1988 presidential ballot.

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Information technology helped ... then probably hurt

"Read my lips" succeeded, probably beyond their fondest dreams. Polls showed that after the convention, Bush had a lead over Democrat Michael Dukakis. Only if it improved Bush-league's chances of being elected that year, it may likewise take ruined his chances of existence re-elected in 1992.

That was because less than ii years after making the no-tax pledge, Bush found himself in circumstances in which he no longer felt he could keep it. Locked in budget negotiations with the majority Democrats in the House and Senate, Bush felt he had to allow higher rates on some existing taxes or the Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction bill would shut down important services of the government.

So he signed off on a compromise involving revenues likewise every bit spending restraints. Democrats exulted at having forced him to renege. Conservatives seethed. A young Newt Gingrich, elevated to the No. 2 spot in the House Republican leadership the previous year, fabricated no clandestine of his displeasure. He insisted any option was preferable to any new revenue.

That position helped inspire a major Republican challenger to Bush'south renomination in 1992. He was Patrick Buchanan, a former communications director for Reagan and a familiar commentator on TV. He announced his campaign for president in December 1991, saying he was running "because, we Republicans, can no longer say it is all the liberals' fault. It was not some liberal Democrat who said, 'Read my lips: no new taxes,' so broke his word to cutting a seedy backroom upkeep deal with the big spenders on Capitol Hill."

Reagan and Bush had won two landslides on a platform that was anti-communist, anti-abortion and anti-tax. Global events had profoundly diminished the communist threat by 1990, and Bush devoted little of his time and energy to the abortion result. That left taxes, and for Bush to abandon that citadel also was an outrage to many on the correct. Buchanan gave Bush enough heartburn in the early primaries that the president actually apologized for his tax shift in several interviews in the leap of 1992.

But whether he would have done differently in retrospect is some other question. In July 1990, the federal government was taking on a new obligation to bond out those harmed in the collapse of the savings and loan industry. The annual budget arrears was already $200 billion a year, and the cumulative national debt had grown from $1 trillion in 1980 (when Reagan and Bush were first elected) to $2.7 trillion.

In that same month, the economic system was slipping into a recession that was sure to reduce revenues. And Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was about to invade neighboring Kuwait, which would trigger the outset Persian Gulf War.

Bush-league knew the time had come to become the nation'southward fiscal business firm in order, or something like it. His 1990 compromise began a decade of relatively responsible budgeting that, combined with moves made past the Clinton administration in 1993, enabled the federal government to harvest considerable revenue from the personal estimator smash of that decade.

As the year 2000 approached, the stock market was booming and the annual budget deficit was nearing zero. Nonetheless, the risk Bush knowingly took with the budget deal turned out to be worse than he realized. He fought off the Gingrich critique and the Buchanan challenge and was renominated in 1992. But he received less than 38 percent of the pop vote in November.

The winner was Clinton, who profited from depressed GOP turnout with almost one-fifth of the popular vote going to a third-party candidate, businessman H. Ross Perot, who ran against the upkeep deficit and the national debt.

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Source: https://www.npr.org/2018/12/04/673249018/6-little-words-helped-make-george-h-w-bush-a-one-term-president

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