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George H. W. Bush: Remarks at the White House Correspondents' Dinner - April 28, 1989
Full Transcript
Note
00:00:00-00:00:03 (3.21 sec)[The following is a FirstDraft -- a machine-generated transcript by our AI, Margaret. She's good, but neither perfect nor human. There will likely be a handful of errors. Please check any quotes against the primary video source. Thank you.]
George H. W. Bush
00:00:03-00:00:11 (8.64 sec)Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much. I think I'll need it. I may keep it handy.
George H. W. Bush
00:00:14-00:01:00 (45.66 sec)Thank you very, very much. Chairman. Thank you all. Gerry Thank you. Thank you, Jerry. And at the outset, let me congratulate you on your leadership. What a record. No hits, no runs, no errors. As head of the Correspondents Association, this guy left no footprints. Congratulations also to Johanna. Joanna Newman, the incoming president, come by some time. And I'll tell you how nifty, how swell.
George H. W. Bush
00:01:01-00:01:17 (16.39 sec)Gosh, what fun it is to be president and. And. There's one major difference. Johanna can blame. Her failures on her predecessor.
George H. W. Bush
00:01:19-00:02:05 (45.4 sec)You know, and and they -- in the TV debates, they kept asking Dan Quayle about the first thing he'd do as president. Cheer up, Dan. They're still asking me that same question. Now, I. I haven't. And it's only been 100 days. No, but it's tough because I haven't watched much TV and I understand Oprah lost a ton of weight. Phil or a skerrick. Heraldo got his nose busted. Morton Downey lost out to the skinheads.
George H. W. Bush
00:02:05-00:02:59 (53.5 sec)And now you wonder why I'm not making any news. But never mind. Never make news. My, I'll give you a scoop. Tonight, my first nominee to the Supreme Court. John Tower. What we need is a little justice. I didn't like what Jerry said complaining about the schedule here. It keeps you working until late. You're not getting enough sleep. That's the first time that I have ever been accused of keeping anybody awake.
George H. W. Bush
00:03:01-00:03:34 (32.65 sec)Remember what Lesley Stahl said to me just the other day, asking me if I was moving too cautiously. I said, Can I get back to you on that? I. And then we have had a number of you up to the family quarters, Gerry Boyd, just in case it ever needs to come up. We do have pictures of you bouncing on Abraham Lincoln's bed. And speaking of the times, our daughter is a guest at their table and I don't want to barras her.
George H. W. Bush
00:03:34-00:04:13 (38.4 sec)But did you hear the one about their last editorial? What? All right. Forget about it. No need to bring that up. Anything to protect my daughter. Now. There's no need to bring that up. This is a night for kindness and conciliation. Speaking of which, I thought I saw Newt Newt Gingrich when I came in. I'm not sure he is the only guy whose car has a dashboard statue of Frank Lorenzo.
George H. W. Bush
00:04:14-00:04:57 (42.92 sec)And then. And then there's Jim Baker. Didn't make it tonight by Camping Companion. You all think of him as secretary of the Treasury or secretary of state? Well, I was camping with him. I think of him as an environmentalist. And in fact, he will best be remembered for the Wilderness Act. That's the act that he was caught committing in the wilderness. And. Now I'm told that I ought to brace myself because our great entertainer, the wonderful Jim Morris, is here tonight.
George H. W. Bush
00:04:57-00:05:27 (29.38 sec)And I get the feeling from having a little talk with him earlier that he's about to snuff out some of those thousand points of light. But no, I've seen his stuff. I've seen his impression of me. Frankly, I can't make head or tail out of it. His syntax is all twisted. Look, it shouldn't be too hard, though, for you, Jim, to upstage me. Last week or a couple of weeks ago, I was upstaged by a wig.
George H. W. Bush
00:05:27-00:06:13 (45.5 sec)And I'll tell you one thing about about Barbara. Ever since she drank that radioactive iodine, she's been doubling as a nightlight in the upstairs there. But her. Her new nickname is the Three Mile Island Fox. Now. She's doing great. Her health is good. USA Today points out how popular she is. That doesn't bother me. You know what? I don't mind when Helen Thomas, at the end of a press conference gets up and says, Thank you, Barbara's husband and and our dogs are getting a lot of ink.
George H. W. Bush
00:06:13-00:06:47 (33.68 sec)I heard Jerry referred to him. All the good press may be going to Millie's head. However, today we put out her bowl of Alpo and she asked to see the wine list. But. Now, last week you reported in the papers how I took a little girl from Pennsylvania out of or I think it was Maine out of the White House tour line to show her the puppies. Well, this morning I did it again. And this this is true this time with a kid from California.
George H. W. Bush
00:06:48-00:07:05 (17.7 sec)And it gave me an idea. Why not let someone who we pulled out of the line, just your basic average American tourist, tell you what he thinks of the presidency? Son, can you come out here and talk to these people?
George H. W. Bush
00:07:09-00:07:17 (8.26 sec)You need. You want to get with this? [Laughter] Should I sit down?