Found item:

We were recently sorting some old papers - which included newspaper clippings - and came upon an item that we'd completely forgotten about. But before getting into that, we'd like to say that we don't collect and save everything that we've read. In fact, we probably only have five clippings on politics from the last ten years. So how did we happen to save this thing? Was there some early buzz that we picked up? Certainly, this guy wasn't uppermost in our mind until 1999. Yet somehow we cut it out and put it aside.

Here are the first paragraphs of a Washington Post National Weekly Edition - for Jul 24-30, 1995

The Lone Star Takes a Shine to a Rising Son Gov. George W. Bush is establishing his credentials with a smooth first term By Sue Ann Pressley Washington Post Staff Writer AUSTIN, Tex. It was a rare moment of discord in his short, happy life as the governor of Texas: When, without warning, George W. Bush recently vetoed a guardianship bill intended to protect thousands of elderly and disabled Texans - a bill that had sailed through the legislature with scant opposition - some Democrats and other advocates quickly cried foul. Here, they said, was proof of what truly could be expected from the new Republican leader who has preached countless sermons about the lofty plane of nonpartisan politics. "While the governor was vetoing this bill," said Democratic state Rep. Elliott Naishtat of Austin, a co-sponsor of the measure, "he was signing bills that would appear to benefit wealthy people, and people or groups that can afford to retain high-powered lobbyists. I am extremely disappointed." So were the Gray Panthers, the Association of Retarded Children of Texas and officials with 30 other organizations. Bush's rationale was that the measure would burden the current state bureaucracy and that it complicated, rather than improved, an existing - but, critics say, insufficient - program. [The article goes on about Texas politics, compromise, lack of it, etc.]

Sure looks like Bush was a mean SOB from the get-go.

posted by Quiddity at 11/18/2003 09:39:00 AM