the first year. marlon, i'm not going to do this anymore. he said this is not a press conference. this is a show. i don't like this. i think he did one or two a year after that. he would go into the press room. how on top of your game do you have to be with issues to go twice a week in front of the not exactly friendly press corps? he would come out and make a statement and he would say let's have a discussion. he was comfortable with that. he could answer primary questions and secondary questions and tertiary questions. i have never seen any other president who could do that, especially not president obama. you take president obama off his script, he is gone. you put george bush in a policy discussion, and he is really on his own. he is fabulous. i want to close, because i know i have gone on way too long.

i want to close just by saying something about the technology of communications in the white house in 1989 to 1992. you have to remember, that was 20 years ago. we used our voices and words. we did not have cell phones or blackberry or e-mail. we called or mailed or faxed. you could not do a conference call from the white house. we had gerald ford phones. we ate lunch together at the white house mess. we discussed things. today, you e-mail or twitter. it is interesting to see how george bush would operate in a social media environment. i don't think i sent more than five e-mails in the white house. we got intranet in 1992. everything put there could be subpoenaed. >> it scared us. >> we inclined not to want to do that to begin with. but, we also were not used to

it. i didn't think anybody would read them. i don't know if it was you or somebody else. i'll use it. i'll schedule meetings this way. everybody come to a meeting. this poor guy. i think it was roger porter. sat for an hour wondering why nobody came to his meeting. none of us read the e-mails. we just didn't use it. we worked face-to-face in meetings. i think that probably was much better. lastly, george bush's respect for the institution of the presidency. he was really in awe of the office and he told us all almost every day that the day we did not feel that same sense of awe when we walked into the oval office was the day when we should leave. his respect for the institution of the presidency and the building, i think, was really remarkable. i'm going to close by one story,

again, goes from the oral history. one time i had something i needed to do and tim mcbride said to me, just go down. the president is at the tennis court. i said that paper is on my desk. i'll tell tim and he'll get it. i said no. you won't know where it is. i'll get it. the tennis game is over. the tennis court are here. the south entrance where you go for the residence is here. the oval office is there. we started to walk back up. i started that walk to the oval office. the president said where are you going? i said i'm going to your office. he said i'm in tennis shorts. i said so? he said no. just wait. i'll be back. he went into the residence. this is a true story. he got dressed. put on a coat and tie. walked into the oval office. handed me the paper and left. he would not go into the office in tennis jogs. he didn't believe it was

appropriate. he had such respect for the physical office which was repetitive representative of the office of the president. they are almost from a time and place we don't have any longer. i think that is a shame. i think the country and world would be a better place if we have a new generation of george and barbara bush. thank you. >> ladies and gentlemen, being the clean-up hitter today, i take everything back i said in my oral history. we thank you all for being here. good day [ laughter ] >> don't you dare. >> first of all, i would like to add my thanks to the miller center for supporting and putting together not only this oral history project, but this symposium today. as a member of the board of directors of the george bush library foundation, we are happy

to support this effort. we think it is a fitting tribute to the history, the fabric, that surrounds a guy who and his wife who meant a lot to a number of us who had the great pleasure of serving with him. i'm probably the only person -- i think i can say this -- i'm probably one of the people on the face of the earth where the president of the united states took a personal call for me. it goes to what bobbie was saying in terms of the president's opening up of the white house when we first began in 1989. one of the things he basically told me was mcclure, i want all of the members of congress to come up here and be part of the people's house. on a particular day, we had a number of senators there for a reception. it was in a middle of an important vote where we needed people to get back. the phone rings in the residence. the only person that answers the

phone is the president or first lady. the president picks up the phone. the white house operator says i have a phone call for fred mcclure. can you get him for me, please? the president thought that was kind of funny. let me tell you a bit about my job. that probably gives you a feel for the prism through which, at least i view, the president's relationships with congress. there wasn't an office of legislative affairs until 1954. it occurred after president eisenhower woke up after the mid-term elections and realized for the first time the political party control in congress was different from him. at that point in time, the numbers changed from 203 to 232 in the house of representatives and 47 to 49 in the united states senate. no, alaska and hawaii were not states yet. that office was created 57 years ago.

it was designed to create a low-key approach as it was originally described of communicating the president's views to congress. i had 20 predecessors when i started working with the president in '89. frankly, only one served a full four-year term. the reason being, it is a high turnover job that is created by a situation where, believe it or not, you feel like you have two constituencies. you know who your real constituent is, the president. you are expressing his views to the congress. there are 535 other people who think they ought to be president of the united states and spent a great deal of time communicating their views back to you. i like the analogy that prince phillip told me when barbara bush came to me.

oh, you're the ping pong ball. that is the way i felt. i looked at it more like crystal ball gazing. we had to put together the numbers that we needed to be able to have success with the president. a look at the 1988 elections. 260 to 175 split in terms of democrats and republicans. the senate was a 54/46 split with democrats and republicans. although george bush won 53% of the vote, that was the situation we faced as we began service in 1989. we probably were the victims of our own success. i served for a couple of years on the senate legislative team for president reagan. during a period of time when we had control of the united states senate. from 1980 to 1986. at that point in time, i say we were products of our own success. it was sort of the beginning of

a number of southern democrats, in particular, who decided being a southern democrat was getting more and more into the situation of an endangered species. they decided to become republicans. as this change started to take place, particularly in the south, it made the environment where we had to get the legislation accomplished a little bit more difficult. it set the stage, if you will, for the beginning of the president's term. this is something i think hasn't been mentioned for the past two days. trying to figure out something left tho say. the leadership was in disarray on the democratic side when the president took office in 1989. a gentleman whom i had known for a long time, jim wright was speaker of the house of representatives. he written a book. this guy, gingrich, newt, that is. was firing on him on all

cylinders. there were issues with jim wright's book. before you knew it, because this is where the institution had changed because the days of friendship and relationships that were driven much like president bush had with sonny montgomery and others when he was in congress of the united states, those friendships had started fading away. it found itself manifest early on in jim wright's efforts to hang on as the speaker of the house of representatives. jim ultimately had to step down. now we are in the beginning of the first couple of months. there is disarray in the house of representatives. tom foley is speaker and dick gephardt is the senate leader.

george mitchell created a calm demeanor in terms of dealing with you was a cagey character in terms of dealing with some of the political issues and the combination of him and dick gephardt made it difficult for us. fortunately bob dole was around which was an anchor for us at that period of time. this was going on. this distraction was going on with the nomination of john tower as secretary of defense. the bottom issue was a question that sam and others reached the conclusion that we will answer this question for you, mr. president. who will control national security and national defense? we will. we will not confirm john tower who was involved in the armed services committee for a number of years. that leadership disarray.

then we created leadership disarray in the house of representatives because when senator tower's nomination was defeated by the senate, the president chose dick cheney. he became secretary of defense. then newt gingrich beat a guy named ed madigan from illinois. there was a changing in the guard of the house of representatives. that had significant impact on how we dealt with the congress of the united states. despite our efforts over the last two days to focus on the foreign versus domestic, which has been successful. early on, we had to deal with the really nasty hangover issue from the reagan administration. eliminating the funding from the contras. that began to pave the way for

other public policy issues and cooperation across the aisle. there is a link between the two. whether it is funding for the department of defense or free trade initiatives, including nafta or textiles. something else that was front and center. i remember it was during the christmas holidays before the president became president of the united states and i get this phone call. it is like, can you meet the vice president up in his office on capitol hill? yeah. i drop what i was doing. i met the vice president not knowing what it was about. it was a time when strom thurman was explaining what we had to and must do to protect the textile industry in south carolina. that was also an early issue which caused great discourse to try to keep republicans together. despite our efforts to make everything bipartisan, we had no choice if we wanted to succeed.

bobbie and others have mentioned the excellence in education act. the summit that the governor has hosted here back in 1989. you know it was only the third time in history that the president called together the nation's governors. roosevelts did it in '08 and '33. we were talking about choice and alternatives for teachers and promoting flexibility. local control for enhanced accountability. many of the things we see today in the no child left behind and versions of it that have followed. clean air. the savings and loan crisis. the federal highway. we have not talked about the enterprise zone. another initiative on the domestic policy front. to create jobs in the inner cities. increasing tenant ownership.

some aeg legislation with the farm bill. the americorp and now freedom corps. the opposition to put the president on the spot was something we dealt with on a daily basis. it had been 36 years, only 12 of the 36 years, were democratic presidents. all of a sudden, this guy named george bush. in 1954, it was the last time the senate had been in those hands except for the six-year stint. we started out arguing about nickels and dimes. whether or not we would increase the minimum wage. it was $4.10 or $4.15. early on, the president was

tested and dealing with the question of increasing the minimum wage and what impact that would have on jobs and the economy and small businesses. we talked about practiarental l. we have the chinese issues. because of the president's background, he had tremendous issue in that issue and was what i would describe has more than expert. we dealt with the fsx fighter. there was something that was called civil rights legislation. but correct me if i'm wrong, it started out on an effort to try to deal with a decision of the supreme court and the question of where burden of proof was going to lie in the beginning. it then became a huge thing called civil rights legislation. we vetoed it three times. and we kept vetoing it until congress got it right.

thanks to the effort of borden. then there was a little thing called abortion. there are five -- four. four bills appropriations bills both considered in the house and senate each year. assuming they get their work done, that have something to do with whether or not the federal government is involved in the funding of abortion. it's labor hhs. it sort of makes sense. we got to the issue of whether or not abortions could be performed on department of defense facilities around the world. a foreign operations bill that dealt with the family planning conference in the mexico city. at least ten times a year we had to deal with the question of whether or not the federal government would be engaged in funding of abortion. as a result, we had to yield the veto pen to try to keep that law

in place in terms of how the hyde amendment had been administered over time. people talked about the shutdown a few weeks ago. the one in 1995 was nothing new. we actually had a similar shutdown during our four years. more often than not, we use the veto threat and also votes on amendments to bills to show what strength we had. it was necessary in terms of having these test votes that we get to 34 or get to 146. in other words, denying the two-third that is required to override the veto so we could go back and get legislation changed and move in the direction that we wanted it to go. then there was also some vetoes that were bad legislation. there were 44 vetoes if you

count the pocket vetoes of the president. 15 of those 44 were pocket veto. 29 were regular strevetos. none were override evwhile i wa there. shortly ever i left, the president's veto was overriden. budget deal. i think what we did the most ineffectively and i think people have lifted this from my oral history. i understand it has been in the media the last couple of days. i think the issue that we faced more after that 1990 budget deal which was occasioned by newt gingrich and others which is a

good darn deal. hit childcare stuff in it. hit capital gains tax reductions. it had lots of good stuff, i think, for the government of the united states. and our direction and our brand of conservatism. i think we blew it by not fessing fes fessing up and zrdescribing wha we have done. i made that pledge. i broke that pledge. it's time for us to move on down the road. it's the best thing to do for this country. i positioned him in such a fashion in which he was able to communicate the views. even if we had to write the words down for him. i think that was a problem on our part. do i believe that would have insured that the president would have been reelected in 1992, no. there were a number of other factors that led to it.

one other thing i wanted to talk about, the supreme court. i had the pleasure and honor of having had the opportunity to handle t thr supreme court justices. my first one was an ton inscalia. it happened at a great time when working for president reagan at the time. william rehnquist was elevated to the chief's job and nobody was handling scalia. scalia set a standard for future nominations. i said you have to give him that. otherwise, you don't have a job. and i'm still not sure he ever said that he would agree that that was settled law. but that sort of set the standard. after he was confirmed 9-0 or something pretty close to that, then the democrats sort of started digging in in some of the other nominations that were to follow him. and sort of like we're never,

ever going to let anybody answer as few questions as scalia did ever ever again in the history of the congress of the united states. and then we had in between, before i got back to the white house, the bork fiasco. in short, bob bork didn't realize he really didn't need to explain anything to the senate of the united states of the judiciary committee. and he just talked himself into oblivion. now we have the situation created by the nomination of david souter. frankly, after spending as much time as i spent with david during the confirmation process and visiting members of the united states senate, i was not surprised at all by -- i had not been surprised by any of the decisions of the votes he cast while a member of the united states supreme court for 19 years. likewise, i am not surprised by any of the votes that clarence

thomas has cast during that time. one of the biggest hurdles we had is the words that the president used to describe clarence thomas when he sort of announced it. my view is he's my guy and that's the way it is. it set a standard that made it a little bit more difficult. clarence thomas was a great nomination. he'll have a longer lasting impact, i think, upon the domestic policy agenda of the president of the united states than anyone left behind despite the great efforts that we made during our time there. i'm done. thank you. >> was i right or not? these are the people that make representation work in this country. if you were president, wouldn't you hire them first? we actually started late. and so there is some time for

questions. yes? it's not really a question. it's a comment. you said there were four for the nomination, thomas, starr, jones, and then souter. i think it's clear that president bush wanted thomas then. does he sort of intuitively understood that maybe the next opening would be -- would be marshal and he didn't want to do what might look like he was opposed to quotas. but we told a lot of people he wasn't ready. it was the right choice. i turned out after another year or 18 months, he was very

seasoned. but a couple points out of that. still there is the question, what happened to star? and i think i know. i'm not going to reveal what i know here. but i think for the milicenter it is important to establish why did starr disappear off that list? the second point is that souter, as i think you light ly -- because after starr was off the list, silverman was off the list and then so our choices were constrained. souter did vote conservatively. a former reporter on legal issues has documented in a book that he did change his voting pattern. i don't think anyone knows why, but he did. one final angle about thomas. i agree, fred, he wasn't a constitutional expert. but he was an administrative law

expert. and he was asked during his confirmation hearing before anita hill what were the two most important decisions that were decided since you were in law school? he thought the question was when i was in law school. and so he answered grigs versus due power and row v wade. he was asked the question again as if he had given a stupid answer. he still misinterpreted the question. he thought it was when he was in law school. he said griggs and roe, i stand by my answer. the answer is pretty good for since he was in law school. because we checked to see what issues provoked the most democratic questions during his confirmation hearings. and the two issues that garnered by far the most questions were yep, you guessed it, gregs and roe versus wade.

>> i'd just like somebody on the panel to explain the starr reference that ambassador gray just made. >> i just got him confirmed, i didn't select him. >> i don't know the rumors. you're going to have to talk to boyd and i'm not going to answer. >> if we stop tweeting, you would tell us, boyd? >> turn off the camera. [ inaudible ] >> i'm sorry? [ inaudible ] >> president bush probably worked out more deals than

rostenkowski. benson he ran against and lost for a senate seat. most of the major legislation went through benson and they were good friends. from the point of view of democrats, maybe that's another texas relationship you could discuss. >> well, the other thing, tom, is that one of the things that occurred early on, in fact, when the president first talked to me about taking the job and i said, look, i know you have a bunch of buddies on the hill. you've been around this town for a long time. just promise me that you will let me know when you have conversations with them that have something to do with my job. don't hold that back from me. i mean, y'all can talk about playing in the gym, that's fine. but if it has something to do with your agenda, i need to know. the president was fulfilled with the promise he made to me in that situation. but it kind of created a different environment with dealing with congress because when he had conversations with members, despite the fact that

we, you know, gave him the talking points and things we wanted him to ingender, to try to get from a member, most of the time when he was dealing with guys and gals that he had a relationship with for a long, long time, they were quite productive conversations. and i think that we saw the benefit of it whether it was our aa stuff or the stuff that we did with clean air. it was because of these relationships that people wouldn't lie to him. you could trust -- you know, i used to operate on the premise that they all lie, meaning all members of congress. it was -- there was a relationship that existed between the president and members of congress primarily because i think of his service there. and then his eight years as vice president. it's not like he had been out of town for eight years. and so he had a number of relationships which were deep. and that, i think, contributed greatly to