October 14, 2003
TRUST ME:
'Never lie to me’: Bush to Daschle (Albert Eisele, The Hill)
A new memoir by Minority Leader Tom Daschle says Senate Democrats were actively courting two Republicans -- John McCain of Arizona and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island -- as most likely to switch parties and give them control of the evenly divided Senate when Jim Jeffords of Vermont informed them he was ready to do so.The heretofore untold sequence of events that led to Jeffords’ dramatic decision to bolt the Republican Party in May 2001 and become an Independent is disclosed for the first time in Daschle’s book, which covers the tumultuous two-year period following President Bush’s disputed election in November, 2000. [...]
Daschle also recounts his meeting with President-elect Bush in his Capitol office in January 2001.
“Until then, I never noticed his Texas swagger,” Daschle writes. “Perhaps it was the fact that in order to enter my suite in the Capitol, you actually need to pass through a set of swinging saloon-style doors. The combination of Bush’s confident strut, his self-assured manner, and those saloon doors swinging shut behind him all combined to create an image of a new sheriff in town. Which, in essence, he was.”
Nevertheless, Daschle confesses that he was troubled when Bush, after expressing the hope that they could work together as closely as Bush had with Bob Bullock, his Democratic lieutenant governor in Texas, said, “I hope you’ll never lie to me.”
“That statement caught me up short. What an unusual concern to express in such a meeting.… I’ve often wondered since then what George Bush might have been told about me that would make him begin this conversation, this relationship, from an implied position of mistrust.”
Gee, what cause would President Bush have had not to trust him? Posted by Orrin Judd at October 14, 2003 9:51 PM
I heard that back then, too. Gee, Demshill, now why would W say that to you? Could it have been something between your political mentor and your father?????
Posted by: Sandy P. at October 14, 2003 11:34 PM
Publishing tell-all memoirs like this is a pretty odd step for a guy who's up for re-election in a state that normally goes heavy for the opposing party in Presidential elections where his co-Senator just barely eked out a victory. It seems to me that info like this might just motivate some S. Dakotan Republicans to work a little harder at tossing his @$$ out... or maybe Tommy Boy's ready to join his wife's lobbying firm full time.