"The Matriarch Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty," quoted in The Daily Mail, "'I would pull over and park so I wouldn't go hit a tree.' Barbara Bush revealed how she fell into a deep depression and considered suicide while her husband George carried on decade-long affair with younger aide, explosive new bio reveals."
'Just seven years younger than Barbara and not a striking beauty, [Jennifer Fitzgerald] was flirty and solicitous and focused completely on him. Their surreptitious romance would last for more than a dozen years, inexplicable to those around him and impossible for anyone to manage', writes the author....
During the 1980 campaign when Bush was nominated for Vice President and working out of his Houston headquarters, his suspicious campaign manager and best friend Jim Baker gave Bush an ultimatum to decide between him and Jennifer. Bush took a day to mull it over, much to Baker's shock, but eventually moved Fitzgerald to a fundraising position in New York.
When Bush was elected Vice President, he brought her along to Washington and she sat outside his office door in the White House as his gatekeeper.... Several aides chose to leave rather than have to work with her and ceaseless rumors humiliated Barbara, as well as fueling politically perilous gossip....
Only when Bush won the Presidency in 1988 did he agree to move her off his staff but he made her deputy chief of protocol at the State Department.....
But Barbara wrote in her diary after the affair was first speculated by the press, 'My own opinion is that Jennifer really does hurt George. His eyes really glaze over when you mention her name. She is just what he wants, he says and says the hell with it all'....
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76 comments:
Barbara was not getting the job done.
Milton in The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce says there should be an out for having a mute and spiritless mate. It went into several editions and was denounced in Parliament.
DM: The Washington Post wrote that Fitzgerald 'has served president-elect George Bush in a variety of positions'.
I'm sure Bush was just a loyal employer. Barr had him over a barrel when he ran for VP. Why didn't she get him to send her away?
I neither needed nor wanted to know any of that. Whispered gossip is best I left at that.
Who buys this book?
I worked in IT support at the New Executive Office Building from 1983 until 1991. We knew about Jennifer Fitzgerald, and followed her movements via the changes to the personnel list.
The affair was apparently a major reason that Nancy Reagan detested George H.W. Bush, who thought that while affair was morally wrong, one this blatant was just a political disaster for not just Bush but for her husband, too. Nancy Reagan passed on her dislike for GHWB to her good friend, George Will, which shows up in his columns from the time.
Funny what 'important details' come out once the people they are about are dead, and can't refute
I like the “I almost wonder why he didn’t leave me.” We all know why. It would have killed his political career.
A big part of me agrees with Aztec up there - I wish I hadn't read any of this. But I did, so...
I've been trying to decide if it's plausible that they never actually consummated their relationship. I suppose it is - why not? But people in (or striving for) powerful positions so often do exhibit a kind of bleeding-over of their ambition and sense of themselves into their sexual behavior that it also seems unlikely. That said, it does seem clear that the emotional attachment was the damaging factor here, not sex per se.
wait a minute! this is interesting! there are witnesses!
Her name was Jennifer Fitzgerald and she was his aide...
and a woman sharing a beach house in Maryland with Fitzgerald remembered Bush calling the house a least once a day
WELL! If there are WITNESSES! that say that a man called his aide "a least once a day"(!)
That SETTLES IT!
What other reason could a man have to be calling his aide, other than for sex?
It's not like they'd have any work related things to talk about;
i mean, it wasn't like she was his aide or anything.... Oh Wait!
Isn't she dead? After death gossip is kinda lame.
Agreed, H.Aztec. Thank you for typing that.
Did he make her get an abortion? That's the Holy Grail for any reporter covering a sex scandal involving a Republican. This story, however entertaining, is not as fulfilling and spiritually uplifting as an abortion story involving a Bush. It's important for the American public to know that, although they were married for all those years, their marriage was a hollow sham because Republicans are liars and hypocrites and cheat on their wives. A useful story that absent the abortion falls short of the Pulitzer.
Who is this Barbra person??? Going after a war hero? What kind of despicable low life goes after a war hero when he's dead?
On the day they got married, Bush told Barbara:
"Read my lips. No new pussy!"
Because what we need right now is to hear from this family
Wispy WASPs. Forgot the Bible. Easy pickings for the liberals.
Bush runs into Tree - since when do trees have the right of way?
Was Poppy Bush was a one woman man, just not Barbara. The real question we need an answer to is whether Poppy was a faithful man to his true love Jennifer. And how many bastard Bush children are out there with a claim to the stolen Bush fortune.
Sounds like it's ok to hate the Bushes again, now that they're no longer useful in trashing Trump.
But others who were close to Barbara speculated that there was an unmentioned reason that contributed to her grief and suicidal depression – Jennifer Fitzgerald.
The DM makes it sound like BB was talking about the affair to the author in its headline.
A lot of top government executives bring their Schedule C assistants (who have less civil service protections) with them to new positions.
On a personal level, I agree with Aztec. I don't want to or need to know the inner workings or dysfunction of other people's relationships. It isn't any of my business.
HOWEVER, when those people are in powerful positions and bring on lovers who are able to influence the inner workings of government and by default affect all of our lives.....then it does become OUR business.
What these people do. Their dysfunctional lives. Their sexual quirks. The things that may sway their actions. The ability of other to exert influence because they know their secrets. All these things matter.
Being surprised that Bush Sr. was a man with needs is naive. We need to be concerned on how those things affect the people and international politics.
We can say..."Oh it is just sex" but in reality is is all about POWER.
But remember John Edwards affair while running for President wasn't newsworthy.
I can't imagine that there are many high-level politicians who don't succumb to fleshly delights. The notion that Bush Sr. had one side-piece for years reminds me of Eisenhower. Barack Obama's homosexuality will take years to get to the mainstream, I suppose. But really, who cares?
Well it's the same level of truth of the dossier, dontcha now Donna brazile circulated it in 1988, which got her fired from the Dukakis campaign then there was a gossipy bio of a powerbroker Robert gray who floated in again in kurt Anderson's spy.
Regarding a platonic relationship (or the word Ann discovered: sapiosexual), I always think of Billy Crystal's line from When Harry Meet Sally, "Men and women can never be friends because the sex part always gets in the way."
Another example of why the Pence rule on women is a necessity...
Yipes! Althouse has given space to a reincarnation of the egregious Sylvie Krin, royal affairs correspondent for the British humor magazine, Private Eye. Don't know Sylvie Krin? Here's her bio from the Guardian from a few years ago:
"Sylvie Krin: The Eye's saccharine-impregnated royal correspondent who was inspired by the joyous engagement of Princess Anne and Mark Phillips, an event that united the nation in indifference in 1973, but which encouraged a new generation of hacks to reinvestigate Mills & Boon. Sylvie reached greater heights with the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana and wrote with great sensitivity on their subsequent break-up. Like all royal correspondents, Sylvie has now completely forgotten Di ever existed as she continues to celebrate the lifelong romance of Charles and Camilla and is very much looking forward to Prince Harry's engagement to one of John Terry's exes."
Those Bushes. America's royal family.
12 years under close observation and all they have is gossip?
I think it more likely that Fitzgerald was Bush's "office wife," a trusted guardian of his time and secrets - official and personal - with no wish for a physical relationship since this would unavoidably ruin their office one. This kind of thing is not uncommon with executive types.
Think FDR and Missy LeHand; for sex he had Lucy Mercer.
Interesting use of the word “while”. It makes you think Barbara is connecting her suicidal depression to an affair her husband was having, but the connection may only be the author of the article, not necessarily even the author of the book. I remember Barbara Walters asking then First Lady Barbara Bush about the alleged affair. “Look girlie ...” was how she started her reply. She made Walters eat her question. It was delicious.
That's some weak tea. Nothing convincing as regards an affair. Sounds like he had an aide that other people found obnoxious, but the aide was a real yes man, so he didn't want to get rid of her.
Barbara was not getting the job done.
Just what was this job, oh wise observer of the human heart?
"Funny what 'important details' come out once the people they are about are dead, and can't refute"
I remember reading about it, maybe in Spy magazine, back when he was running for President in 1988.
The rumor of the affair isn't new at all. I'm interested in how managed and suppressed it was, because back then, having an affair should have taken him out of the running. Reagan was the first President who'd been divorced, and that was considered a significant lowering of the standard of personal character required in a President.
What's new here is details of Barbara's reaction.
@Freeman Do you not believe Barbara wrote the diary entry quoted or do you think the quote is inaccurate? And why would Jim Baker take such a melodramatic stand over an obnoxious staffer?
I looked it up. The article I remember was in Spy but it was during the 1992 campaign.
Of course, HW lost in '92.
According to Robin Williams, GHWB put Bar's picture on the one dollar bill.
I would say the latter, Donna brazile was fired from the Dukakis campaign that year.
This book is not a hit job, Barbara sat for interviews. It seems like the author takes the affair seriously. And there's a lot of of evidence.
I don't want to make everything about Trump, but this is more evidence that the old guard hates him because he's just like them and doesn't hide it.
Boy, Mike Pence is a genius.
This happened around the time that Barbara Bush was 50. The youngest of her six children had just turned 19/20ish.
I don't know if a political wife, whose husband is often absent or otherly-focused due to politics, tends to put even more attention and emotional focus on her kids than other moms do. But it's rough when what was such a big part of your emotional focus is coming to an end as your nestlings go off to live their own lives.
I think it's pretty common for moms in the empty nest adjustment years to take a look at their marriage. They might want more closeness in it, and more of a supply of their emotional warmth needs getting met in the marriage. Or they might take a look at the marriage and think, "Gosh, I have never really gotten my warmth needs met in this marriage past the first few years of courtship and when I consider this marriage now, realistically...ain't never gonna happen."
I would guess that her husband was never very good at the emotional warmth/connection part of life. Honestly, the fact that he was in a relationship with another woman really, to me, isn't the issue as far as Mrs. Bush feeling lonely. I.e., she was lonely because her husband wasn't very emotionally available to her, perhaps to an acute degree. And no doubt he was lonely too.
Sad and interesting story.
This must be the affair that tanked the stock market for a day, before it was covered back up.
Nice.
Left out of the article:
"George's affair started shortly after a tragic miscommunication one evening after a party, when Barbra, misunderstanding a question from George, replied "No, thank you. I already have enough pearl necklaces."
For what it's worth, in her 1995 autobiography Barbara Bush denied the rumors that George had a mistress. How did the author of this latest book get access to her diaries?
@Freeman Do you not believe Barbara wrote the diary entry quoted or do you think the quote is inaccurate? And why would Jim Baker take such a melodramatic stand over an obnoxious staffer?
The diary entry is about her depression. She does not write that it was due to an affair. That seems to be an inference of the writer's.
As for Jim Baker, I can think of two possibilities. One, if you've never worked with someone sufficiently terrible to make you take a stand like that, it might be difficult to imagine, but I have. Two, it would make sense for a campaign manager to insist on eliminating the appearance of impropriety.
More than once I've seen a decent person inexplicably ally himself professionally with another person who everyone else rightly sees as dead weight. It can be maddening to the people close to the decent person. This sounds like it could be exactly that sort of situation.
Knowing she had been part of a family of useless Big Government shit heels must have worn on her conscience.
She raised those power hungry State Schtumpers right.
They knew how to give over the Natural Rights of American citizens.
They knew how to create serfs.
Free markets. Free people.
I agree with Freeman.
So GHWB was not only the bastard I though he was, he was an even worse. A disappointment on so may levels. Maybe even worse than John McCain.
Do you really believe the Vice President's wife, and then First Lady was driving herself around in a car? Pulling over to the side of the road to gather her wits? Is that even possible?
A true liberal playing the victim card. Some things you should take with you into the grave.
How shocking. Bush is the last one I'd think was having an affair. I think Nancy Reagan is to blame. Bush saw Nancy staring at Ronnie with wide-eyed admiration, and thought why can't I have someone like that? All I've got is flinty Babs. And I wish people wouldn't say/think "Hey I'll hit an oncoming car and kill myself" because what you're really doing is hitting an oncoming PERSON - and maiming and killing them in your suicide attempt.
That Barbara was suicidal and depressed is our business. Like it or not, we really do get "Two for the price of one". First ladies wield significant power, unofficially of course. IRC, Kitty Dukakais tried to commit suicide by drinking Drano, but then she wasn't depressed, she was just married to Mike.
I would guess that her husband was never very good at the emotional warmth/connection part of life. Honestly, the fact that he was in a relationship with another woman really, to me, isn't the issue as far as Mrs. Bush feeling lonely. I.e., she was lonely because her husband wasn't very emotionally available to her, perhaps to an acute degree. And no doubt he was lonely too.
My late FIL worked in the intelligence community (the full extent of which we only found out very very recently and were not supposed to) and for a time closely with Bush. We have lots of pics of them together. He (FIL) was campaign manager for Bush in 80 in a very important east coast county and always thought he would be rewarded with a spot in the admin; ultimately he was disappointed in this and moved to the west coast and out of Republican politics.
Anyway, he had a wife and a gaggle of children whom he had stashed in the midwest for their 'safety and stability' when his career started to get complicated, and whose life he participated in only rarely. Of course he had a mistress who was a part of his east coast life and in the same line of work as he. In his case he impregnated the mistress which led to his divorce of his stranger-wife whom he'd married at age 20 as he was leaving for WWII.
I don't think it was that uncommon in that generation for men to have wives they'd married young, and with whom they eventually grew to feel little to no need to have a daily existence with other than for ceremonial purposes. But people still have need for companionship and it only makes sense it would be with someone they share most of their waking hours, vocation and interests with as opposed to the stranger with the same last name.
That seems to be an inference of the writer's.
Yes, and it isn't clear if that connection is the book author Susan Page's or the Daily Mail's. I vote the latter.
BB's dairy entries were about the allegations and rumors, not the alleged affair itself.
It is sad that so many of the comments here are gratuitously cruel or insensitive. The story told in the book is about heartbreak -- and about a president who stuck to one marriage for life and cared about preserving appearances.
We now live in a tawdry age with a tawdry president who has no shame.
I too remember the comments about Jennifer Fitzgerald, who did indeed have a reputation as being hell on wheels to deal with. And I knew another old Bush girlfriend he brought with him. At the time I thought of it as taking care of all the people from his past. He was also well known for his hand-written thank you notes. But he wasn't taking care of Barbara.
Well, I'm sorry for the late Mrs. Bush if that's true. And I'm disappointed in the late Mr. Bush, again if true. But Heartless Aztec put it best up top.
Prof. Althouse:
"Reagan was the first President who'd been divorced, and that was considered a significant lowering of the standard of personal character required in a President."
Which is unfair, really, since the breakup of his first marriage wasn't his idea and he was heartbroken over it. But I take your point.
I'm unnerved by the thought that the last thing I'd see on this earth would be the Quaker Oats Man in a big Oldsmobile crossing the center line of the highway directly into my path.
Oh, jeezus, people going all waffle-y on "Powerful Man has Mistress"! Talk about a dog bites man story! What's your required standard of proof -- photos of GHWB with his membrum virile embedded in one of JF's bodily orifices? This was a known scandal of the Reagan admin years, downplayed but known if you were paying attention.
I had other reasons for loathing GHWB. For one thing, the Reagan WH was full of people who came from The Right to Life movement. The incoming Bush admin fired all of them, no matter how lowly. GHWB was happy to give the Right to Life folks lip service, because he needed those Evangelicals & Catholics in the Republican coalition. But, on the ground, all they really got was the back of his hand.
Not Poppy's kind of people, you understand.
I remember that article in Spy. I thought it was counter battery fire from the Bill Clinton campaign meant to suppress bombardment from President Bush's campaign. Maybe it worked. I don't recall Bush making a big deal about Clinton's peccadillos. SNL had more fun with Slick Willy than Bush did.
Bush's biggest frustration was when Greenspan raised interest rates right before the campaign: "I re-appointed him, and he disappointed me."
If you can keep up the pretense of a happy marriage for seventy three years, there's a good chance it's not a pretense. The Bushes were together for seventy three years and took visible pleasure in each other's company. What hypocrites!
What's the market in 2019 for a bio of Mrs Bush?
How much longer will the cult of the First Lady endure? I am on mailing list for Nixon and Reagan Libraries, which regularly promote former First ladies.
Mrs Obama's memoir about to set a publishing record.
First, it's the Daily Mail. They specialize in innuendo.
Second, reading the story, it's clear their "serruptuous romance" is from unnamed sources. Barbara says nothing about it. He's working for the CIA, so he can't share that part of his life with her anymore. Her children are grown. She's menopausal. Everything else is speculation.
As someone mentioned upthread: Pence is a genius.
I know there's an element of hero worship in politics, and I'm not opposed to hit. It helps encourage good people to run. But really, it can be fun and interesting to find out what people are like. Trump is not some kind of new low in behaviour by presidential candidates or presidents. I like the Jim Baker story: you have to choose between girlfriend and top staffer. Boss: I'm thinking .... Staffer: I'm hurt.
I still say the funniest part of Trump's put-downs of Jeb came when Jeb set him up by making some reference to his mother. Trump interrupted to say: maybe she should be running. This still makes me laugh. For those of us who remember, wasn't there always a sense that the elder Barbara was the most impressive Bush of them all?
I was never a fan. Buh Bye Barbara.
Bill, Republic of Texas said...
On the day they got married, Bush told Barbara:
"Read my lips. No new pussy!"
We have the internet winner for the day!
I remember thinking, when Barbara Bush died, that she always looked like she was 80 years old during the 40 years in the public spotlight.
(putting my hands over my hears singing "La la la la la. I can't hear you!")
"It is sad that so many of the comments here are gratuitously cruel or insensitive."
I think Barbara Bush can take it. Oh wait, she's dead. Well, the Bush family can take it, after all they're multi-millionaires and one of the most politically powerful families in the USA. And no one forced the Bush family to cooperate in a Bio of Barbara Bush. Don't wash your dirty linen public if you don't want public comment.
Observation: Trump is the most honest post-WWII president.
He paid off his mistress with his own money, other presidents paid off theirs with govt jobs and our money.
Trump lies and jokes. Other presidents lied in a straight face.
That is why accusing Trump a liar and paying off his mistress did nothing to the support of his base.
I agree with Freeman too, plus FWBuff's comment showing where B. Bush denied it herself.
The story reads like bad fan fiction.
The story told in the book is about heartbreak -- and about a president who stuck to one marriage for life and cared about preserving appearances.
We now live in a tawdry age with a tawdry president who has no shame.
Oh brother. Bush deserves no honor for keeping up appearances. There's no honor in that. He humiliated his wife. Life is long and I think the Bushes were genuinely happy in their older years, but that doesn't erase the fact that GHWB was selfish.
We now live in a tawdry age with a tawdry president who has no shame.
And people still wanted him back in the WH. Go figure.
Well, if true, then the Bushes helping rehab the Clintons becomes slightly less puzzling.
So Bush 41 was a selfish, alpha-jerk cheater just like JFK, Clinton, LBJ, Ike, FDR ... and Trump. Except Trump was man enough to divorce the old model and marry the new one (twice).
Man enough?
Life long monogamy is hard.
I'm glad to learn the truth.
I'm sad the truth is so tawdry. I'm pretty sure Bush 43 and Trump also "know" about this cheating.
All those Dems who said how great he was at his funeral...
I could swear I successfully posted a comment which has now disappeared. The point was that whenever warm feelings of respect, support and protection I had for any members of the Bush family have been steadily diminished by their behavior subsequent to their terms. For instance I am far less inclined nowadays to defend GWB's performance, before during or after office. And I was a pretty enthusiastic defender of 43.
Pretty outrageous that something like this is published when the people that are libeled are no longer here to protect themselves. If it is true, what does it matter when everyone involved is dead? If it is false, what does it matter when everyone involved is dead? I guess the mourning period is over and the Democrats/MSM can go back to bashing the Bushes.
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