-Known by all close to him, he loved a good joke,
the richer the better, and he'd throw his head back
and give that great laugh, but he never, ever could
remember a punch line. And I mean never. -On the primary campaign trail
in New Hampshire once, he grabbed the hand
of a department-store mannequin asking for votes. When he realized his mistake,
he said, "Never know. Got to ask." -He would look at me,
and he said, "Baker, if you're so smart, why am I president
and you're not?" -You can hear the voice,
can't you? As Dana Carvey said, "The key to a Bush
41 impersonation is Mr.
Rogers trying to be John Wayne." -Always the competitor
each night, Gampy challenged
all of the grandkids to the coveted
"first to sleep" award. -He said, "Aha! I see the media is shooting
you pretty full of holes." Actually, he said it a bit
more pungently than that. And he said, "Why don't
we go up to Camp David?" At that time, his popularity
rating was 93%. Mine was .
93%. And so off we went. The media, of course,
all gathered as we headed to Marine One. And George said, "Now wave to your pals
over there in the media, Al." And they didn't wave back. -"Fluency in English,"
President Bush once remarked, "is something that
I'm often not accused of." Looking ahead to the '88
election, he observed, inarguably,
"It's no exaggeration to say that the undecideds
could go one way or the other." -In his 90s,
he took great delight when his closest pal, James A. Baker, smuggled a bottle of Grey
Goose Vodka into his hospital room. Apparently, it paired well
with the steak Baker had delivered
from Morton's. -All four of us were singing as we went back
to the White House -- ♪ Don't cry for me, Argentina ♪ And a few days later, he's getting hammered
by the press for some extraordinarily
petty bit of trivia, and suddenly, he sings out -- ♪ Don't cry for me, Argentina ♪ The President wrote that he was
finally losing his marbles. -He loved to laugh,
especially at himself. He could tease and needle,
but never out of malice. He placed great value
on a good joke. That's why he chose
Simpson to speak. -So, the punch line for George
Herbert Walker Bush is this -- you would have wanted him
on your side. He never lost his sense
of humor. Humor is the universal solvent
against the abrasive elements of life
.
