George W. Bush’s Anger and Impulsivity

While watching Governor George W. Bush during his acceptance speech at the Republic National Convention 2000, my six-year-old son asked, “Is he angry, Mom?” “Why do you think he is angry?” I queried. “I don’t know, he just looks angry,” he replied with a shrug. My son’s comment summed up what I discovered while researching Bush’s personality in the previous two months.

George W. Bush’s anger had occupied my thoughts this summer while researching the Republican governor for my seminar paper in Professor Paul Elovitz’s senior seminar on political candidates. This essay will examine George W. Bush’s personality and his emotional responses to experiences in life. He is inclined to respond impulsively and sometimes with anger. While my findings are based upon an examination of the Texas governor’s childhood and youth, I think there are clear implications regarding his mature personality.

The relationship between grandmothers and grandchildren is one of the most special bonds one may experience in life. This is why I was struck by Barbara Bush’s recollection of a comment of her mother (George W. Bush’s maternal grandmother). The grandmother said that “she hated to be in the same room with the baby, for if she took her eyes off him, George looked hurt” (Barbara Bush, A Memoir, 1994, p. 29). This early description of the behavior of the eldest son of Barbara Pierce and George Herbert Walker Bush seems to contain an element of anger as well as the lifelong desire for attention so common in politicians.

It is important to search for signs of impulsiveness and anger in the life of the person most likely to be the next President of the United States (according to current public opinion polls). Anger is a natural human emotion that can help energize us when we face threats. In modern society, where we seldom must literally fight, the problem becomes how to manage anger without damaging our relationship with others.

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Behaviors in Bush’s early years portray anger and a lack of self-control, leading to impulsivity. In his third-grade class taught by Miss Austine Crosby, “Georgie” “threw a football through a window at Sam Houston Elementary School one rainy afternoon when all the students had been ordered to stay indoors at lunchtime.” The following year a teacher sent him to the principal’s office for creating a disturbance by using a ballpoint pen to painstakingly mark his face with a goatee, mustache, and sideburns in imitation of Elvis Presley.

George W. had his mother’s outspoken manner. Always the family lightning rod, as a 12-year-old he would get into fights with his five-year-old brother Jeb. This prompted their mother Barbara, according to a paternal uncle, “to get in the middle of those fights … bust them up and slap them [the kids] around” (Bill Minutaglio, First Son: George W. Bush and the Bush Family Dynasty, 1999, p. 49).

Childhood friend Randall Roden described Bush while at Andover as being somewhat impulsive: “Being stickball commissioner revealed Bush’s personality. He was a figurehead, well suited to deal with a diverse group,” bringing people together. But “Bush was slightly impulsive, it was hard for him to bite his tongue and keep from saying something that would get him in trouble…. GWB was a prankster, mischievous” (First Son, p. 73).

Nor did the eldest Bush child outgrow this rashness while an Ivy Leaguer at Yale. Seven days before completing a well-paid summer job (obtained by his father) on an inland oil barge in Louisiana, Bush, nicknamed the “Bombastic One,” simply walked off the barge and never came back. This was an incident that George W. Bush always regretted because his father expressed disappointment in him because of it (First Son, p. 90). Such dropping out often reflects anger.

Another impulsive incident portraying rebelliousness occurred while George W. was in university. As a 20-year-old, along with some of his equally loud Yale fraternity brothers, he “descended on the Christmas-bedecked streets of New Haven. Patrolling downtown, Bush spied a wreath on a storefront and reached out to take it.” The police happened to see him and he was “questioned, arrested and charged with disorderly conduct” (First Son, p. 99). Eventually, the charges were dismissed.

Shortly after the wreath incident, young George returned home to Texas where he impulsively bought a “monster ring” at Neiman Marcus for Cathryn Wolfman, his first fiancé. The family was none too happy with the match and it did not result in marriage (First Son, p. 100).

In 1968 Bush had enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard, which protected him from being sent to Vietnam. With his obligation scheduled to end on May 26, 1974, he wrote a letter expressing his desire for early discharge: “I respectfully request my discharge from the Texas Air National Guard.… I am moving to Boston, Massachusetts, to attend Harvard Business School as a full-time student” (First Son, p. 153). Once again, George W. decided to not complete an obligation. One could conclude that because of the “Bush” name he was able to receive an honorable discharge easily, which the average citizen would have to fight for.

After graduating from Yale, Bush was in the “nomadic period of his life” with intervals of unemployment interspersed with stints as a management trainee and a political campaigner. In 1972, George and his 15-year-old brother Marvin drank too much at a friend’s house and then noisily crashed into a neighbor’s metal garbage can on their way home. Facing his father (then ambassador to the U. N.), George W. challenged him to a fistfight, offering to go “mano a mano right here.” Their brother Jeb stepped in to defuse the situation. This incident seemed prompted by a defiant pride over being accepted into the Harvard School of Business MBA program as well as anxiety over his decision to attend (First Son, pp. 147-148).

An important turning point in Bush’s life was his meeting, courting, and marrying Laura Welch. He became obsessed with her, called her constantly to the point where her mother declared that she “was afraid George was going to ruin the whole thing because he was rushing it” (First Son, p. 184). Fortunately, his impulsivity did not drive Laura away. Marriage and parenthood eventually helped lessen his erratic conduct. His considerable alcohol consumption ended when he gave up beer at age 40, after Laura threatened to take their twin daughters and leave him if he did not moderate his behavior.

A politician must carefully select each and every word, since any utterances can come back to haunt him or her. The Republican governor knows the names of the media people and readily talks about his personal passions or whatever is on his mind. The press is generally very comfortable

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with him. Yet, George W. has also expressed his anger, impulsivity, and lack of self-control to the media when he dislikes their questions or their tone. At a scheduled stop in Salt Lake City, Bush abruptly ripped the microphone from his coat, declaring, “That’s it buddy!” and storming away from the cameras at the beginning of the interview. He declared, “Listen — you know, if you want to try to do this to me then I’m not going to talk to you.” With that he stabbed his finger at the reporter (First Son, pp. 262-264).

Bush is prone to rationalizing his angry and impulsive behavior. In the fourth grade when he was sent to the principal’s office for drawing on his face, he stated that he “was imitating Elvis Presley,” who had done concerts nearby. Bush justified the wreath-stealing incident as a college prank. By 1976, well aware that his peers were accomplishing much more than he, George W. acknowledged that he was “drinking and carousing and fumbling around” (First Son, pp. 49, 99, and 173).

In conclusion, from infancy to adulthood George W. Bush’s behaviors demonstrate impulsive and angry personality traits. Throughout his life he has rationalized poor self-control. Although I began my study of the Texas Governor inclined to support and vote for him on November 7, I eventually felt that he was too impulsive and angry to be President.

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