I wrote this piece just after the 1992 election. I submitted it to the Washington Times but, alas, it failed to pass their propriety test. So here it is, better late than never…. Alternative headline: “The Heave That Changed History.”
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THE BARF THAT BUSTED THE NEW WORLD ORDER
by James Bovard, November 1992
In the coming weeks, there will be a rush by analysts and politicians to interpret the presidential election’s results – reading them as a mandate for everything from national health care, to higher taxes, to affirmative action. But the true interpretation of Clinton’s victory must be based instead on the single most decisive and memorable event of the 1992 campaign.
In the same way that some historians suggest that lead poisoning from badly-made pottery may have played a key role in the decline of the Roman Empire, a case of the flu was a key cause to the American political collapse of Bush’s New World Order. While Bush vehemently denounced Bill Clinton for demonstrating against the United States while visiting a foreign country, a much bigger issue in the election was Bush’s barfing on a foreign leader in a foreign capital.
Few Americans will forget the television tape – endlessly repeated – of Bush spewing his dinner over Japanese Prime Minister Miyazawa last January 10 [1992], and of Bush’s head laying in the lap of Miyazawa during Bush’s post-upchuck depression. Thanks to the television networks, Bush’s Tokyo eruption became a modern “day of infamy” – an event that was burned forever into the memories of American voters (if only subconsciously). In every public opinion poll taken this year, Bush was identified by an overwhelming majority of voters as the presidential candidate most likely to vomit against the national interest.
Bush’s collapse in the polls began the same week of his Tokyo debacle. Before going to Japan, Bush had an extremely high favorable/unfavorable rating with the American public, according to most polls. The week after his return, his ratings plunged dramatically. Bush never recovered from the sharp plunge in his approval ratings, and his Tokyo trip came to symbolize the folly and irresponsibility of his presidency.
The Democrats skillfully but subtly played on this issue throughout the campaign. Since most of the media was openly biased in favor of Clinton, their devious ploy was never exposed. As any perceptive viewer of the Democratic convention in New York City last summer realized, the Democrats did not put on the podium anyone who vomited, or who had a public record of barfing. This strategy may have played a key role in undercutting the Republican’s efforts to portray themselves as champions of traditional values at their Houston convention.
Many televisions viewers were likely reminded of Bush’s Tokyo incident as they watched the second presidential debate from Richmond – the debate which featured the Phil Donahue format, and in which Bush repeatedly looked like he was on the verge of heaving after hearing the questions from the audience. (According to a one survey, 0.237% of viewers threw up as the result of the question from the pony-tailed guy asking all the candidates to promise to play nice with each other.)
Throughout the campaign, Bush consistently drew smaller crowds at his speeches than did Clinton, and television films showed that listeners in the front rows at Bush speeches were noticeably more apprehensive. Could memories of that night in Tokyo have been haunting Bush’s staunchest supporters and keeping them from his side at his hour of greatest need? How much of a role did the Great Tokyo Retch have in undermining Bush’s attempt to get the average voter to trust him?
Bush may have ultimately been defeated because of epidemiological trends – the early outbreak of flu in key electoral states this Fall, as reported by the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Because of the endless repeat showings by the television networks of Bush’s Tokyo incident, millions of flu sufferers may have a bitter recollection of the President as they faced their own moment of truth. Clinton carried eight of the ten states with the largest flu occurrence. Crucially, in seven of those states, the number of recent flu sufferers alone was greater than Clinton’s margin of victory. It was also no fluke that the National Association of Bulimics Anonymous formally endorsed Clinton.
Of course, the most important question is – What impact did Bush’s Tokyo discharge have on the United States’ economic growth rate? Economist John Maynard Keynes wrote of the “animal spirits” that are the key to the expansion of capitalist economies. Bush’s advisers and many independent experts were predicting a strong economic rebound in the early quarters of this year, but it never occurred. How much subconscious impact did Bush’s public spectacle have on American entrepreneur’s faith in the future? Perhaps we will never know. Undeniably, the U.S. dollar lost much of its value against the Japanese yen in the months after Bush’s visit.
As with any great historical event, many shifts of fate could have produced an entirely different result. For instance, on his Tokyo trip, if Bush had thrown up on Lee Iacocca instead of Japan’s Miyazawa, he might have captured the votes of millions of disgruntled Chrysler owners and swept to a landslide victory. If instead of going to Japan, Bush had gone to a Mideast peace conference and blown groceries on the PLO’s Yassar Arafat or Syria’s Hafez Assad, he might have received enough additional votes to carry New York state and its 33 electoral votes. At the least, targeting Arafat or Assad would have allowed Bush’s spokesmen to defend his regurgitating as part of a visionary geo-political strategy.
One thing is clear from the 1992 election: Bill Clinton has received an overwhelming mandate from the American people not to publicly vomit on foreign leaders. Clinton probably also received a mandate not to barf even on junior White House staff or lobbyists, but that may be reading too much into the polling data. At any rate, we can expect Clinton Administration officials to be far better equipped with air sickness bags than were their predecessors.
TAGLINE: Bovard is a journalist who swears that he has never barfed beyond U.S. continental limits.
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