Bush

WASHINGTON — The Republican snarled that his opponent was a big-spending liberal. The Democrat huffed about the Republican’s loyalty to an incumbent President. The Republican tried against the odds to attract black and Latino voters. The Democrat sought to lasso conservative Democrats tempted to stray over the political line.

This is not George Bush vs. Michael S. Dukakis, 1988. It was George Bush vs. Lloyd Bentsen, 1970, battling for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas, in a race that helps explain why Bentsen was tapped as Dukakis’ vice presidential nominee 18 years later.

For one thing, Bentsen won. For another, he fought off appeals by Republican Bush to curry favor with conservative swing Democrats, the same sort who are expected to make the difference this time around.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

Those who look at the 1970 race as a key to the candidates’ likely behavior this year will find few surprises. It was, the wags said, a face-off between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. The candidates themselves, neither a master of charisma, projected remarkably similar positions on the issues.

“They’re not too different,” said Robert Mosbacher, Bush’s current national finance chairman, who held the corresponding position in the Senate campaign.

Pressed as the 1970 race began to come up with one difference between him and Bush, Bentsen found one: “I am a Democrat and he’s a Republican.”

But there were some distinguishing quirks: Bentsen, worried that he would lose some conservatives to Bush, gained some ground by convincing voters that he was actually more conservative than the pre-Reaganite Bush.

And while the race was nominally between Bentsen and Bush, it seemed at times to be a battle of presidents. On Bentsen’s side was Texas native Lyndon B. Johnson, in the second year of his retirement. On Bush’s was Richard M. Nixon, in the middle of his first term, unspoiled as yet by the ravages of Watergate.

Not a Vitriolic Battle

Surprisingly, given the lack of discord on issues, the race did not degenerate into a sassy or vitriolic personal battle.

“It was really competitive, but there wasn’t any dirty politics or name-calling,” Mosbacher said.

That was reserved for the Democratic primary, a bitter, divisive affair in which Bentsen upset the incumbent, liberal Democrat Ralph W. Yarborough. The primary gave Bentsen a boost of publicity and was the beginning of the end for Bush, who had entered the race assuming he would battle an ideological opposite in the general election.

When he came face-to-face with Bentsen, “it was a whole new ballgame,” said Peter Roussell, Bush’s 1970 press spokesman.

Bush told voters that he, as a Republican senator under the Nixon Administration, could deliver more for Texas, and he accused Bentsen of being the “machine” candidate, groomed by Texas’ powerful Democratic hierarchy.

In a line that would be resurrected in 1988, Bush warned voters against the “big spenders” in Congress, who “recklessly spend the taxpayers’ hard-earned money.” He called for programs to battle air pollution and made forays into the traditionally Democratic Latino and black neighborhoods to corral votes.

Had Better Firepower

But Bentsen was armed with more piercing ammunition.

He criticized Bush’s support of a Nixon Administration welfare proposal, calling the package a “guaranteed annual income.” He also attacked Bush’s support of a 1968 gun-control measure that required dealers to keep records of the sale of guns and ammunition. He called the measure “the first step toward registration of law-abiding citizens’ guns,” a conscience-tweaking issue in Texas. Bush countered that he had voted against every floor amendment that dealt with gun registration.

Johnson entered the fray and told voters that he would vote for Bush for senator–if he lived in Connecticut, the state in which Bush was reared. Added former Texas Gov. John B. Connally–now a Republican–”Texas doesn’t need a Connecticut Yankee like Bush, just a good sound conservative boy like Lloyd.”

Even Bentsen’s campaign slogan–”A courageous Texan with fresh ideas”–reinforced the notion of carpetbagging, although Bush had by then lived in Texas for 22 years. Bush countered with the vague, “He can do more.”

Amid Bentsen’s criticism of the incumbent Administration, Bush stayed loyal to Nixon, calling him “stronger than horseradish in Texas.” The President paid back the favor by flying in for one campaign swing and sending then-Vice President Spiro T. Agnew in for another. But the trips only exaggerated the sense of Bush as an outsider.

GOP Heavily Outnumbered

Ultimately, according to a 1970 aide, Bush was simply unable to persuade Texas Democrats to switch. And a switch was mandatory–in the primaries those years, only 110,000 people voted Republican, while 1.5 million cast Democratic ballots.

ATLANTA — Vice President George Bush and Sen. Bob Dole, chief rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, clashed over trade policy and derided each other’s plans for reduction of the federal deficit at a presidential campaign debate here Sunday.

“I don’t think we should go down the protectionist road,” Bush declared in warning against tougher trade measures now pending in Congress at the debate staged here in Georgia to focus attention on the candidates’ views in advance of the March 8 Super Tuesday Southern primaries.

“The best answer (to the nation’s trade problems) is open markets,” Bush said, adding that he was concerned about “the inevitability of retaliation” against the United States by foreign trading partners.

But Dole, who is supporting stronger trade measures on Capitol Hill, disagreed sharply. “Every time I hear the word retaliation I am reminded that Japan and South Korea and Taiwan already block Florida oranges and Georgia peaches and Alabama melons.” Dole contended that an Alabama melon would cost about $55 in Japan because of that country’s restrictive trade practices.

‘Talking About Jobs’

“Let’s be realistic,” the Kansas lawmaker said. “We’re talking about American jobs, not protectionism.”

On the issue of the budget deficit, Dole dismissed a four-year budget spending freeze advocated by Bush as a “four-year cop-out” because the plan limits only overall spending rather than specific programs.

“He’s just going to freeze bad programs for four years and not do anything about it,” said Dole, who favors a one-year across-the-board ceiling on all spending programs, except aid for the needy. Dole contended that in four years Bush’s plan would leave the nation with a deficit of $153 billion.

But Bush disputed Dole’s figures and argued that the senator’s proposal “would cut into the muscle of defense.”

“How does your plan work?” Bush demanded of Dole.

“How does your plan work?” Dole shot back.

A Spirited Argument

Bush made his most spirited argument for his deficit plan in an exchange with New York Rep. Jack Kemp, who is vying with Pat Robertson, former religious broadcaster, to become the conservative alternative to either of the two front-runners.

Responding to Kemp’s charge that the budget freeze proposals meant that national security would be sacrificed “on the altar of mindless budgeting,” Bush said: “The freeze I’m talking about provides the President with flexibility.”

“The point is, Jack, you don’t care about deficits, you never have. You don’t think they’re important. And they are public enemy No. 1.”

“George Bush is now making my speech,” grumbled Dole, who has sought to depict himself in the campaign as the chief Republican foe of budget deficits.

Although Kemp and Bush argued about budget policy, the two were by and large in agreement in opposing changes in trade policy in contrast with Dole and Robertson. Trade has become a hot issue in the Super Tuesday Republican presidential campaign in large measure because of the impact of textile imports on the economies of South Carolina and other textile-producing states in this region.

Dole and Robertson both support trade legislation, which Bush and Kemp oppose.

‘Sounds Like Gephardt’

“Your trade talk sounds like Dick Gephardt,” Kemp told Dole at one point, referring to Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, who has based much of his drive for the Democratic presidential nomination on a controversial proposal to give the United States the power to retaliate against unfair foreign trade practices.

Earlier in the debate, Robertson introduced the trade issue into the discussion. “People that I’ve talked to can’t abide the thought that America is going to be No. 2 in the world in the 21st Century,” Robertson said. Decrying the rise of textile imports from China and the Soviet Union, the former broadcaster said: “I don’t believe we can continue to permit the deindustrialization of America.

“I’m for free trade in this country but it’s got to be fair. And I think if those people don’t deal fairly with us, it’s high time we started getting tough with them. I don’t want to preside over Uncle Sucker, I want to preside over Uncle Sam.”

But Kemp promptly took issue with that argument in impassioned terms.

‘Barriers to Imports’

“If we’re going to go to Iowa, Pat and Bob,” he said, addressing Robertson and Dole, “and tell the folks in Iowa we want to boost exports of grain and corn and soybeans and then go to South Carolina, as you both have done, and tell them you’re going to put up barriers to imports, we will be making a mistake under your leadership.”

Kemp charged that such a shift in trade policy would be like “the mistake that was made in 1929 and 1930 when a Republican Congress caused the worst trade war in the history of this world with the Smoot-Hawley tariff act.”

Calling for lower tax rates on labor and capital and stable exchange rates to spur economic growth, the New York congressman warned that putting up trade barriers “is not just protectionist, it is mindless with regard to the fact that we have to compete in an export war.

“So let’s not make the mistake we made in the 1930s.”

Sunday’s debate, like the debate staged here Saturday for Democratic presidential candidates, was sponsored by the Atlanta Constitution-Journal. It brought together all of the 1988 GOP presidential contenders for the first time since the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 16.

Republican Survivors

A prior effort to assemble all the Republican survivors on one platform failed 10 days ago in Dallas when Dole and Robertson refused to participate, charging that the arrangements in Bush’s home state unfairly favored the vice president.

Since winning the New Hampshire primary, Bush has seemed relaxed and confident on the stump, bolstered not only by his victory in the Granite State but also by his financial resources and his reputedly powerful organization in most of the 14 Southern and border Super Tuesday states.

The vice president’s chief rival, Dole, won the South Dakota primary and the Minnesota caucuses last week. But Dole’s satisfaction with those successes was dimmed by evidence of discord within his campaign organization, signaled most notably by the firing of two key advisers, David Keene and Donald Devine, by campaign Chairman William Brock.

Meanwhile Robertson campaign strategists have been concerned about the potential impact on his candidacy of the disclosures of the sexual misadventures of television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart.

For his part, Kemp, short on money and lacking the sort of Southern base Robertson can rely on among evangelical Christians, must win the backing of hard-core conservatives to stay in the race. His first objective is to finish ahead of either Bush or Robertson in the South Carolina Republican primary next Saturday, the results of which are expected to have considerable symbolic impact on the March 8 vote.

The political cartoon by Auth (Commentary, Aug. 2) was very appropriate. It’s too bad the cartoon had to be cropped for space, as I am sure that just behind the two elephants were two donkeys and many, many people, all laughing their heads off at “Noah” Bush standing there on the deck of the ark. We all know what happened to those who thought they were too wise to enter the safety of the ark. Perhaps the animals that the real Noah allowed aboard the ark had misgivings too, but they entered and settled down to ride out the storm, and in the end they were better off than those who stood outside and laughed.

Those who were unwilling to ride with Noah were doomed, just as are those who now think they are too wise to ride with “Noah” Bush (and Dan Quayle).

CLIFFORD L. LILLO, Torrance

Oct. 3 (UPI) — Cori Bush announced her comeback bid for the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday.

Bush, who represents St. Louis and is a former member of the progressive ‘squad,’ was defeated in her primary by well-funded Rep. Wesley Bell, D-Mo.

“I ran for Congress because I know what it feels like to be a working-class St. Louisan. Too often unseen, unheard, left out,” Bush said in an ad. “I promised to fight for St. Louis, and we delivered.”

She posted on X: “We need a fighter who will lower costs, protect our communities, and make life fairer. I’ll be that fighter.”

The funding for Bell came from a super PAC affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Bush had been an outspoken critic of Israel over the war in Gaza. The PAC spent more than $8.6 million to oust her.

In June 2024, another squad member Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., lost his primary to George Latimer, 70, who joined the race to support local Jewish leaders who didn’t like Bowman’s anti-Israel rhetoric.

Bush mentioned her defeat, saying, “Because I spoke truth, they pushed back, attacked my name, my motives, spread lies and hate.”

On X, Bell responded: “Today my former opponent, Cori Bush, entered the race for Congress. That’s her right, and in our democracy, everyone gets a say. But here’s the simple truth: Missouri voters already rendered their verdict when they voted her out of office last year and chose to move on.”

While Bush has been an outspoken critic of Israel since the Oct. 7, 2023, start of the war, other Democrats are growing weary as the war lingers.

Bell has also wavered.

“I’ve always supported Israel’s right to exist and defend itself. That hasn’t changed,” Bell said in July on X. “But supporting this government’s actions – allowing children to starve and firing on civilians seeking food — is something I can’t stand by.”

Political analyst Matthew Dowd lost his contributor role at MSNBC because of comments he made about Charlie Kirk after the young right-wing activist was murdered Wednesday.

Shortly after Kirk was shot to death while speaking on stage at Utah Valley State University, Dowd told MSNBC anchor Katy Tur that “hateful thoughts lead to hateful words which then lead to hateful actions.”

The angry reaction on social media was immediate after Dowd’s comments suggested that Kirk’s history of incendiary remarks led to the shooting.

MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler issued an apology Wednesday night.

“During our breaking news coverage of the shooting of Charlie Kirk, Matthew Dowd made comments that were inappropriate, insensitive, and unacceptable,” Kutler said in a statement. “There is no place for violence in America, political or otherwise.”

The network then severed ties with Dowd, according to a person briefed on the decision who was not authorized to comment.

“My thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of Charlie Kirk,” Dowd later wrote on his Bluesky account. “I was asked a question on the environment we are in. I apologize for my tone and words. Let me be clear, I in no way intended for my comments to blame Kirk for this horrendous attack.”

Dowd is a political consultant who served as the chief strategist for George W. Bush’s successful 2004 presidential reelection campaign. Dowd broke away from the Republican party due to his unhappiness with Bush’s handling of the Iraq war.

Dowd previously served as a political analyst for ABC News.

WIMBERLY, TEXAS — Matthew Dowd knows sorrow and loss. He has been divorced twice. A daughter died two months after she was born. And then there is the added heartbreak — a word he uses — of his split with President Bush.

Dowd, 46, is one of the nation’s leading political strategists, a onetime Democrat who switched sides to help put Bush in the White House, then win a second term. He spent years shaping and promoting Bush’s policies — policies that Dowd now views with a mixture of anguish and contempt.

He began expressing his disillusionment, tentatively at first, at a UC Berkeley conference in January. Since then, he has grown more forceful.

On the administration’s response to the Sept. 11 attacks: “I asked, ‘Why aren’t we doing bonds, war bonds? Why aren’t we asking the country to do something instead of just . . . go shopping and get back on airplanes?’”

On the White House stand against same-sex marriage: “Why are we having the federal government get involved? . . . Does a thing limiting someone’s rights and aimed at a particular constituency belong in the U.S. Constitution?”

On the war in Iraq: “I guess somebody would make the argument, well, the Iraq war was about defending ourselves. But it seems an awfully huge stretch these days to say that.”

With a rueful laugh and, at one point, a catch in his throat, Dowd offered a lengthy account of his break with Bush during hours of conversation at his 18-acre ranch in the green Hill Country outside Austin. He puffed a cigar, and then another, as the fading sun glinted off the Blanco River. A CD player cycled through sacred music and country songs.

Dowd is not the first Bush ally to part with the administration. Former Treasury Secretary Paul H. O’Neill contributed to a book that likened the president at cabinet meetings to a “blind man in a roomful of deaf people.” John J. Dilulio Jr., who led the White House office of faith-based initiatives, left with a shot at “Mayberry Machiavellis.” Retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, who once led U.S. forces in Iraq, accused the administration of going to war with a “catastrophically flawed” plan.

But Dowd was a part of Bush’s political inner circle, enjoying a degree of power and intimacy that made his criticism all the more unexpected — and hurtful to those still close to the president, many of whom are Dowd’s friends.

“I care about him as a human being,” said Mark McKinnon, a former Dowd business partner who produced Bush’s campaign ads and sometimes bicycles with the president. “The problem was not just what he said, but that he never voiced any of those concerns directly to people he was supposed to be advising.”

Dowd responded that he shared his feelings with McKinnon and others close to Bush more than once before going public.

In speaking out, Dowd has not only strained personal relationships but raised larger questions about loyalty in the political realm. Is he obliged to stand by his old boss, whose success made Dowd one of the most sought-after consultants in the campaign business? Or does he owe it to the country to openly dissent, even if he didn’t do so from the start?

The answer, for Dowd, is simple, even if his life these days is less so. “When you’re a public advocate of something in the high-profile way that I was, and all of a sudden it doesn’t turn out the way you thought, the counterweight is not to just sit quietly and let it go,” Dowd said. “I had to say something in a high-profile way.”

His disenchantment with the president built over several years. Dowd went public at a Berkeley seminar on the 2006 California governor’s race; Dowd was both a senior advisor to the Republican National Committee, where he landed after Bush took office, and a top strategist for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s reelection effort. It was a question about the president that set Dowd off and, looking back, liberated him.

“Do you lose sleep at night knowing that you gave this country probably the worst administration we’ve ever had?” asked a young man. “I mean, have you thought about maybe trying to save your soul by calling for impeachment?”

Dowd tensed and leaned forward. Rather than defend Bush, he spoke of the oldest of his three sons, an Army language specialist then facing deployment to Iraq. “Now, am I a person who stays up at night thinking about that? Yeah. . . . Do we have hopes and dreams and disappointments? . . . Yes,” Dowd said.

But when things don’t turn out as hoped “it does not mean that you somehow have to walk down the street in a hair shirt with a sign that says, ‘Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me,’ ” he said. “We move on.”

Dowd now sees the confrontation as “a gift [that] gave me the opportunity to start expressing things more and more publicly.”

In March, he wrote a piece for Texas Monthly magazine suggesting Bush had undercut his “gut-level bond with the American public.” Finally, applying torch to bridge in spectacular fashion, Dowd detailed his break with Bush in a front-page interview with the New York Times. No one in the White House was alerted.

“I was definitely disappointed I had to learn from a reporter, and not him, that he was going public,” said Dan Bartlett, a former White House counselor and a friend of Dowd.

In the seven months since, Dowd has spurned book offers and the talk-show circuit, as well as the antiwar movement. He is not comfortable in the role of Bush basher. “I don’t hate the guy,” he said of the president, who has not spoken with Dowd since he aired his views. “I don’t think he’s evil or bad. I think he’s a good person that didn’t accomplish what he set out to do.”

Dowd grew up the third of 11 children in an Irish Catholic family in Detroit. His father was an auto executive; his mother taught elementary school before becoming a full-time mom. If not for all those kids, Dowd said, his family might have been upper-middle-class. Instead, there were hand-me-downs and lots of meatless suppers.

His conservative parents shaped his political views. But that changed at Cardinal Newman College, a small liberal arts school in St. Louis. Dowd became a Democrat, albeit one who opposed abortion and heavy taxation. It made for a good fit with conservative Democrats in Texas, where he moved in 1984 to work for Austin’s congressman.

Over the next 10 years, Dowd helped elect Democrats throughout Texas and elsewhere, growing close to one in particular, the state’s crusty Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock. Bullock, in turn, hit it off with Bush after the Republican became governor in 1994. Bullock even crossed party lines to endorse Bush’s 1998 reelection.

Soon after that landslide, Dowd was approached by Karl Rove, Bush’s top campaign advisor. The two were friendly, having lectured together on politics at the University of Texas. Bush was preparing a presidential run, and Rove wanted help. Dowd was impressed with the way Bush worked with Bullock and other statehouse Democrats. “I thought Washington was so screwed up, so polarized, maybe he’d be the guy who could fix that,” Dowd said.

His hopes rose during the 2000 campaign. “We were going to change Washington,” Dowd said. “There was kind of a mutual agreement that [Bush] was going to be a different kind of Republican.”

At first Bush governed that way, Dowd said, working with Democrats to cut taxes and overhaul education policy. But he believes something changed after Sept. 11, 2001. “There was an imperial feel to it,” Dowd said. “The things he did in Texas, he didn’t do any of that. . . . We didn’t build relationships with Democrats in Congress, and we didn’t build them overseas.”

When Dowd voiced concerns — about the failure to ask more of Americans after Sept. 11, about further tax cuts — he felt ignored. “Karl wanted me to worry about other things,” Dowd said. “I’d get a nice pat on the head.” Rove had no comment for this article.

The GOP congressional gains in 2002 didn’t help, Dowd said. “Increasing Republican majorities in both houses,” he said, “became a disincentive for consensus building.”

Still, Dowd stuck by the president and managed his reelection campaign because he assumed things would change once Bush was in a second term. It was, he said, like ignoring doubts in hopes of saving a marriage. “You say, ‘Well, they got drunk last night but it’ll be better next week.’ Or, ‘They had an affair but they’re not really that way.’ You talk yourself out of it because you believed, and you want to believe.”

His disaffection grew, however, when Bush started his second term with an acrimonious fight over Social Security. Dowd felt the president had the chance — but not the desire — to reach out to Democrats.

The years between the 2000 campaign and Bush’s reelection had been a whirlwind for Dowd, a time of great professional success and personal upheaval. In September 2002, he and his second wife had twin daughters born prematurely; one died after two months in the hospital. Their marriage began unraveling.

He spent much of 2005 co-writing a book on leadership, “Applebee’s America,” and thinking. His work advising Schwarzenegger pushed him further from Bush. The governor’s bipartisanship, Dowd thought, was a favorable contrast to the president’s “my-way-or-the-highway” approach.

The White House, however, was not pleased when Schwarzenegger distanced himself from Bush. After some “fairly heated discussions,” Dowd said, he and Rove stopped talking before the midterm election. They have not spoken since. Dowd left his job with the Republican National Committee at the end of last year.

He expresses no regrets for repudiating the president he served, even if the experience seems to have deepened his disappointment in Bush and the ways of Washington. Dowd has taken comfort from strangers who called and sent e-mails “basically saying that it took a lot of courage to say the truth.” It is friends who have let him down: “People who called up and said, ‘We agree with you, but you should not have said anything until January ’09.’ ”

Dowd had hoped his harsh words would break through to the president and White House. “But it doesn’t seem to me less bunkered than it was,” Dowd said, with a mirthless chuckle.

Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, rejected that notion. “I think there’s a lot of exchange and interaction,” Fratto said. “No one here fails to hear criticisms or concerns, whether it’s coming from the media or experts or the public or Capitol Hill. In fact, I would say it’s impossible not to.”

Dowd said he heard secondhand that Bush was hurt by his criticism. Asked if he would like to resume their relationship, Dowd paused. “Sure, I’d like to visit with him,” he said. “It would be a nice thing to do at some point. But I don’t feel a necessity to do it to settle something in myself.”

Dowd lives alone on his ranch, amid the tall grass, cedar and live oaks that run to the edge of the Blanco River. It is an exile of his choosing, six miles outside Wimberly, population 4,000. He is, he happily noted, just another local tooling around in a silver Dodge pickup.

His 3,300-square-foot home has a country feel, with antique fixtures, a wraparound porch and knotty wood floors. A frilly bedroom guarded by a life-size stuffed tiger awaits frequent visits from his 5-year-old daughter, Josephine. The house is filled with books, inspirational sayings — “Happiness often sneaks in a door you did not open” — and, by a quick count, more than 100 crosses. The Prayer of St. Francis — “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love” — is inscribed on a big painting above the fireplace.

Notably absent are pictures of Bush, or any other politician. “I don’t define myself by my professional career. How much money I made, who I elected,” Dowd said. He may be through with campaigns; but there is plenty of work doing brand consulting for corporate clients, which takes him two to three times a week to Austin, a 50-minute drive.

Faith has always been important to Dowd, a former altar boy who once considered becoming a priest (except for the fact he liked girls too much). But it has become even more important after the discouragement of the last few years. He attends Mass each Sunday, and sometimes during the week. Recently, Dowd took a spiritual journey, including stops in India, Nepal and Israel, to walk in the footsteps of Gandhi, Buddha and Jesus, among others.

“If you really want to know where I’m at, it’s understanding now that the people that have had the most profound effect on the world are not elected officials, not people who have held vast kingdoms, but are basically people who walked out their front door and acted right,” Dowd said.

Happiness, he believes, requires three things: people, a place and work that feed the soul. He has his children and ranch. Dowd is now trying to figure out the last piece.

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Bilateral meetings between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterparts were a regular occurrence early in his 25-year tenure.

But as tensions mounted between Moscow and the West following the illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and allegations of meddling with the 2016 U.S. elections, those meetings became increasingly less frequent, and their tone appeared less friendly.

Here’s what to know about past meetings between Russian and U.S. presidents:

Putin and Joe Biden

Putin and Biden met only once while holding the presidency –- in Geneva in June 2021.

Russia was massing troops on the border with Ukraine, where large swaths of land in the east had long been occupied by Moscow-backed forces; Washington repeatedly accused Russia of cyberattacks. The Kremlin was intensifying its domestic crackdown on dissent, jailing opposition leader Alexei Navalny months earlier and harshly suppressing protests demanding his release.

Putin and Biden talked for three hours, with no breakthroughs. They exchanged expressions of mutual respect, but firmly restated their starkly different views on various issues.

They spoke again via videoconference in December 2021 as tensions heightened over Ukraine. Biden threatened sanctions if Russia invaded, and Putin demanded guarantees that Kyiv wouldn’t join NATO –- something Washington and its allies said was a nonstarter.

Another phone call between the two came in February 2022, less than two weeks before the full-scale invasion. Then the high-level contacts stopped cold, with no publicly disclosed conversations between them since the invasion.

Putin and Donald Trump

Putin met President Trump six times during the American’s first term — at and on the sidelines of G20 and APEC gatherings — but most famously in Helsinki in July 2018. That’s where Trump stood next to Putin and appeared to accept his insistence that Moscow had not interfered with the 2016 U.S. presidential election and openly questioned the firm finding by his own intelligence agencies.

His remarks were a stark illustration of Trump’s willingness to upend decades of U.S. foreign policy and rattle Western allies in service of his political concerns.

“I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today,” Trump said. “He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

Since Trump returned to the White House this year, he and Putin have had about a half-dozen publicly disclosed telephone conversations.

Putin and Barack Obama

President Obama met with Putin nine times, and there were 12 more meetings with Dmitry Medvedev, who served as president in 2008-12. Putin became prime minister in a move that allowed him to reset Russia’s presidential term limits and run again in 2012.

Obama traveled to Russia twice — once to meet Medvedev in 2009 and again for a G20 summit 2013. Medvedev and Putin also traveled to the U.S.

Under Medvedev, Moscow and Washington talked of “resetting” Russia-U.S. relations post-Cold War and worked on arms control treaties. U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton famously presented a big “reset” button to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a meeting in 2009. One problem: instead of “reset” in Russian, they used another word meaning “overload.”

After Putin returned to office in 2012, tensions rose between the two countries. The Kremlin accused the West of interfering with Russian domestic affairs, saying it fomented anti-government protests that rocked Moscow just as Putin sought reelection. The authorities cracked down on dissent and civil society, drawing international condemnation.

Obama canceled his visit to Moscow in 2013 after Russia granted asylum to Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor and whistleblower.

In 2014, the Kremlin illegally annexed Crimea and threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine. The U.S. and its allies responded with crippling sanctions. Relations plummeted to the lowest point since the Cold War.

The Kremlin’s 2015 military intervention in Syria to prop up Bashar Assad further complicated ties. Putin and Obama last met in China in September 2016, on the sidelines of a G20 summit, and held talks focused on Ukraine and Syria.

Putin and George W. Bush

Putin and President Bush met 28 times during Bush’s two terms, according to the Russian state news agency Tass. They hosted each other for talks and informal meetings in Russia and the U.S., met regularly on the sidelines of international summits and forums, and boasted of improving ties between onetime rivals.

After the first meeting with Putin in 2001, Bush said he “looked the man in the eye” and “found him very straightforward and trustworthy,” getting “a sense of his soul.”

In 2002, they signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty -– a nuclear arms pact that significantly reduced both countries’ strategic nuclear warhead arsenal.

Putin was the first world leader to call Bush after the 9/11 terrorist attack, offering his condolences and support, and welcomed the U.S. military deployment on the territory of Moscow’s Central Asian allies for action in Afghanistan.

He has called Bush “a decent person and a good friend,” adding that good relations with him helped find a way out of “the most acute and conflict situations.”

Putin and Bill Clinton

President Clinton traveled to Moscow in June 2000, less than a month after Putin was inaugurated as president for the first time in a tenure that has stretched to the present day.

The two had a one-on-one meeting, an informal dinner, a tour of the Kremlin from Putin, and attended a jazz concert. Their agenda included discussions on arms control, turbulence in Russia’s North Caucasus region, and the situation in the Balkans.

At a news conference the next day, Clinton said Russia under Putin “has the chance to build prosperity and strength, while safeguarding that freedom and the rule of law.”

The two also met in July of that same year at the G8 summit in Japan, in September — at the Millennium Summit at the U.N. headquarters in New York, and in November at the APEC summit in Brunei.

In an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson last year, Putin said he asked Clinton in 2000 if Russia could join NATO, and the U.S. president reportedly said it was “interesting,” and, “I think yes,” but later backtracked and said it “wasn’t possible at the moment.” Putin used the anecdote to illustrate his point about the West’s hostility toward Russia, “a big country with its own opinion.”

“We just realized that they are not waiting for us there, that’s all. OK, fine,” he said.

Litvinova writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Yuras Karmanau contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — As the Mother of All Dirty Campaigns gathers its facts and innuendo for November, probable Democratic nominee Bill Clinton is already so smeared and so ready to return fire that George Bush, in his clean white shirt of upright Republicanism and family values, can look forward to a savaging of his own. How much of this dirt sticks could be critically important.

Political logic, press reports and recent Democratic mutterings all suggest the main fire will be directed against three targets. First, the business ethics of the Bush family, three presidential sons and three presidential brothers, some with eyes for a marginally tainted deal. Second, Bush’s personal relationships–about which there have been snide hints, but no proof. And third, far more important in its national implications, the argument that, under this Administration, U.S. foreign policy–ostensibly the laurel wreath on Bush’s imperial brow–has become a gravy train for Bush family members and policy advisers, and for GOP campaign functionaries, who openly double as registered foreign agents.

Significantly, this last point is bipartisan. Vivid indictments have been made by GOP nomination rival Patrick J. Buchanan. Moreover, potential third-party candidate H. Ross Perot, a nominal Republican, is given to making harsh charges about Bush’s Persian Gulf connections. But on the first two subjects, the messengers will be Democratic and the motivation as political as Election Day itself.

The length and intensity of the trail of vaguely sleazy deals, apparent influence-peddling and periodic legal wrist-slappings left by Bush family members while their relative is in the White House is only the second-biggest surprise. The biggest is that George Herbert Walker Bush, Mr. Patrician Probity, let it happen.

Other Presidents have had the problem with several sons ( Franklin D. Roosevelt) or one brother (Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and Jimmy Carter), and should have served as cautionary examples for Bush–which makes his paternal and fraternal permissiveness so hard to understand.

The most recent sweeping indictment came in a March 27 column on the New York Times Op-Ed page portraying: 1) son Neil’s grubby conflict-of-interest involvement with the failed Silverado savings and loan (he was fined a relative pittance of $50,000); 2) son Jeb’s “unwitting” acceptance of improper political contributions; 3) brother Prescott’s highly paid role as adviser to a Tokyo investment firm identified by Japanese police as a mob front, and 4) son George Jr.’s 1990 dumping of $848,000 of Harken Energy Co. stock in possible violation of SEC insider-trading regulations. The only consolation for the President must have come in the apparent space limitation: There was no room for brother Jonathan’s 1991 violation of securities laws in Massachusetts and Connecticut, for which he was fined more than $30,000 and (in Massachusetts) barred from trading with the public for one year.

Based on previous Administrations, one or perhaps two family transgressions could be taken as typical. Bush’s problem is that Democratic campaign commercials will make the multiplicity of it come alive–perhaps portraying the Bushes as the First Family of Financial Flimflam–and throwing dirt as well on the motivations in the President’s relentless advocacy of capital-gains tax cuts.

Meanwhile, Democratic National Chairman Ronald H. Brown and others have been tee-heeing that, if the press discusses allegations about Clinton’s girlfriends, it should deal with kindred speculation about Bush. Well, maybe, but not necessarily. Comedian Mark Russell has joked on TV about Republican girlfriends named Jennifer being classier–they spell their names with a “J.” But back in 1988, similar rumors that major media were about to pursue an old Bush relationship never came true. But, for 1992, Clinton’s Gennifer Flowers problem could mean that, at some point, Democrats have little to lose from recklessness or even irresponsibility.

Paradoxically, however, the less titillating charges may be most serious–that, under Bush, the conduct of U.S. foreign affairs is starting to resemble the “bank” at the House of Representatives: a cash club for the favored and faithful. Alas, it is hard to overstate the ethical and historical transformation of U.S. foreign policy since the days of Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower or even Carter. No one had to examine Lend-Lease, the Marshall Plan or U.S.-Soviet detente for private economic deals involving the President’s family or the fingerprints of presidential campaign spokesmen who doubled as lobbyists for foreign interests and governments.

Compared with Bush, however, no previous President has had so many immediate family members involved in what can politely be called international consulting and deal-making. Until 1990, brother Prescott S. Bush Jr. was an adviser to New York-based Asset Management International, partly owned by West Tsusho, a Japanese investment company. In February, NBC News reported Prescott had stood to make $1 million by arranging U.S. deals for Tsusho, which Japanese police say is a front for the Inagawakai crime syndicate. Son George, meanwhile, is a significant shareholder–along with Saudi and South African investors–in a Texas company, Harken Energy. Just before the Gulf War, Harken won a major oil-drilling contract–one it had no obvious qualification for–from Bahrain.

Brother William (Bucky) Bush is an international consultant who has been advising Samsung, the Korean conglomerate, on U.S. investments. Son John E. (Jeb), running his father’s reelection campaign in Florida, is an international real-estate investor, who has received multimillion-dollar backing from Japan’s Mitsui Trust. Lawyers in a suit filed against the shadowy Bank of Commerce and Credit International have just identified Jeb as a potential witness because his company invested in real estate with a company controlled by a major BCCI borrower.

Several of the President’s closest foreign-policy advisers have been mired in financial conflict-of-interest situations. In 1988, Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III, approved policies that permitted U.S. banks to avoid having to write off a portion of their hefty loans to Brazil. Baker himself was a prime beneficiary of this policy, because stock in New York’s Chemical Bank, where he had a large chunk, quickly rose 40%.

Conflict-of-interest issues have even been raised about the Gulf War. In October, 1990, the President denied, no doubt justly, that son George’s Bahrain oil connection had any influence on his commitment of troops to rescue Kuwait. However, the President himself had a commercial connection with Kuwait. Many years earlier, as he told White House dinner guests, his company had built Kuwait’s first offshore oil well.

In a more speculative vein, there is the possible Washington pro-war leverage of several Gulf owners of BCCI, the shadowy international bank that helped finance Iran-Contra. Press accounts suggest that Sheik Kamal Adham, former head of Saudi intelligence, and Sheik Zayed ibn Sultan al Nuhayan of Abu Dhabi, the bank’s dominant shareholder, were both able to use BCCI as their piggy bank, which presumably gave them enormous influence in Washington. Zayed, meanwhile, has been treated with kid gloves at every point of the U.S. government’s continuing BCCI investigation.

Quite extraordinarily, Zayed’s chief Washington strategist happens to be James A. Lake, deputy manager of the Bush reelection campaign, who also butters his bread as U.S. public-relations adviser to the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one vehicle by which Zayed holds majority control of BCCI. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who has been chairing the Senate BCCI investigation, recently demanded Lake’s resignation: “I have to question the propriety of the President of the United States’ campaign being managed by someone who is simultaneously being paid over $200,000 every three months to represent BCCI’s biggest shareholder.”

Democratic researchers have thick folders to amplify these and other reported incidents. White House strategists may be making a mistake in assuming that voters now judging Clinton harshly won’t do the same for Bush.

Part of the explanation for the collapse of any serious conflict-of-interest yardstick to restrain the mingling of party politics, personal business and the for-profit modification of U.S. foreign policy is simple. Back in the mid-1980s, the line between private industry, private financial bankrollers and foreign policy was dissolved in the Iran-Contra blueprint to aid the Nicaraguan rebels. Since then, Persian Gulf bankers and Washington consultants have become de facto assistant secretaries of state and assistant U.S. trade representatives. In 1987, leading members of Congress involved in the Iran-Contra investigation voiced fears about the dangers of the privatization of foreign policy. They were prophetic.

Further proof of the privatization pudding has since emerged in the central role that registered agents or lobbyists for foreign interests have played in the 1992 GOP presidential campaign. But not everyone was pleased. Buchanan ran TV commercials and made speeches criticizing Lake’s status as a lobbyist for various Japanese interests, while the firm of Charles Black, another senior Bush adviser, also has foreign clients. Buchanan’s campaign manager said, “Bush has Japanese foreign agents running his campaign, (and) a Panamanian agent running the Republican Party.”

No other major nation was so permissive, but old barriers had dissolved, and with them, old proprieties. In late February, another presidential candidate, Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey attacked the financial dealings of Bush and his family, noting that brother Prescott was “building a golf course” in China for the “butcher of Tien An Men Square,” and charging that Bush policy “is pretty closely tied to his own family interests.” In March, Perot, revealing his plans for a possible third-party presidential bid, spiced his anti-Washington rhetoric by proposing “a law making it a criminal offense for foreign companies or individuals to influence U.S. laws or policies with money.” Legislation like that would strike at the heart of both privatized foreign policy and Washington’s international influence bazaar. But Perot–the derring-do businessman who arranged for a commando raid into Iran to free two of his employees a decade ago–understands what Iran-Contra unleashed.

In a year of profound public disillusionment, the politics could be incendiary. Just as the House of Representatives’ check-bouncing scandal essentially represents Democratic institutional corruption–though 25%-30% of congressmen involved are Republicans–the executive branch’s moral breakdown on foreign-policy corruption and self-dealing is institutionally Republican–though a fair minority of Washington’s foreign agents and international consultants are Democrats.

If his eventual presidential rivals pick up the criticisms now beginning to swirl, Bush could find the 1992 foreign-policy debate turning ugly.

Former United States Presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush have delivered a rare open rebuke of the Donald Trump administration in an emotional video farewell with staffers of the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Obama called the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID “a colossal mistake”.

Monday was the last day as an independent agency for the six-decade-old humanitarian and development organisation, created by President John F Kennedy as a soft power, peaceful way of promoting US national security by boosting goodwill and prosperity abroad.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered USAID to be absorbed into the US State Department on Tuesday.

The former presidents and U2 singer Bono  – who held back tears as he recited a poem – spoke with thousands in the USAID community in a videoconference, which was billed as a closed-press event.

They expressed their appreciation for the thousands of USAID staffers who have lost their jobs and life’s work. Their agency was one of the first and most fiercely targeted for government cuts by Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk, with staffers abruptly locked out of systems and offices and terminated by mass emailing.

Trump claimed the agency was run by “radical left lunatics” and rife with “tremendous fraud”. Musk called it “a criminal organisation”.

Obama, speaking in a recorded statement, offered assurances to the aid and development workers, some listening from overseas.

“Your work has mattered and will matter for generations to come,” he told them.

Obama has largely kept a low public profile during Trump’s second term and refrained from criticising the seismic changes that Trump has made to US programmes and priorities at home and abroad.

“Gutting USAID is a travesty, and it’s a tragedy. Because it’s some of the most important work happening anywhere in the world,” Obama said. He credited USAID with not only saving lives, but being a main factor in global economic growth that has turned some aid-receiving countries into US markets and trade partners.

The former Democratic president predicted that “sooner or later, leaders on both sides of the aisle will realise how much you are needed”.

Asked for comment, the State Department said it would be introducing the department’s foreign assistance successor to USAID, to be called America First, this week.

“The new process will ensure there is proper oversight and that every tax dollar spent will help advance our national interests,” the department said.

USAID oversaw programmes around the world, providing water and life-saving food to millions uprooted by conflict in Sudan, Syria, Gaza and elsewhere, sponsoring the “Green Revolution” that revolutionised modern agriculture and curbed starvation and famine. The agency worked at preventing disease outbreaks, promoting democracy, and providing financing and development that allowed countries and people to climb out of poverty.

Bush, who also spoke in a recorded message, went straight to the cuts in a landmark AIDS and HIV programme started by his Republican administration and credited with saving 25 million lives around the world.

Bipartisan blowback from Congress to cutting the popular President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, helped save significant funding for the programme. But cuts and rule changes have reduced the number getting the life-saving care.

“You’ve showed the great strength of America through your work – and that is your good heart,” Bush told USAID staffers. “Is it in our national interests that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is, and so do you,” he said.

More than 14 million of the world’s most vulnerable, a third of them young children, could die because of the Trump administration’s move, a study in the Lancet journal projected Tuesday.

“For many low- and middle-income countries, the resulting shock would be comparable in scale to a global pandemic or a major armed conflict,” study co-author Davide Rasella, a researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, said in a statement.

Bono, a longtime humanitarian advocate in Africa and elsewhere, was announced as the “surprise guest”.

he recited a poem he had written to the agency about its gutting. He spoke of children dying of malnutrition, a reference to millions of people who Boston University researchers and other analysts say will die because of the US cuts to funding for health and other programmes abroad.

“They called you crooks,” Bono said, “when you were the best of us.”

Lloyd Lake, the San Diego man at the center of the Reggie Bush extra benefits saga, scored a major legal victory this week over the former USC running back after a Van Nuys judge upheld an arbitrator’s decision to award Lake nearly $1.4 million in his defamation suit against Bush.

Lake filed the suit against Bush back in February 2023 — along with his parents, Roy and Barbara Gunner — alleging that Bush publicly disparaged and defamed him during a podcast appearance and in social media posts and, as such, violated the non-disparagement clause they agreed upon in a previous settlement. The comments, according to Lake and his parents’ complaint, “created a firestorm of vitriol” that saw the Gunner home vandalized with graffiti and left them fearing for their safety.

The judge’s decision this week came more than 15 years after the first explosive lawsuit between the two men was settled. That suit, which Lake first filed in 2007, claimed that he and another businessman, Michael Michaels, had provided Bush and his family with cash, a car, rent-free use of a house and other gifts while he played at USC in 2004 and 2005 with the expectation Bush would sign with Lake and his fledgling sports management company, New Era Sports & Entertainment.

The first case was settled in April 2010, just before Bush and Michaels were scheduled to be deposed. But Lake’s account of their arrangement, which violated NCAA rules, had already prompted a firestorm, one that ultimately ended in severe sanctions for USC’s football program, the vacating of the Trojans’ 2004 national title and the return of Bush’s Heisman Trophy.

As college athletes were allowed to receive compensation for use of their name, image and likeness and public opinion began shifting toward Bush, the legendary Trojan running back began sharing more about his experience and the saga that would come to define him. In an appearance on the “I Am Athlete” podcast, Bush opened up about the emotional toll the case and losing his Heisman Trophy took on him and his family. Bush eventually succeeded in having the Heisman returned to him in 2024.

Neither of the two men had spoken publicly about the other in more than a decade, abiding by the non-disparagement agreement in their 2010 settlement. At the time of that agreement, all parties involved — including Bush’s mother and stepfather — agreed to “not make any statements or representations to any person that may cast another Party to this Agreement in an unfavorable light, that are offensive to or disparage them, or that could adversely affect their name and reputation.”

But during the 2022 podcast interview, Bush went on to accuse Lake of blackmail and exaggerate Lake’s criminal record, which he said was “as long as the Cheesecake Factory menu.” Months later, in a Twitter post, Bush falsely accused Lake of being a convicted rapist.

The same week the podcast was published, the Gunners’ home was vandalized with graffiti. The threatening message left behind, written in red spray paint on an outside wall, read: “Help Reggie Bush Get His Trophy Back F— Crook.” The number “187” was also spray painted on the wall, which the plaintiff attorneys say referred to the state penal code number for murder. They blamed the graffiti on “unknown bad actors” working “on behalf of or at the direction of Bush.”

Lake’s attorneys first sought to bring the case to a jury trial. But a judge ruled in June 2024, that Lake’s lawsuit against Bush would go to binding, confidential arbitration, per the terms of their original settlement.

The arbitrator in the case, Jeffrey G. Benz, ultimately ruled in Lake’s favor, awarding him $500,000, as well as $764,640 in attorneys’ fees and $116,780 in other costs, according to court documents. Still, Bush’s attorneys continued to challenge the ruling by arguing that Benz had exceeded his authority as the arbitrator.

Their latest challenge was quashed this week by Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Eric Harmon, who took only a few hours to reaffirm the arbitrator’s decision.

But Bush and his legal team succeeded, in one respect: Bush’s responses to Lake’s petition, as well as other supporting exhibits and documents pertaining to Bush’s side of the case, remain under seal or heavily redacted.

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Friday signed the controversial emergency spending bill for the Iraq war as antiwar activists assailed congressional Democrats for dropping their demands that the legislation include timetables for withdrawing U.S. troops.

Bush’s action ended his first major fight with the new Congress over the war, but Democratic leaders vowed to continue their effort to force an end to the 4-year-old war.

“We are going to come back in other pieces of legislation … and keep coming back,” said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel of Illinois.

Democrats’ decision to pull back on the timetable issue reflected political realities: With most Republicans continuing to support Bush on the war, Democrats do not have enough votes to impose deadlines over the president’s objections. And, although they oppose the war, many Democrats are leery of doing anything that might be construed as not supporting the troops in the field — such as holding back funding.

Democratic strategists are planning for the next battle.

The most immediate opportunity may be a defense authorization bill scheduled to come before the Senate at the end of June. Some Democratic strategists are considering attaching withdrawal timelines to it.

But the next major showdown may come in September, when Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, is due to report on the progress of Bush’s U.S. troop buildup.

At that time, members of both parties will be more focused on their reelection campaigns, and the administration will need more money for the war.

“September is the moment of truth for this war,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said.

Although she voted against the almost-$120-billion spending measure, which included money for some nonmilitary items, Pelosi said it represented a “step in the direction of accountability that the Americans have demanded in the war in Iraq.”

Even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) acknowledged the mounting pressure for change. “I think that the handwriting is on the wall that we are going in a different direction in the fall, and I expect the president to lead it,” he said at a Capitol news conference.

Antiwar activists were enraged that 86 Democrats in the House and 37 in the Senate voted for the bill and vowed to hold the lawmakers accountable. Some activists even talked about recruiting primary challengers.

“Voters elected them in November to end the war. That’s the promise they made, and we expect them to deliver on it,” said Eli Pariser of MoveOn.org.

Bush signed the legislation without the fanfare that accompanied his veto of an earlier bill that included timelines.

“Rather than mandate arbitrary timetables for troop withdrawals or micromanage our military commanders, this legislation enables our servicemen and women to follow the judgment of commanders on the ground,” Bush said in a statement after signing the bill.

The legislation, which funds military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq through Sept. 30, sets benchmarks for the Iraqi government in securing the country. If the Iraqis do not demonstrate progress by mid-July, U.S. reconstruction aid could be withheld, though Bush could waive that provision.

The bill also contained one of the Democratic majority’s top legislative priorities: the first increase in the federal minimum wage in a decade — to $7.25 an hour, from $5.15, to be phased in over two years.

The vote reflected the uncomfortable political bind facing House Democrats: Though they are in the majority, it was the GOP minority that assured the bill’s passage. Of the 226 Democrats voting in the House, 140 opposed it, while 194 of 196 Republicans voting gave their support.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who voted for the spending measure, said in a statement Friday: “Democrats have voted over and over again to change course in Iraq. But … we simply do not have the 67 votes at this point to overcome the president’s veto.”

“The problem here is that we have troops in harm’s way who must have the necessary equipment and support,” she said.

Pariser, however, said of the Democrats: “They’re in a very strong position to take the fight to the president. The country is with them. We think they have to make the president come to them, not go to where he is.”

Karen Jacob of Women’s Action for New Directions was among about a dozen antiwar activists from Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly’s Indiana district who showed up at an event he held Friday at a grocery store. She said the group “just very politely expressed our dismay at his voting for this legislation.”

“We want to let the representatives know we’re very unhappy, and if they continue on this direction, we will work to replace them,” she said.

Complaints about the war will be only one sore subject that lawmakers are likely to hear about when they go home for their weeklong recess for Memorial Day. The immigration debate has stirred emotions, and many are angry about gas prices.

Still, Democratic leaders were all smiles Friday, citing the minimum wage increase and funding included in the bill for Gulf Coast hurricane recovery and agriculture disaster aid.

California is also expected to receive a good deal of money to shore up its system of its levees and combat drug trafficking on federal lands.

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WASHINGTON — President Bush, reaffirming his support for the anti-abortion movement, told an estimated 200,000 abortion foes gathered under a hot, cloudless sky in the nation’s capital Saturday that their mission “must be to help more and more Americans make the right choice–the choice for life.”

In a brief telephone address broadcast to the crowd over loudspeakers, Bush predicted that “one day, your life-saving message will have reached and influenced every American.” The President urged abortion opponents to “continue to work for the day when respect for human life is sacrosanct and beyond question.”

He added: “I know from your devotion and selflessness that this day cannot be far away.”

With the temperature hovering near 90 degrees, demonstrators spread blankets on the grass, sunbathed and ate picnic lunches in the shadow of the Washington Monument while waiting to hear Bush and to catch a glimpse of Vice President Dan Quayle, who spoke to them in person.

Many wore anti-abortion T-shirts and carried placards reading: “Stop Abortion Now,” “Let My People Grow,” and “Killing Should Never Be a Personal Choice.”

Their numbers far exceeded the estimated 75,000 to 100,000 people who came for the 17th annual March for Life last January, and for a time threatened to rival the 300,000 who attended an abortion rights rally here last year.

Officials from the National Right to Life Committee, which sponsored the rally, said the event was intended to show the strength of their cause, despite a series of recent setbacks suffered at the state level.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could impose restrictions on abortion. The decision, Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services, galvanized the abortion rights movement to work on behalf of candidates who share their views and to defeat attempts by state legislatures to curtail abortion.

The latest blow to the anti-abortion movement came Friday, when the Connecticut state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill to ensure a woman’s right to an abortion even if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns its 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision guaranteeing that right. The Connecticut House already has passed the measure, and Gov. William A. O’Neill has promised to sign it.

Bush spoke to the demonstrators from the White House after returning from a five-hour fishing expedition on the Potomac River, where he caught several largemouth bass.

The President made no mention of proposals favored by many abortion foes to add a “human life” amendment to the Constitution. Nor did he refer to the possibility of the Supreme Court overturning its Roe vs. Wade ruling.

The Administration, confronted with a growing division within the Republican Party over its position on abortion, has emphasized its willingness in recent months to accommodate all points of view on the issue.

“In January of this year, I addressed the March for Life on this very issue,” Bush said. “And I said then, and reaffirm now, that your presence on the Mall today reminds all of us in government that Americans from all walks of life are committed to preserving the sanctity and dignity of human life.”

He called the widespread availability of abortion “a tragedy, not only in terms of lives destroyed, but because it so fundamentally contradicts the values that we as a nation hold dear. And when I look at adopted children, I give thanks that their parents chose life.”

Quayle, too, called the prevalence of abortion a “national tragedy.” But he seemed to take a less hard-line approach than he has in the past.

Quayle said that a majority of Americans oppose abortion on demand. “They may disagree about how best to turn the situation around, but almost all stand together against the terrible reality of unlimited abortion on demand,” he said.

Quayle said that “none of us, woman or man, can presume to judge those faced with a problem pregnancy.” But, he added, “the loss of some 25 million children in total to abortion since 1973 has been unspeakable.”

“It is as if we were shooting out the stars, one by one, preparing for ourselves an unending night of the most fearful darkness,” he continued. “You have been voices against the night . . . “

Referring to the growing dispute within GOP ranks–in which some Republican officials have said the GOP “tent” is large enough to include all views on abortion–Quayle said that abortion opponents make up “the largest coalition–I might add, the biggest tent–in American politics.”

Quayle said that Saturday’s demonstration could “begin a healing of the terrible wound which, for almost two decades, has torn at our country’s heart.”

Saying the anti-abortion movement was “more important than partisanship, and surely more important than personal advancement,” Quayle described it as “ the humanitarian movement of our time.”

He added: “Will the American people continue to accept the notion that unborn children are disposable?”

To shouts of “No” from the crowd, he responded: “Our answer is: Not in this country. Not now. Not ever.”

Olivia Gans, the rally director, told the demonstrators that the anti-abortion movement was not faltering, but gaining momentum.

“We are not losing,” she said. “We are winning. We are winning throughout the United States, despite what we hear and what we read. We are winning despite what (National Organization for Women president) Molly Yard has to say. And who listens to Molly Yard anyway?”

Meanwhile, in Portland, Ore., Yard spoke to a rally of about 2,000 people who had gathered to express their opposition to two proposed state laws that would restrict abortion rights. She reiterated that the anti-abortion movement was losing force across the country.

“(They) have lost in virtually every state legislature and they are losing in the elections across the country, and we expect them to lose heavily” in the November, 1990, elections, she said.

Many of the demonstrators in Washington said they traveled by bus, car and airplane from all over the country to show their support for an end to abortion.

“There’s really more people here than I could have imagined,” said James Davis, a paint factory production planner who drove 10 hours nonstop from Lancaster, Ky., with his wife and two children.

“Our prayers are being answered,” added his wife, Dora Sue.

Roger Bus, a lawyer from Kalamazoo, Mich., called the anti-abortion movement “more powerful than it’s ever been.”

And Carol Kraft, a bakery clerk from Emporia, Kan., said this was the first time she had attended an anti-abortion rally in Washington.

“I came because I want to take a stand for life,” she said. “I love life.”

In Southern California, a crowd of abortion opponents estimated by police at 8,300 made a human chain in the form of a cross along the streets of Van Nuys to coincide with the Washington demonstration. Police characterized the two-hour demonstration as peaceful.

“We wanted to send a clear message to politicians that there are many, many people out there who are opposed to abortion,” said Laura Gillen, an organizer of the event.

Organizers included Operation Rescue, the Right to Life League and more than 200 churches from San Diego to Bakersfield.

Participants, who formed the cross along Sherman Way and Van Nuys Boulevard, waved blue-and-white signs in English and Spanish reading “Abortion Kills Children.”

A small group of abortion rights activists carrying their own signs briefly disrupted the demonstration. Barri Falk, coordinator of the San Fernando Valley Chapter of the National Organization for Women, waved a sign that said “Honk for Choice.”

“We’re out here to show our support for life, too,” Falk said. “They want to oppress both men and women.”

Staff writer Mayerene Barker in Van Nuys contributed to this story.

WASHINGTON — A majority of U.S. journalists who followed the 1992 presidential campaign believe President Bush’s candidacy was damaged by press coverage of his record and of the economy, according to a survey released Saturday.

Only a small percentage of print and broadcast journalists think the campaign of President-elect Bill Clinton was similarly harmed by media coverage. In fact, more than one in three said coverage benefited the Arkansas governor.

Most journalists interviewed believe the press treated Bush fairly. He was harmed, they said, not by media bias but by accurate reporting on his performance in office and on the nation’s economy.

These are the principal findings of a special survey of more than 250 top- and middle-level journalists conducted by the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press. The survey was conducted in the final weeks of the election campaign.

Four in five journalists surveyed rated press performance in the 1992 campaign as good or excellent, saying it generally was better than the coverage in 1988.

Public opinion surveys conducted throughout the campaign showed most Americans also gave positive ratings to media coverage, although by a smaller margin. Nearly six in 10 people surveyed gave the press good or excellent marks. More than one in three, however, judged the performance as fair or poor.

The Times Mirror survey found the media judging the impact of its coverage differently at the end of the campaign than it had in an initial survey last May, during the final stages of the presidential primary battles.

The earlier polling found most journalists–slightly more than 50%–believed campaign coverage was having a “neutral effect” on Bush’s campaign as he turned back the challenge of conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan.

At that time, 64% thought Clinton was being hurt by media coverage during his struggle with the so-called “character” problems that beset his primary campaign.

The latest poll also found that journalists gave the industry high marks for specific aspects of campaign coverage. Overall, more than 70% gave ratings of good or excellent to coverage of Clinton’s Vietnam draft status, the candidates’ positions on issues and the economy.

The press gave itself a somewhat lower grade for coverage of independent candidate Ross Perot, with 63% rating it as good or excellent. The survey said one senior editor summed up the attitude of many by saying: “We were all on the verge of carrying very critical stories about his temperament and his personal life when he pulled out. Since he re-entered, we’ve treated him as an eccentric.”

The coverage of Bush’s role in the Iran-Contra scandal received the harshest judgment by journalists. More than 70% of respondents said the coverage was only fair or poor, with only 24% rating it as good. A television executive said only the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post had “done a good job of explaining this issue.”

The survey said a large number of journalists cited the emergence of talk shows this year as a chastening sign that politics can work well “without the press as interlocutor.”

However, critics of this new phenomenon “took aim at the cheerleading-like atmosphere” of some talk show political interviews, saying too many questions were soft, with no follow-up questions, the poll reported.

CINCINNATI — George Bush today assailed a longtime associate’s public relations firm for trying to capitalize on ties to the vice president. “I denounce it,” Bush said.

The vice president said in an interview that he had spoken to Fred Bush, a top Republican fund-raiser who is not related to him, about the solicitation to the Haitian government made by Fred Bush’s partner, Michael Govan.

“I denounce it. I don’t like it. I think it’s wrong,” Bush said, giving his first comment on the matter during an interview aboard Air Force Two en route to Cincinnati.

Asked why voters should believe he would fill a Bush administration with people who were not intent on influence peddling, Bush replied, “They know I’ve been in public life for 20 years, and no one has ever made any allegations about impropriety on my part, because they know how strongly I feel about ethics in government.”

The GOP presidential nominee, who rarely mentions the White House ethics office he proposed early in the campaign, said he still intends to set up one if elected.

Fred Bush has said his partner acted over his veto and without his knowledge in seeking a contract for Bush & Co. to represent Haiti. He called it a “rotten, rotten thing to happen” to him and to the Bush campaign. The firm’s letter touted Fred Bush’s connections to the vice president.

Welcome to June. We’re halfway through this tumultuous year and there’s only one thing I can say for certain about 2025: It’s moving fast.

I have lots to share in this newsletter, including a long list of plant-related events and activities, but let’s start with goats, sheep and this question: What’s the best way to clear highly flammable weeds from L.A.’s steep urban slopes?

Clearing those hills with weed whackers to knock down black mustard and oats, two invasive plants that burn easily once they’re dry, is noisy, difficult work, and hiring others to do it is expensive.

It is much easier to instead use goats and sheep to nimbly devour all the offending plants, leaving fresh fertilizer (a.k.a. manure) along the way to enrich the soil and give native plants a running chance to reappear. And it is wonderful to see a fluid herd moving slowly along the hill, with little lambs and kids frisking behind their mothers, making sweet bleating sounds instead of the polluting, teeth-grinding whine of gasoline-powered weed whackers.

Goats and sheep seem unbothered by the steep grade on Kite Hill in Mount Washington as they chow down on invasive oat grass.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

A group of Mount Washington small-parcel landowners banded together this spring to create such a pastoral scene, drawing small crowds of delighted neighbors. The goats and sheep got rave reviews, and everyone hopes to see it happen again next year.

Except (you knew this was coming) here’s the problem:

Between transportation and labor costs, the job was a money-losing proposition for the herder, said Brittany “Cole” Bush, owner of Shepherdess Land & Livestock in Ojai and program director of the nonprofit Ojai Valley Fire Safe Council.

Bush agreed to bring 100 of her nearly 600 head of goats and dorper sheep (a.k.a. hair sheep that molt their coats) to Mount Washington as an experiment this spring. Neighbors who own small parcels from a quarter acre to 6 acres banded together to make it happen. Many of those parcels are adjoined, so if enough landowners came together to cover the cost, it seemed like a win-win for everyone.

But there weren’t enough collaborators to make the project pencil out, Bush said, and without a firm partnership, “it’s just not economically viable for small landowners to hire us.” Her company, she said, needs at least $10,000 to clear at least 10 acres before it can cover all its considerable costs.

For example, Bush said she can comfortably fit 100 animals in one of her 24-foot-long double deck trailers, but big rigs like that can’t navigate narrow windy roads, “and the roads around Mount Washington are absolutely bonkers, so we had to use an 18-foot trailer and make three 100-mile round trips to get all the animals we needed up there, about 101 goats and sheep.”

Pliable, solar-powered electric fences have to be erected even on the steepest hills to keep grazers out of yards and both two-legged and four-legged predators away from the herd.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

And then it takes a day for a shepherd to set up 1,000 to 2,000 feet of pliable, solar-powered electric fences around the grazing area, something they must do repeatedly as the herd moves to new grazing areas. And the shepherds must be on guard 24 hours a day to protect the herd from predators like coyotes, neighborhood dogs and humans who think they’re tasty, or just think it would be fun to knock down the fence to watch the whole herd wander out onto a street, which happened in Santa Clarita in April.

So if you have a landowner with just a small parcel, say a quarter or half acre, they only want to pay around $500, Bush said, “but $500 doesn’t cover my cost for the day. For small acreage it would need to be closer to $2,000 an acre for it to work.”

The solution, she said, will require more cohesive partnerships between small landowners, nonprofits and public entities such as fire safe councils (there are several around L.A. County), resource conservation districts and even county parks and recreation programs to go after state grant money that, thanks to a new law, can now be used to help pay for prescribed grazing.

There is an L.A.-based company that uses goats to clear small parcels of land, typically an acre or less, but even for Party Goats LA, those costs typically run around $1,200 to $2,000 for a parcel under an acre, said owner Scout Raskin, with the cost largely dependent on how much fencing she has to use to contain the herd.

A billy goat munches on a tall, slender stalk of invasive black mustard at the top of Kite Hill in Mount Washington.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

Raskin has been raising and training a small herd of goats and sheep for seven years, renting them out for parties, films and other special events, but when she lost her job as a television animation producer in 2023, she turned her side hustle into a full-time gig by adding brush clearance to their duties.

She had to increase her flock first, to 28 goats and eight sheep, all of whom she bottle fed, trained and named, and get some lessons in rolling out electric fencing on near-vertical slopes. But the phone has been ringing off the hook this year, she said.

It’s a lot of work, Raskin said, “but the benefits of grazing are insane, because the goats eat the seeds, so the vegetation density goes down every year because the seeds don’t germinate … and they’re depositing their nutrient-rich manure into the soil.”

Final bonus point, said parcel owner Michael Tessler, is the camaraderie and happiness that came with the grazers. Tessler, an architect, bought his small, unbuildable parcel on Kite Hill, a few blocks from his home, to encourage the growth of more native walnut trees and other native shrubs on the steep slope. Grazing wasn’t cheaper than hiring a weed-whacking team to do the work, he said, but the benefits are so much greater.

“I’ve met more neighbors in the past two and a half weeks than I have in the last 15 year of living here,” Tessler said. “People tend to be guarded on a day-to-day basis, but they see a sheep and something changes in them.”

Then bring on the sheep, I say, or as Tessler said more beautifully, “Put joy in the world where you can.”

Two other notes:

Project Phoenix, a joint project of UCLA and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, needs your help to understand how wildfire smoke is affecting birds in California, Oregon and Washington.

Program director Olivia Sanderfoot is looking for volunteers — community scientists — to watch birds in the same specific location for 10 minutes once a week, and report what they see. You can observe multiple locations, just make sure you fill out a separate form for each spot, even if one spot is in your front yard and another is in your back. Signing up is easy, and you’ll be automatically enrolled in online training. I’ll be watching from my front yard, where I have lots of native plants, and my back, where most of my veggies are planted.

An early morning fire at Arlington Garden in Pasadena on May 21 destroyed the garden’s storage shed and all the tools, event furniture and other equipment stored inside, as well as the electricity that powered its extensive drip irrigation system. The fire is still under investigation, but South Pasadena Fire Investigator John Papadakis said arson wasn’t the cause.

In the meantime, the garden is closed until the area can be cleared, said Executive Director A.J. Jewell. The board has started a $40,000 fundraiser to help replace the shed and other items destroyed in the fire.

Upcoming events

Through Dec. 31
Free soil testing for lead for certain properties downwind of the Eaton fire burn area, provided by the County of Los Angeles Public Health Department. Enter your address on the website to see if your property qualifies. Test results take about a week and measure lead levels in the soil only. Instructions for collecting soil samples are on the website. publichealth.lacounty.gov

June 1
San Gabriel Valley Chrysanthemum Society Chrysanthemum & Plant Sales, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Los Angeles County Arboretum’s Ayres Hall in Arcadia. Admission to the sale is free with $15 ticket to the garden ($11 seniors 62+ and students with ID, $5 children ages 5-12, members and children 4 and younger enter free). arboretum.org

June 6
Propagating California Native Plants From Cuttings, a hands-on class taught by Theodore Payne Foundation Horticulture Director Tim Becker, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the foundation in Sun Valley. Participants will leave with a flat of 50 starts. All materials provided. Tickets are $92.55 ($81.88 members). eventbrite.com

June 7
Monrovia Community Garden Volunteer Day, 9 a.m. to noon in Monrovia. Volunteers will help with a variety of activities, including weeding and garden maintenance. Participation is free but registration is required. portal.caclimateactioncorps.org

Compost Workshop at Apricot Lane Farms, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the farm in Moorpark. A hands-on workshop about how the farm creates compost and uses it to enrich its soil. Tickets are $80.52. eventbrite.com

June 8
California Botanic Garden’s Introduction to the Sunflower family (Asteraceae), an introductory hands-on class taught by Samantha Ingram, the garden’s botany program graduate student, 1 to 4 p.m. at the garden in Claremont. Register online, $55 ($45 members). calbg.org

Community Habitat Restoration work around the Audubon Center, 8:15 to 10:45 a.m. at Ernest E. Debs Regional Park in Montecito Heights. Volunteers will help remove invasive species and water new native plantings. Participation is free but you must register online. act.audubon.org

June 13
Comprehensive Irrigation for California Native Plants, a hands-on class taught by Theodore Payne Foundation Horticulture Director Tim Becker, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the foundation in Sun Valley. Learn how, when and why to irrigate California native plants in a landscape. Tickets are $71.21 ($60.54 members). eventbrite.com

June 14
Planting for Pollinators at San Clemente State Beach, 9 a.m. to noon in San Clemente, one of many activities planned statewide in honor of California State Parks Week June 11-15. The goal of the San Clemente State Parks event is to create a community garden, path and educational area and to enhance habitat for the overwintering Western monarch. The beach is one of only 50 designated coastal overwintering sites for the endangered butterfly. Participants will help with planting, weeding and watering while learning how to identify pollinators and the native plants they need to survive. Activities also include crafts, storytelling and an art installation giving participants a chance to paint a pre-drawn mural. All ages welcome, ADA accessible. Participation is free but registration is required. castateparksweek.org

Southern California Carnivorous Plant Enthusiasts Carnivorous Plant Show & Sale, 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Sherman Library & Gardens in Corona del Mar. The show includes a talk and Q&A about carnivorous plants at 11:30 a.m. and a guided tour of the garden’s carnivorous bog at 1:30 p.m. led by Horticulture Director Kyle Cheesborough. Free with $5 admission to the garden (members and children 3 and younger enter free.) Military ID holders also enter free with up to five family members through Labor Day (Sept. 1) as well as on Veterans Day (Nov. 11). thesherman.org

Black Thumb Farm Native Plant Stewarding and Propagation, 12:30 to 2 p.m. at the farm in Panorama City. Learn how to identify plants, their role in the ecosystem and how to propagate native plants found around the farm. Participation is free, but registration is required. portal.caclimateactioncorps.org

Summer Rose Care Class, a free class about how to care for roses during the summer to prolong your blooms into the fall, 10 to 11 a.m. at Otto & Sons Nursery in Fillmore. ottoandsonsnursery.com

Nature Club for Kids: Butterflies With the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy, a free introduction to the butterflies living on the peninsula, with crafts and a butterfly hike for ages 3 to 10 from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. at the White Point Nature Education Center in San Pedro. pvplc.org

Guided Nature Walk at Alta Vicente Reserve, a moderate to strenuous walk exploring coastal sage scrub habitat with views of Catalina Island and a chance to spot rare birds such as coastal cactus wrens, 9 to 11:30 a.m. in Rancho Palos Verdes. Free, but registration is required. pvplc.org

June 14-15
Los Angeles International Fern Society Annual Fern & Exotic Plant Show & Sale, 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on June 14, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on June 15 at the Los Angeles County Arboretum’s Ayres Hall in Arcadia. Admission is free with $15 ticket to the garden ($11 seniors 62+ and students with ID, $5 children ages 5-12, members and children 4 and younger enter free). arboretum.org

June 14 and 28
Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy’s Native Plant Sales 10:30 a.m. to noon both days at the George F. Canyon Nature Preserve in Rancho Palos Verdes on June 14 and the White Point Nature Education Center in San Pedro on June 28. Plants are grown at the conservancy’s nursery. pvplc.org

June 14, 21 and 28th
Three-Part California Native Garden Design class taught by landscape designer Mari Taylor of Deerbrush Design, 1 to 5 p.m. each day at the Theodore Payne Foundation classroom in Sun Valley. Learn how to evaluate your existing garden, use or convert irrigation systems and basic design approaches. The introductory, online Right Plant, Right Place class on June 10 from 6 to 8 p.m. ($35, or $25 members) is a prerequisite for this course. Tickets are $348.65 ($295.29 members) or $412.67 for couples ($359.32 members). eventbrite.com

June 20-22
Grow Native Nursery Milkweed Fest & End-Of-Season Plant Sale, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on June 20-21, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on June 22 at the California Botanic Garden. The nursery is celebrating monarch butterflies with the sale of seven different regional species of milkweed, the plant their larva (caterpillars) require to survive, as well as many other California native plants popular with pollinators. This is the last weekend the nursery will be open until the fall. The sale begins June 20. The Milkweed Fest on June 21 will include information about butterfly gardening, the monarch count in Los Angeles and Orange counties and milkweed mapping with vendors from the Xerces Society and Monarch Watch. On June 22, the festival ends with the Butterflies and Brews happy hour from 3:30 to 6 p.m. with drinks, music and socializing. calbg.org

June 21
Fire-Resilient Gardens: A Maintenance Walk and Talk with Theodore Payne Foundation educator Erik Blank, 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. at the foundation in Sun Valley. Learn how to prune and maintain your garden for wildfire safety. Tickets are $39.19 ($28.52 members). eventbrite.com

June 21, 22, 28 or 29
Early Summer Tours of Apricot Lane Farms, the famed organic Moorpark farm behind the documentary film “The Biggest Little Farm,” at 9 to 11 a.m. or 1 to 3 p.m. each day. Participants must be able to walk at least 1.5 miles on a tour that includes several hill climbs. Tickets are $64.69, children 5 and younger enter free with a ticketed adult. eventbrite.com

June 27
Propagating California Native Plants From Seed During the Warm Season, a class taught by horticulturist Ella Andersson, the Theodore Payne Foundation‘s chief botanical technician, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the foundation. Participants will help plant 10 species of warm-season seeds, which they can take home. All materials are included. Tickets are $92.55 ($81.88 members). eventbrite.com

June 28
Los Angeles Chapter of the California Rare Fruit Growers Humongous June Plant Sale, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Sepulveda Garden Center in Encino. The sale includes a variety of rare and unusual plants, including fruit trees, vines, berries, roses, flowers and succulents, and an expert on hand to answer questions about their care. Proceeds from the sale will go to support the chapter’s agricultural education programs. crfg-la.org

Botany of Oaks: A walk and talk native tree workshop with arborist Alison Lancaster, 9:30 a.m. to noon at the Theodore Payne Foundation grounds in Sun Valley. Learn how to recognize the many varieties of oaks during an outdoor walk followed by studying oak leaves under a microscope in a classroom. Tickets are $39.19 ($28.52 for members). eventbrite.com

Queer Ecology Walk and Mixer led by naturalist and educator Jason “Journeyman” Wise, 1 to 4 p.m. at the Theodore Payne Foundation’s gardens in Sun Valley. “Explore California’s native plants and ecosystems through the lens of queer ecology: the study of everything in nature that subverts our Western cultural expectations about how the natural world ‘should’ work,” according to the event description. Complimentary refreshments provided at the end of the walk, participants must be 21 or older. Tickets are $44.52 ($33.85 members). eventbrite.com

What we’re reading

It took a while, but I was finally able to update my best public gardens list for Southern California, first compiled in 2021. This new list includes all the old favorites plus 10 new botanic gems I’d never visited before.

Tall, lanky and infinitely gracious, Dan Bifano is known as the gardener to the stars, building huge rose gardens for wealthy, famous SoCal clients like Barbra Streisand and Oprah. His clients can be notoriously picky, but that doesn’t seem to faze Bifano, who keeps his standards simple: perfection.

Once you make your beautiful yard, you’ll need a few chairs and tables to sit on, right? Here’s a list of 10 great places to shop for patio furniture in L.A.

There are lots of reasons to visit California’s largest city park, and surprise! We’re not talking about Griffith Park.

A visit to Los Angeles by Vice President George Bush has pulled in more than $500,000 for his 1988 presidential campaign. But perhaps even more important to Bush, the visit finally gave him a chance to hit his stride as a campaigner.

Many of the 600 people who heard Bush speak Wednesday night at a dinner in Century City are supporting him, so they were not expected to be critical of his performance. But even they were surprised at the power of Bush’s speech and with how he took on criticism of his candidacy.

“He was dynamic,” said Rod Rood, former head of the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency and a longtime player in Republican politics. “It was one of the best political speeches I have ever heard.”

Los Angeles attorney Charles G. Bakaly III said the speech had reassured some of the powerful people in the room who have been watching Bush attempt to remain loyal to President Reagan while establishing his own identity.

“He sounded very confident,” said Bakaly. He was the most energetic I have heard him in a long time. That was a tough crowd in the sense that they have been called upon (to give money) many times. But I think the vice president reassured the people there that he knows what he has to do.”

Among those in the crowd were such prominent California businessmen as Donald Bren, president of the Irvine Co., and entertainment magnate Jerry Weintraub. Also attending the $1,000-a-plate dinner were such longtime backers of President Reagan as Margaret Brock, Holmes Tuttle and Armand Deutsch. Gov. George Deukmejian gave the introduction.

“It was the real George Bush that I know. I think he has made up his mind that he has to come out fighting,” said Tuttle, one of the wealthy Southern California Republicans who helped build Reagan’s political career.

Bush noted in his remarks that some have said his resume was in fact a liability, not an asset, because it looked like he was merely running on his resume.

“I don’t think it is ‘resume’ to have had a broad amount of experience and to try to bring experience to the presidency,” Bush told his audience. “I happen to think it is a plus, not a minus.”

Past Recounted

Noting that he has “never been much about talking about” himself, Bush then recounted his past, from being shot down as a Navy pilot in World War II to serving in the House, starting a business, being ambassador to China and running the CIA.

In a speech interrupted numerous times by applause, he got an especially strong response when he defended the CIA, which he ran in 1976-77, toward the end of the Ford Administration.

“I ran the Central Intelligence Agency and people say that is a liability. They say ‘You ought to tiptoe on that one.’ But I led something at a very difficult time, went in there when it had been demoralized by the attacks of a bunch of little untutored squirts from Capitol Hill (who were) going out there looking at these confidential documents without one single iota of concern about the legitimate security of this country.

“I stood up for the CIA then and I will stand up for it now,” shouted Bush.

Loyalty to Reagan

Bush also defended his reluctance to speak out against Reagan over the last six years, which some critics say has created an identity problem that must be overcome if Bush is to win the GOP nomination.

“When I became vice president I said I would sublimate my own passions to a certain degree and support this President and I’ve taken some flak for it. But that doesn’t bother me. As I (have said), ‘In the Bush family we don’t consider loyalty a character flaw, we consider it a strength.’

“And I am going to stand with this President until the end of our term, without turning my back on him when the going gets tough,” Bush said, in an apparent allusion to the Iran- contra scandal, the worst crisis of the Reagan presidency.

“I will stand shoulder to shoulder with this President and say, ‘Here is what we have accomplished.’ And there is going to be plenty of good things–and you give me half the credit for the good things and I’ll take all the credit for the flak and the static and I’ll come out a great big winner.”

Promising to make education, energy, low taxes and arms control his top goals as President, Bush ridiculed pundits who note that the last sitting vice president to be elected President was Martin Van Buren in 1836.

“You take what we have done and build on it. So I am not worried about the Martin Van Buren syndrome. Nor am I worried that I can create my own ideas and my own path to the future of this country.”