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George H. W. Bush

George H. W. Bush is the President of the United States for most of the campaign, the man at whose request the Paranatural Incident Task Force was created and who loses the 1992 election to Ross Perot. He is a fictional version of the real president, written as a character in the show's alternate history; nothing here describes the real person.
Type NPC (fictionalized historical figure)
Aliases Bush Sr.; President Bush; the President; "the big man upstairs"
Affiliation President of the United States (until January 1993)
Status Alive; out of office
First appearance Walkers 01; mentioned from Radford Horror 01
Played by Andre

Description

Bush is folksy and blunt, and calls Andrew Howard "son". In his one scene he sits on the edge of his desk, turned about 45 degrees away from his visitor. He says he never believed in what he calls "wacky tobacky hootenanny bullshit", and that the photographs in the task force's files, the moth and the worms, make his skin crawl. (Walkers 01)

History

Founding the task force

In spring 1992 the FBI stands up a new unit at the President's request. The agents reassigned to it hear it described in different ways: the Biz is told the President wants an exploratory task force on "possible technological threats to national security"; Kurt is told he will be "hunting for ghosts and little green men for the president"; Huell is told it is "some kind of make-work task force the president's idiot brother wanted". Bush sits at the top of its chain of command, above Andrew, Big Bill and Deputy Director Floyd Clark. (Radford Horror 01, Summer Service 03)

Bush later gives Andrew his own account, which replaces the office rumor Huell heard: "my son asked me to." The son "has an interest in these things" and made him promise that if he won the election he would get to the bottom of it. Bush was "humoring the boy", and thought it was probably a waste of government resources. The players confirm with Andre that the son is George W. (Walkers 01)

In office

During the Marblehead crisis Big Bill takes the team's reports to the Oval Office, and the team's reporting is classified under the code word SKYHOOK with the President at the top of the distribution. During the Georgia scandal Big Bill again says he will brief the President. (Summer Service 03, Appalachia 07)

The Oval Office

A few days before the election, after the Georgia case, Andrew waits an hour and a half outside the Oval Office and is then shown in, shedding a clump of Yeti fur on the carpet. (Walkers 01)

Bush has read the files. He quotes the after-action report on Andrew being "dribbled like a basketball" and tells him he is sturdy. He says Andrew is the only true believer on the team, the others having a "grudging appreciation", and that Kurt's file is interesting reading: he sleeps better knowing Castro has people like that haunting him. He asks why Andrew believed before any of it happened, and calls the answer moral courage. (Walkers 01)

He expects to lose to Bill Clinton within days. He does not accept that an ape-man criminal was caught surveilling Clinton in the same Georgia town as his task force by chance: he reads it as an attempt to break the continuity of leadership, by China, by Soviet remnants, or by "something from somewhere else". He warns that enemy agents may be inside American organizations. See Enemy Action. (Walkers 01)

Quote

"There is coincidence, there is miracle, and there is enemy action." (Andre as Bush, Walkers 01)

Quote

"You, Andrew Howard, are personally responsible for the survival of the United States of America." (Andre as Bush, Walkers 01)

Andrew replies that this has been his responsibility his whole life, and explains the Aetherius Society, the Masters and the "spiritual battery" of good energy at length. The scene ends on a slow zoom on Bush's face "just slowly going blank". (Walkers 01)

Defeat

The "double scandal" sinks him. Polls put Perot above 45 percent with Bush clearly ahead only in Texas, and Perot wins. In Andre's account of the alternate election, "the incumbent got caught spying on the challenger". (Walkers 01, Walkers 08, Walkers 09)

His successor believes the task force was a cover for Bush weaponizing the FBI against political enemies, and disbands it on Inauguration Day 1993. Daniel Webster arrives at the next case holding the same theory: that the team was Bush's political dirty-work unit and that the "alien stuff" is a cover. (Roulet Estate 01, Radford Horrors 02)

Relationships

  • Andrew Howard. The one agent he sends for in person, and the one he charges with the country's survival whatever the next administration says. (Walkers 01)
  • Big Bill. The channel between the task force and the Oval Office. (Summer Service 03, Appalachia 07)
  • George W. Bush. "The boy", whose interest in "these things" prompted the task force. His father is not sure he is "ever gonna make something of himself". (Walkers 01)

Trivia

  • Radford Horror 01 has Huell's boss blame the task force on "the president's idiot brother"; in Walkers 01 Bush himself says it was his son. No brother is ever mentioned again. (Radford Horror 01, Walkers 01)
  • Ezra, on Bush calling the adult George W. "the boy": "if there was ever a guy in his fifties to refer to as 'the boy'..." (Walkers 01)
  • Bush tells Andrew there is "a really good chance" that Governor Clinton will be in his chair within days; the same session ends with Perot, not Clinton, leading the polls. (Walkers 01)
  • Zack twice supplied real-history footnotes: he said "Bush Jr." for the 1992 president by mistake, and noted that the real Bush left office with about 53 percent approval. (Appalachia 07, Walkers 01)
  • Dante, defending a stolen car in the Marblehead finale: "this is the George Bush Senior administration. There's no way worm people have rights." (Summer Service 06)

Appearances