Bush: 'I don't remember what I was doing in 1981'
Deflecting a question about the recent Israeli missile strike on Syria, President Bush refused to comment on his reaction to a similar strike by Israel 26 years ago saying he doesn't "remember what I was doing in 1981."
At the time, Bush was a 34-year-old oil man living in Midland, Texas running a company he founded two years earlier after a failed bid for Congress. Bush would not become governor of Texas for more than a decade and White House ambitions were even farther in his future.
During a White House press conference Monday, NBC correspondent David Gregory asked Bush whether he supported Israel's destruction of the Osiraq nuclear reactor in Iraq.
"Ya know, Dave, I don't remember what I was doing in 1981," Bush said. "I don't remember my reaction that far back."
After parrying with the reporter for a minute, Bush declared firmly, "I'm not going to comment on the subject you're trying to get me to comment on," and he moved on to the next questioner.
Perhaps this was just another example of the president's unwillingness to address growing tensions between Syria and Israel, which destroyed what many suspect was a fledgling nuclear facility in Syria last month. But Bush's admittedly faulty memory at the time coincides with a period of overly rambunctious -- some say immature -- behavior by the president, during which he acknowledged drinking heavily.
Old friends of the president told New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in 2000 that Bush was a "late bloomer," who had perhaps a bit too much fun in his younger days.
"[A]s he approached 40, an age when Al Gore was already a senator running for president," Kristof observed, "George W. Bush was just a heavy-drinking, fun-loving oilman struggling to control his tempter, salvage his business and hold on to his marriage."
The following video is from Fox's Fox News Live, broadcast on October 17, 2007.
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