When the President Threw Up on Live TV
Plus butter mints and the weekly recap
Today, January 8, 2024, marks the anniversary of the funniest presidential dinner of all time.
On this date in 1992, President George H.W. Bush took a diplomatic trip to Japan, and during a banquet hosted by Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, he had a gaffe. A gaffe of the gastrointestinal kind.
On live television, Bush leaned over to Miyazawa and fainted on him. Not only did Bush faint on Miyazawa, but he threw up on the prime minister’s pants. First Lady Barbara Bush rushed to her husband, wiping his face with a napkin (I don’t have the rights to share any images here, but in screenshots of the live video, it appears as though the First Lady is chloroforming the president).
Bush came to, jokingly telling his on-site doctor and aides, “Roll me under the table until the dinner’s over.” The quip wasn’t enough for the incident to escape infamy.
Quickly, bushu-suru (ブッシュする) became a slang term in Japan. It literally means “doing the Bush thing" and people still use it today sometimes when they see someone throw up drunkenly at a bus stop. A presidential gaffe so bad they invented a whole new word in Japanese — nice.
BUT, the vom doesn’t stop there in its consequences. This great documentary reveals that Bush was on his way to discuss funding the Texas Superconducting Super Collider with Miyazawa. Instead, Bush puked on his pantaloons and the conversation never resurfaced. Japan never became a partner in the Super Collider and CERN went on to develop the Large Hadron Collider years later. Texas could have housed the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, discovered the Higgs boson particle and who knows, maybe some Americans win a Nobel Peace Prize, too.
Instead…bushu-suru.
The Weekly Recap
On to the weekly recap!
The full George Washington Christmas Pie experience has been posted. Trial and error, victory and defeat, guinea fowl and squab ass.
I’m starting to post on YouTube with the TikTok ban looming, beginning with Eating Like Bernie Sanders for an entire day. Building from the ground up on a new platform isn’t the most fun, and it’s disheartening to see 430,000 views for this on TikTok vs like…50 on YouTube, but oh well. It will take time and a lot of extra work — good thing other parts of this job are spectacularly fun and creative.
I made chalky Minted Nuts by Rep. J Arthur Younger. They reminded me of weird butter mints.
I ate like a 61-year old perfumer from Illinois’s 6th District. Aromatic, spicy and wow did I realize how much I love saag paneer.
The Eating Like America map is live! Five down, 430 to go.
Oh and Happy New Year (today’s the last day you can say it).
POLL: Thoughts on butter mints (also called dinner mints)? Are you a fan? Do they make your teeth feel strange? Are they the worst after-dinner mint or the best? I hope you know the kind I’m talking about.
Stay safe and fun out there,
Bennett
That Bush dinner in Japan may have been the "funniest Presidential dinner of all time" to you, but it wasn't very amusing for the Bushes! But on a happier note, as a child I always loved butter mints--they were a real treat. My sisters and I would buy them for our little "parties." We liked the package that had the mints in various pastel colors. And no, they didn't make my teeth feel strange--they were nice and sweet and melted in your mouth. I haven't had them in years, but now I'll have to look for them!