Ari Fleischer: President Bush put a curse on my New York Yankees
[Ari Fleischer was the press secretary to President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003.]
IT is hard to find a bigger admirer of President George W. Bush than me. I support his policies; I believe in him; he’s a really good guy to be around; and he throws a mean fastball. As his press secretary, I stood by him through thick and thin. But recent events require me to speak out about my former boss: For eight long years, President Bush put a curse on my New York Yankees.
It’s not lost on me, as a lifelong Yankee fan, that the Bronx Bombers won the World Series four times during Bill Clinton’s presidency, the last time in 2000. On Wednesday, they won it again — in the first year of Barack Obama’s administration. Yankee success bookended the Bush presidency and that presents a problem for fans like me.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was standing in the Oval Office when the president secretly put his curse on my team. The 2000 champions paid a celebratory visit to the White House in May 2001. President Bush gathered the players in the Oval Office and was telling them what role models they were when George Steinbrenner, the team owner, suddenly tried to talk over him.
“George,” Mr. Bush interjected, “not even the Boss gets to interrupt the president.”
The players hooted and hollered. They had never seen anyone correct the team owner like that. They loved it.
But then terrible things started to happen. The Yankees lost a World Series heartbreaker in 2001, despite the president’s prediction to me that they would win. (This came the morning after he threw out a perfect strike to open Game 3 in the Bronx.)...
Read entire article at NYT
IT is hard to find a bigger admirer of President George W. Bush than me. I support his policies; I believe in him; he’s a really good guy to be around; and he throws a mean fastball. As his press secretary, I stood by him through thick and thin. But recent events require me to speak out about my former boss: For eight long years, President Bush put a curse on my New York Yankees.
It’s not lost on me, as a lifelong Yankee fan, that the Bronx Bombers won the World Series four times during Bill Clinton’s presidency, the last time in 2000. On Wednesday, they won it again — in the first year of Barack Obama’s administration. Yankee success bookended the Bush presidency and that presents a problem for fans like me.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was standing in the Oval Office when the president secretly put his curse on my team. The 2000 champions paid a celebratory visit to the White House in May 2001. President Bush gathered the players in the Oval Office and was telling them what role models they were when George Steinbrenner, the team owner, suddenly tried to talk over him.
“George,” Mr. Bush interjected, “not even the Boss gets to interrupt the president.”
The players hooted and hollered. They had never seen anyone correct the team owner like that. They loved it.
But then terrible things started to happen. The Yankees lost a World Series heartbreaker in 2001, despite the president’s prediction to me that they would win. (This came the morning after he threw out a perfect strike to open Game 3 in the Bronx.)...