George H.W. Bush on the Bush family

[snopes]

Comment: Did G.H.W.Bush say this or something like it?

"Sarah, if the American people had ever known the truth about what we
Bushes have done to this nation, we would be chased down in the streets
and lynched." George Bush Senior speaking in an interview with Sarah
McClendon in December 1992

[urbanlegendfanatic]

No. There's plenty of reasons not to like politicians without having to invent obnoxious quotes by them.

[Mouse]

That sounds like more self-awareness than a member of the Bush family would demonstrate.

[crocoduck_hunter]

Whatever else he was, George Sr wasn't an idiot. I don't think he'd ever say something quite so self-incriminating. Other than in a "with this legislation, I've outlawed Russia forever" sort of way.

[Steve]

Earlier versions of this quote aren't about the Bush family. If GHW Bush actually said it, he was referring to the response Americans would have to revelations of the whole truth about Iran-contra, and the victims of the lynching would presumably be the Reagan administration.

Of course there's still good reason to doubt. For one thing, my source has the URL http://www.marijuanalibrary.org/MCCLENDN and I suspect that site isn't run by Woodward and Bernstein. And it only quotes Commander Alexander Martin quoting a supposed newsletter. But if anyone can dig up a copy of Sarah McClendon's newsletters from June 1992 (apparently she ran a biweekly one, so there'd be 2 or 3 from that month), we could see if the quote is in there.

[urbanlegendfanatic]

In any case when it comes to quotes the onus should be on the person attributing the quote to a particular celebrity or politician to have proof they ever said it. So the site telling you this quote came from one of the Bushes should have to provide a link to a video, or a newspaper interview or something of that nature rather than just putting quotation marks around it and saying that they said it. If that makes sense. I could make up the quote "I did feel that at some point I would need to address the complexity of my identity. Though I was born in Kenya I have always considered myself to be an American citizen. My citizenship is therefore more complex than being true or false in that particular instance". Now I add a cute picture of Obama as a child, put the words on the picture and I have this;


And ... it still proves nothing. I still haven't proved Obama ever said this. Because he never did - I made the whole thing up. Rachel Dozeal said it - I just switched some of her words around.