In 1992, President H.W. Bush seemed increasingly out of touch. His critics panned actions such as spending $28 on presents for his grandchildren and not understanding the technology of a grocery store checkout counter.
Marlin Fitzwater, press secretary: The problem was that when you would ask him to do something symbolic, like going down to this little town near Camp David and showing concern for the economy, he saw it as not being true, as not real. And what was real to him was, he needed to buy some gifts for his grandkids. And so in his mind, that was a far more realistic thing to do. And it's just one of those things where it ended up working against him.
Narrator: When Bush flew to Japan with American automakers in an effort to create more jobs, he soldiered on despite a case of the flu. At a formal state dinner, he got sick on the prime minister. "These last two months have been the worst of my presidency," he told a friend. "And the last year has been the worst of my political career." Things would not get any better. The next month he was skewered by the New York Times for seeming out of touch at a grocers' convention. He marveled at new technology that could read the bar code of shredded label. The New York Times said he didn't know how an ordinary check-out counter worked.
John Robert Green, presidential historian: The story stuck because it fed in with what was being argued by his opponents, both on the far right and the Democrats, that Bush had lost touch with the American people.
The life and career of our 41st president, from his service in World War II and his early career in Texas to his days in the Oval Office, first as vice president to Ronald Reagan, then as the leader who presided over the first Gulf War. Drawing upon Bush's personal diaries and interviews with his closest advisors and most prominent critics, the film also explores Bush's role as the patriarch of a political family whose influence is unequaled in modern American life.
A central figure in the narrative of how the west was won, Wyatt Earp and his story became an American legend. Part of the Wild West collection.
America's first First Lady defined the role of the President's wife and in the process changed the face of the American presidency.
Before he became the first U.S. president, service to the colonies would profoundly change George Washington.
Legendary bank robber John Dillinger garnered the admiration of many struggling Americans, but FBI took him down with a message: crime doesn't pay.
From Joseph Smith's discovery of gold tablets to persecution, migration, and settlement in Utah, the film explores the history of the most American of religions.
James Michael Curley and his sophisticated political machine dominated Boston for almost half a century.
After the stock market crashed in 1929, thousands suffered unemployment and poverty in the Great Depression.
President Woodrow Wilson lead America during World War I, created the Federal Reserve, and helped create the League of Nations. Part of the award-winning Presidents collection.
