First Lady Calls Bush Fit, Assails Democrats for Rights Bill Fight

President Bush is fit, teetotaling and raring to keep going, perhaps for another four-year term, First Lady Barbara Bush said Thursday in an interview with a small group of reporters.

And, although she would not divulge the President’s political plans for 1992, she lit into the Democrats for giving her husband a hard time about his efforts to derail a civil rights bill supported by congressional leaders and, instead, win approval of the Administration’s rival measure.

“I don’t think they’re going to allow George to have a civil rights bill because it’s political,” she said over lunch in the family dining room, adding that it probably would be “the end of my marriage right there” for saying something “controversial” about the job-discrimination legislation.

In an interview that touched on topics from date rape to the Persian Gulf War, the President’s health came up repeatedly, as the First Lady described how hard the energetic Bush had tried to downplay the seriousness of his recent bout with an irregular heartbeat.

At one point, she said, when Bush was in the hospital, “He told me, ‘You know, I wish I had never mentioned it.’ I said, ‘Oh, come on!’ ”

The President was found to have Graves’ disease, a condition that causes the thyroid to become overactive. Coincidentally, the First Lady also has suffered from the disease, even more severely than her husband.

Because of the medicine he is taking, Bush has given up having an occasional drink of alcohol, Mrs. Bush said. “But, please,” she implored the reporters as she gave an impromptu tour of the residence, “don’t make it seem like he drinks much, ‘cause he doesn’t.”

Mrs. Bush said she thought the President’s condition may have been caused by his working so intensely during the war.

The First Lady said the war demonstrated how well women can perform in the military. She said she doesn’t think female soldiers, particularly reservists, should be given exemptions from service, even if they have infants or small children.

In addressing date rape, the First Lady was vehemently concerned that it be condemned. “Rape is rape,” she said. “It doesn’t matter who it is. It’s bad.”