Some 'splainin to do...

I've told you George and Heather Bush's story of the horrifying events that led to me being banned from the U of W, Lloyd Axworthy authorizing an extra detail of four guards being hired (at a cost of $10,000) to keep a lookout for me, and eventually me getting thrown in jail and held for nine days. If you believe their story, maybe I'm not the kind of guy you'd trust to be in charge of children. But first there were are a few small details that I was going to ask them to explain.

Now, before I get my ultimate day of reckoning, there are a hundred and one ways the legal system can still screw me over. If I was in the University's kangaroo court, it would have already been a done deal...accused, "tried" (in absentia), convicted and sentenced. But in the real courts, I theoretically had the right to cross-examine my accusers. I say "theoretically" because I still had to fight like hell to get them subpoenaed, arguing two separate pretrial applications before Provincial Court judges. But in the end, the system did not deny me the opportunity to cross-examine the Bushes. And so I was able to confront them with the following questions:

When I phoned in advance of knocking on the door, why did Mr. Bush slam the phone down on me?

Weren't the Bushes worried after the phone call that I might come to their door?

When I subsequently rang the doorbell, why did his wife answer the door instead of him?

When I asked to see her husband, why didn't she call Mr. Bush to the door?

When I tried to give her papers, why did she refuse to accept them?

Why did she slam the door on me?

While she was struggling against me (as she claims) for about a minute to close the door...why didn't she call for help?

When her George later wandered up the stairs and found Heather "all white and shaking", why didn't he say: "Why didn't you call for help?"

When he phoned his buddy Don Metz minutes later to report what had happened, why did he emphasize the fact that he had called police because I had disobeyed his (supposed) instructions not to come to the door...in fact, other than telling Metz that Heather had shut the door on me, he claims to have said nothing to Metz about me trying to force my way into his home (and Metz backs him up on that). Why would he leave out that small detail?  

Here are the answers they gave when I asked them these questions in court.

Why did George Bush slam down the phone when I called him? He says "I told you in no uncertain terms that you had no business calling...if you wanted to contact me, it should have been through the university."

Actually, that's not what he actually told me...he said I should contact his lawyer. But on the phone, he didn't find it necessary to tell me his lawyer's name. And he refused to let me explain the purpose of my phone call...as he told the court: "Why would you, why would you, a student of the univerity, come to the, phone a professor or a faculty member, why would you want to do that?"

A former student has never phoned you?

"Never, never. It's always done by email or I've contacted, I've met the person in person. No one has ever called me at home."

Mr. Bush went on to summarize his reasons: "I just didn't feel appropriate that you would call me personally at home. I just didn't want to talk to you". No reason, I asked him? "No."

Okay, so that's why he slammed down the phone without giving me a chance to explain the purpose of my call. Then I went on to ask him if my phone call didn't set his spidey-sense tingling in any way that something might be wrong. Weren't there already some things that had happened that had caused him and his wife to be on edge about me?

"No. None whatsoever."

That's not what his wife had said. I confronted George with Heather's testimony: wasn't it just the day before that she had told you I was stalking her on her web page? Mr. Bush allowed that on second thought, yes, they had certainly talked about that. And then he "remembered" being concerned about a visit to his church that he had also reported as being suspicious. (There happens to be an after-school math program run out of the same church that George Bush attends, and he found it highly suspicious that I would be trying to volunteer in that program.) So it wasn't just the phone call, then?

"No, we were also concerned."

And yet with all these supposed precursors, the phone call didn't cause him to be disturbed or alarmed about what I might be planning to do next?

"No, not at all." Not in the slightest, I asked? "Why? It's finished. I asked you not to call. I asked you to deal through the university, and as far as I was concerned, that was it. I never dreamt in my wildest dream that all of a sudden 10 minutes later you'd knock on the door. I was downstairs doing something in the basement."

Interesting. You'll notice that here he's already answering the next question, which I haven't yet asked him: why did his wife come to answer the door instead of him? And he has three different reasons:

•  Having told me not to contact him, he has complete confidence that I will follow his instructions
• I didn't come to their house until ten minutes later and by then neither he nor his wife connected the ringing of the doorbell with the earlier phone call.
• He was downstairs doing something in the basement, so (as he subsequently explained) he didn't even hear the doorbell himself.

It didn't take me long to demolish those three reasons. First I confronted him with his testimony before the Provincial Court judge when he applied for (and was denied) a protective order against me:

 "Marty Green....has continuously demonstrated his defiance and complete disregard for authority including enforcement officers. He was forcibly removed from Gordon Bell High School and he was forcibly removed from the University of Manitoba. In each case he disregarded authorities and deliberately returned to those facilities to continue his agenda."

All the "facts" he cited above were things he knew about me long before the evening in question. And yet when he hung up the phone on me, he claims to have been perfectly satisfied that the situation had been dealt with, that I was simply going to do what he said? I asked him how he could reconcile his apparent complacency with what he claimed to know about my character. Mr. Bush didn't like that. He turned to the Judge and said: "Is this terribly critical?" The judge told him to just answer the question: when I told him to leave, did he think that I would leave him alone? "Well", said Mr. Bush, "we felt, I felt that he would."

And when the doorbell rang "minutes" later, you didn't put A and B together?"

"I wasn't...the bell doesn't ring in the basement."

Oh yes it does. Oh yes it does. I had him cold there. I knew it from his testimony before the Provincial Court, and he knew I knew...so after some verbal sparring, he finally conceded: "No...there, there are two bells, and I, it may have, I subconsciously may have heard something. I don't recollect hearing the bell."

But it does ring downstairs, doesn't it?

"Okay. Good. Well, then you know that then."

Yes I do, Mr. Bush. And so does the court.

Meanwhile, I've knocked out two of the three reasons he gave as to why his wife answered the door instead of him. The fact is that I had called his home, and that phone call was of great concern to both him and his wife. And after first denying that the doorbell even rings downstairs, he reluctantly admits to having heard the doorbell ring "ten minutes later", if only "subconsciously". (But back in January, before the Provincial Court, he had testified that he did indeed hear it ring.) So both of them were concerned about me, and they both heard the doorbell ring. Why then did neither of them connect the ringing of the doorbell to the earlier phone call?

The key to this was the ten-minute interval. Ten minutes isn't that much time, but it just might possibly be enough for a frightened couple to forget that a deranged stalker was after them. Either way, that ten minute interval is critical to the credibility of the Bushes' entire narrative. And that's where the story gets interesting.

We'll talk about that when I return.