Bush's bum rap on 'amazing' barcode scanner

A February 1992 newspaper story reporting that President George H.W. Bush was baffled by a supermarket barcode scanner when he visited a grocers' convention in Florida fed into impressions that the president was out of touch, just as he was dealing with a reeling economy and fending off a primary election challenge at the outset of his re-election campaign. The New York Times' front-page account carried the headline: "Bush Encounters the Supermarket, Amazed." But although Bush had remarked that some of the machine's features seemed "amazing," it hardly looked like his first time in a supermarket checkout line. Mostly, Bush seemed to be politely listening to National Cash Register executives making their pitch. Photo: AJ Guel