After his defeat in the 1992 election, former President George Bush concluded that he lost his bid for a second term because he “just wasn’t a good enough communicator” and blamed the news media for the perception that he was out of touch with the average American. Certain claims are again abounding as the country prepares to bury Mr. Bush after his death on Friday. Here’s a look at some of them.

Was he really amazed by a grocery store scanner?

A visit Mr. Bush made to the National Grocers Association convention in Florida during the 1992 campaign cemented the impression that he was detached from middle-class life.

That February, The New York Times reported that he was “amazed” by a grocery store scanner.

After he left office, Mr. Bush called the Times article an ugly and inaccurate smear. Snopes, the debunking website, rated that characterization of him as false in a 2001 article.

Here’s what The Times reported in 1992:

He signed his name on an electronic pad used to detect check forgeries. “If some guy came in and spelled George Bush differently, could you catch it?” the president asked. “Yes,” he was told, and he shook his head in wonder.



Then he grabbed a quart of milk, a light bulb and a bag of candy and ran them over an electronic scanner. The look of wonder flickered across his face again as he saw the item and price registered on the cash register screen. “This is for checking out?” asked Mr. Bush. “I just took a tour through the exhibits here,” he told the grocers later. “Amazed by some of the technology.”

The episode elicited derision in editorials: The Boston Globe cited it as an example of Mr. Bush’s “12 years’ vacation from the real world,” referring to his eight years as vice president and four as commander in chief. A column in Newsday described Mr. Bush as “dumbfounded” and “still out of touch.” And The Washington Post wrote Mr. Bush a quick pocket guide to other modern technologies like cable TV and microwaves.