The Passing of a President
On Friday evening, the final day of November 2018, George H. W. Bush, the forty-first President of the United States and father of George W. Bush, the forty-third President of the United States, died at Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas. Eight months following the death of his wife, Barbara Bush, the late President joined his wife and his first daughter, Robin, who died as a small child from leukemia in 1953.
Much will be written about the man, his term as president, and the legacy he left behind including that of his own son, who became President eight years after the elder Bush’s term ended in 1993. Praise will be heaped upon him by the mainstream media. Much of this praise will have been duly earned in a long and accomplished career in and out of public service, while much will also be driven by political posturing and ulterior agenda, which is now part and parcel of such reportage.
Born to privilege as the son of U. S. Senator Prescott Sheldon Bush (R-CT) an early advocate of birth control who also served as the first treasurer of Planned Parenthood, George Herbert Walker Bush was the youngest Navy pilot shot down during World War II, while fighting in the Pacific Theater of Operations. Following naval service, Bush returned to Yale where he also captained the school’s baseball team and led that team to the collegiate finals twice- quite an accomplishment for a man who also completed his undergraduate studies in eighteen months. Successful in the oil business for two decades, following college and his marriage to the former Barbara Pierce in 1945, Bush began his own political career in the mid-1960s.
Congressman for two terms, United Nations Ambassador for two years, Chairman of the Republican National Committee during Watergate, Presidential Envoy to the People’s Republic of China for two years, CIA Director for the two years following, and then Vice President under Ronald Reagan for two terms before being elected in his own right as President in 1988, Bush’s political career spanned four decades. Failing to win re-election in 1992, his political career abruptly ended when he lost to Bill Clinton, thanks largely to a third-party presidential run by an old business nemesis, H. Ross Perot, launched with the sole purpose of preventing his re-election.
Bush’s presidency, coming on the heels of a very successful two-term presidency of Ronald Reagan, witnessed the final fall of the Soviet Union and with it, the fall of the Berlin Wall, as well. Bush put together an international coalition to oust Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from an attempt to overthrow and annex Kuwait during the late summer of 1990. Ultimately successful in defeating the Iraqi forces, but stopping short of invading Iraq following this victory, that decision not to further pursue Saddam Hussein was often cited as the reason for the Iraqi War being launched during his own son’s presidency.
While historians will quibble about the presidency of the elder Bush, and while conservatives will quite rightly call into question the late President’s commitment to conservative causes vis-à-vis Reagan’s commitment to these same causes, there is no doubt that President Bush came to personify the globalist, internationalist aims of the three immediate successors to his presidency, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. This commitment to globalism, and its attendant desire to “nation-build” by imposing American-style democracy on dictatorships overseas, has been largely rejected by the current President of the United States, Donald Trump, which goes a long way to explain why Trump’s candidacy was so opposed by the entire Bush family (not to mention the fact that Trump defeated “Jeb” Bush in the 2016 Republican nomination), and why they continue to oppose Trump’s presidency.
Much of the commentary surrounding the passing of President Bush will center around his willingness to work with political adversaries and seek bi-partisan support for his initiatives. His willingness to break a “read-my-lips-no-new-taxes” pledge made at the Republican National Convention in 1988, cost him the full-throated support of conservative Republicans four years later and ultimately led to the presidency of Bill Clinton. The two men would nevertheless forge a friendship and a kinship, following Clinton’s two terms as President, thus cementing an odd and telling bond that exists between the Bushes and the Clintons to this very day.
It is always sad when any president or former president passes away, regardless of our own personal feelings about their respective presidencies. We ourselves have witnessed the passing of eight of the last fourteen Presidents of the United States (including Herbert Hoover who served well before we were born), and such passings are indeed appropriate times to reflect upon their respective presidencies and the history in which they each played such a crucial part…
…and there is no doubt as to the historical relevance of the late President George Herbert Walker Bush. May he rest in peace.
-Drew Nickell, 2 December 2018
© 2018 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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