George H.W. Bush...or simply George Bush as he was called before his son with the same first name became president...passed away last Friday at the age of 94 after a very full, interesting life. Personally, I liked the guy and, as is the case with every president I've followed in my lifetime, I sometimes agreed with his stances and actions and sometimes disagreed with him. Like many in that "Greatest Generation" of Americans who served with courage and sacrifice during World War II, Bush acquitted himself with valor as a Navy combat pilot in the Pacific theater against the Japanese Empire. His father, Prescott, was elected as a U.S. senator from Connecticut and his son aspired to follow him into politics...but suffered electoral defeat early on. George Bush was noticed by President Nixon and appointed first as United Nations Ambassador and later as the CIA Director. With these credentials and others behind him, he sought the Republican nomination for president in 1980 during the primary season against favored Ronald Reagan. Early on he presented himself as a more reasonable, moderate candidate and characterized his opponent's embrace of supply-side theories as "voodoo economics". I was living then in an apartment about a block from the University of Florida's Norman Hall and when his son Neil came there to give a campaign speech for his father, I was impressed...not by George but by Neil. I was saddened when Neil's reputation suffered later in that decade because of the savings and loan scandals. After Reagan got the GOP nomination, he picked Bush as his running mate, which after eight years in the position of vice-president put him as the favorite to represent his party in 1988. Initially low in the public opinion polls, he eventually won the election over Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis in what I though was the dirtiest campaign I've witnessed up to that time...this I admit heavily prejudiced me against Bush as president, something that I never got over as I eagerly supported Clinton over him and rejoiced at his defeat for re-election in 1992. Since he left office, though, I came to respect and admire George Bush more and more...I especially thought that his sky-diving in old age was extremely kick-ass! I'm sad he's gone now but I think he had a great run of a life...
As for George H.W. Bush's tenure as president from 1989 to 1993, there's good and bad stuff, the way I see it. I was very disappointed that he vetoed the FMLA bill passed by Congress that would have given employees unpaid leave from their jobs due to more extended medical issues affecting themselves or their families...incoming president Bill Clinton quickly reversed that and signed the bill into law. As far as foreign policy was concerned, he presided over the fall, first of the Communist Iron Curtain in Europe, the symbolic destruction of the Berlin Wall, and then the dissolution of the Soviet Union while presenting the United States as a unifying force seeking good relations with all parties. Bush was also a war president, invading Panama in 1989 and liberating Kuwait from Iraqi occupation under Saddam Hussein during the Persian Gulf War in 1990-91...I appreciated his decision then to limit the conflict once the initial goal was accomplished, a course his son sadly chose to abandon two years after he assumed the presidency ten years later. I also give him high marks for signing into law the Americans with Disabilities Act, something I wonder whether anyone representing his party would do in our political climate of today. With the United States Supreme Court, he nominated David Souter and Clarence Thomas, the former surprising many with his more liberal-than-expected orientation and the latter turning into a stalwart conservative judge with predictable rulings almost always in lockstep with the Republican Party's positions on issues. The other son of his, Jeb, served credibly as Florida governor for two terms and I thought he would be an obvious choice for president in 2016 until Donald Trump's taunts and insults against this good, decent man resonated with the disturbing meanness of many Republican voters and his campaign quickly faded...
May George Herbert Walker Bush rest in peace and God's blessings and grace be upon his family during this time of mourning and beyond...
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