Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The Ricochet Friday Essay Question — Peter Robinson
This weekend, friends and former staffers will gather at his library at Texas A&M to celebrate the presidency of George H. W. Bush. (Facing a couple of writing deadlines, I myself will be unable to attend, but at least one Ricochet contributor, Clark Judge, will be on the scene.) Almost a quarter of a century after the first President Bush left office, the New York Times notes in a story on the Texas gathering, the former President’s friends and foes aren’t necessarily whom you might suppose:
Among the friends are some of the same Democrats who tormented him but now lavish him with praise. Among the foes are some of today’s Republicans, who see him as the epitome of everything they do not want to be.
“You never hear anyone point to Bush 41,” said Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, a Tea Party group. “By definition, a one-term president is a failed president. The American people rejected his economic policies.”
On the other side of that argument is Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, who ran for the Democratic nomination to challenge Mr. Bush in 1992. “I know they’re building statues of Ronald Reagan at airports,” Mr. Harkin said, “but in terms of their lives and their life’s work, to me, Bush 41 is much more integral to the development of American government and the process of democracy.”
The legacy of the forty-first chief executive of the United States. Discuss.
Published in General
George Herbet Walker Bush is an honorable man, a patriot, and the savior of Kuwait. Tom Harkin on the other hand, who takes the occasion, to take a swipe at Ronald Reagan, is a putz.
Let’s never forget that Bush 41 lost to Clinton largely because people were duped by a guy who made his fortune processing Medicare claims. I think he would have been more engaged 1:1.
However, it still doesn’t excuse the tax deal and poor campaign.
Read My comment: No… more… ‘moderates.’
In related news, Ross Perot will be having a gathering the same evening garnering 19% of President Bush’s Guests.
He will always be my favorite president. He was the first Republican I ever voted for. I did not like Reagan–I thought he was mean to the poor Baptist minister Jimmy Carter. (I always laugh at how I felt about Reagan and Carter because it fits so well with something I read somewhere, that at forty, I understood the woman I was at twenty, but the woman I was at twenty would never understand I woman I became. Jimmy Carter comes to mind immediately! )
It makes me sad that as a Republican now, everyone I know is still upset with him about the no-new-taxes pledge and the Americans with Disabilities Act and his withdrawing from Iraq before he got Saddam Hussein, and poor Kurds who died because of that mistake, that broken promise. I know all those things, but I could write a million-page book of good things he did and how proud he made me feel of America for those things.
I cried for days when he lost to Clinton, and he will always be a hero to me. The American president I most revere.
An honorable man, one who exemplified an old-fashioned, elevated concept of “public service” that is usually absent in these cynical times. He served his country with integrity in war and peace. But he made a huge mistake in making a claim — no new taxes — in a memorable phrase that would not be forgotten or forgiven: Only Democrats can do that sort of thing. JMath
GHW Bush was- and is- a fine and decent man, and a dedicated public servant with core conservative instincts who completed every assignment with distinction. However, we must admit some reservations regarding his most important role, that of being “41”.
Being president is a combination of administration and political leadership- with the administration element feeding off of the political convictions. To really be successful, you must have a “vision”- and if you prefer administration to core belief, and thus struggle with “that vision thing”, your conservative instincts will all too frequently be overrun in practice by the daily pragmatic drive to get things done. And if you are not an inspiring figure, but follow one of the same party, you end up as President Taft in 1912 instead of President Truman in 1948.
Thus, the two policy issues often cited as destroying him in 1992- “no gnu taxes” (as WFB pointed out, no gnus were taxed) and the survival of Saddam- were not his downfall. It was the lack of salable vision and color at a time when the country wanted new excitement.
As one would expect, he has handled this with his usual grace and class.
There is something self-effacing about him which made two-bit thugs think they could challenge him and get away with it: Noriega, Saddam… That is a likable trait on a personal level but it leads to trouble on the global scene. Obama has the same quality but in his case, he is self-effacing about the whole country and not, Lord knows, about himself.
As a mere citizen (as opposed to a party representative or agent), I can afford to say that I admire the man, but I prefer a different kind of politics. The New York Times’ quote (link to story please?) paints an all or nothing view of him; I have the luxury of making distinctions. I do think that he represents a Republican version of the trope made famous by the Kennedys; that is, when you have been given more, more is required of you. It’s a noble sentiment (noble having multiple meanings here) but honorable intentions don’t justify everything.
My main objection against his administration isn’t his broken “no new taxes” pledge; rather, it’s the attitude that caused him to break it. Essentially, Bush agreed to compromise the tax pledge in exchange for a promise by Democrats that they would compromise on spending. They, of course, reneged … as they have consistently done.
That attitude is a constant problem in politics: if you appease your opponents, they will compromise on return. No. They don’t.
Enlightened self-interest will drive rational people to compromise for the long term benefit. Politicians, increasingly, are merely self-interested. Not enlightened.
I grew to dislike GHWB while he was in office, but I was young and I didn’t realize how hard the left would work to demonize Republicans. I recall someone at the time wrote a “good riddance” essay in New Republic or somewhere that was way over the top about how horrible Bush was.
It’s the only time I cast a protest vote – I didn’t like Clinton but I didn’t want Bush re-elected (and my state – NY – was going to go for Clinton anyway) so I voted Libertarian. It seemed to me that by election day he didn’t want to be re-elected anyway.
I’ve come to respect him since then, but I wish he hadn’t become best buddies with Bill Clinton.
It’s been hard for me to fully understand this, but I have come to realize that the Republican Party is filled with idealistic people. They have trouble voting or supporting someone they can’t get behind 100 percent. In contrast, the Democrats are fighting a war against us, and they get behind whoever is running.
I think GWBush understood this, and he played his elections like the football games they were. Which was a good thing. One less smart play on his part and we would have had Al Gore as president or John Kerry. I don’t really care what GW did while he was in office. He saved us from Al Gore and John Kerry. :)
It’s hard to look back on the George H.W. Bush years with anything but disappointment and regret. Here’s a man who spent eight years witnessing first-hand the tremendous benefits of conservative politics. To get elected, he pretended that he would continue those policies. Then when he was safely in office, he went right back to his life-long support of, what I like to call, “Socialism in the Slow Lane.”
What made him turn his back on those who supported him? Did he lack backbone as many suspected? Or was he a rudderless, unprincipled RINO all along?
Also, Dan Quayle looks about 25 in this picture. Wow…
George H. W. Bush is a war hero, model American, and a man of immense wisdom and judgement.
But he made a very simple mistake. “No New Taxes” is not just a promise, it’s a policy.
And when you break it, you don’t just seem dishonest — and that would be enough — you suddenly don’t have a policy.
Put it this way: Barack Obama lied when he said, “You can keep your doctor…” But he didn’t end up rudderless. We all know where he stands.
Unfortunately.
I’m not old enough to remember him – when he was sworn in I was busy being born – but from what I’ve read and seen I really admire HW. To this day I read about his administration’s diplomatic efforts during the fall of the Soviet Union, making sure that the defunct empire’s nukes would not be dispersed to the winds, and I am in awe. I wish we had more politicians like him nowadays, with broad, nonideological expertise in a wide variety of roles and places.
Regarding his failings…the impression I’ve gotten is that they came from his discomfort with glad-handing and baby-kissing, which shone through his attempts to put on a more populist Texan air. A classic case of trying to please everyone and instead pissing them off. I couldn’t care less about the broken “no new taxes” pledge, and the attempts to cut a deal with the Democrats actually make me like the man more. But then again, I’m a RINO squish with this stupid theory that compromise is a good thing, and that the American electorate tends to support the party that acts like they’re the adults.
Amity Shlaes was talking about the 20’s with Jim Grant recently and she said that one of Coolidge’s prime goals was to restore trust in the government. G. H. W. Bush was, as president, (like most politicians) destructive of trust in both party and governmental leadership. Without trust our government becomes corrupt, and to weaken trust is a great flaw. A second serious flaw was to corrupt the concept of conservative, or conservative governing, as if conservative governance needs to be mellowed with kindness and gentleness. The idea that being conservative is neither kind nor gentle is false. That the country needed a more “kind” and “gentle” president suggests that Bush first had a limited understanding of conservative thought, or was confused about the characteristics of good leaders, or arrogant about how his “kinder” and “gentler” style might benefit the country. In most of the roles, he lived, he seems to have been tops, he was not a good fit for being president.
Jim Beck
That is it in a nutshell: grace and class, infused with integrity. I love GHWB41.
George H W Bush was a war hero, diplomat, CIA head, vice president and president. He served his country with courage, honor and dignity. He is a kind and decent person. I was always disappointed that Reagan chose him as his running mate over Jack Kemp. I felt that Bush was the last of the Rockefeller Republicans, and Reagan simply chose him to keep the party together.
However, I think Bush was an average president. He lacked Reagan’s toughness at critical times. His choice of Quayle was a poor one. His domestic policy was incoherent. He did not believe in supply-side economics although he tried to fake it. Tip O’Neil bested him every time. His lack of fiscal discipline allowed Ross Perot to emerge as a threat to his presidency.
He and James Baker were too tilted towards the Saudis and did not address Iran or Arafat and the threat they posed. He expelled Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, but left the problem of Saddam to someone else.
As Duane said, a leader needs vision. Bush lacked vision. I always felt he was never quite sure where he wanted to take the country.
The elder Bush is the man you want for your grandpa or your Sunday school teacher, not your president.
His attitude toward the Democrats was the mirror to Obama’s foreign policy: be nice to your enemies and they will be nice to you. No, they will slit your gullet and use your guts for garters.
Sure, Democrats love Bush 41. He was malleable, rollable and spineless. He seemed a decent, if naive, man who lacked conviction. In the 1980 primaries he savaged Reagan’s economic policies as “voodoo economics.” If he had really believed that, why did he serve as his VP?
I have nothing original to add, as I’m in agreement with most of the posts. But I did listen to Milt Rosenberg’s recent interview with Robert Merry, author of “Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians.”
During the interview Merry referred to George H.W. Bush as an “inbox president.” Harsh. And that about sums it up for me. Like many of the other commenters, I agree that he was a decent patriotic man. But he forgot, or refused to acknowledge, why he was elected. That he was supposed to be Ronald Reagan’s third term.
It was because of him, the Reagan revolution started to die, to peter out. And it’s why he lost re-election.
The gun enthusiasts in my family tell me Bush is the reason servicemen at Ft. Hood were walking around unarmed when the shooter started firing.
Bush seems like a nice man, but I have to agree with True Blue. At the end of the day, he and others like him are not all that different from the guys on the Left (except, perhaps, even more dangerous, because they either lack the self-awareness to recognize their own progressivism, or they purposely hide it behind the GOP label).
The ban seems to have occurred during his administration. In the sense that it happened on his watch, and that one of his political appointees, though a mid-level one, ordered it, he’s responsible. But the federal government is such a massive beast, a lot of things occur by inertia. This doesn’t seem to have made it close to his desk, and he may not have had any knowledge of it. Or perhaps he knew, but it was a fleeting thing, not worth getting involved.
I could easily see this happening to Reagan, if he had the wrong DOD official in office.
I voted for him twice. I had a pretty good idea that he would not be re-elected, but I believed it was primarily because we had read his lips and they were saying one thing, before they said another.
He was not the ideologue that Reagan was, and lacked the coherence of an ideologue’s vision. That is too bad. Lacking that vision thing, he was not able to project it and place it in context with the events going on in this country and around the world.
Having said that, he was notably better than his successor, but lacked the sense of blood sport that American politics is and has been generally since the beginning.
He’s a reminder that timing is everything. His first 3 years were successful. He did a masterful job of conducting the first gulf war although he didn’t kill Saddam but regime change is a nasty thing. It’s easier to win the war than win the peace. Unfortunatly his last year in office was mired in recession and riots in LA. A bad economy generally kills a president except Obama and FDR. He didn’t help his cause by looking out of touch. Following a conservative icon didn’t help. He was bound to fail by comparison.
41 was responsible for all the good bits of the Clinton administration.
He set up welfare reform with Tommy Thompson, working with the Wisconsin government to tailor the reforms and the necessary federal waivers.
He passed the 1990 OBRA, which was primarily responsible for wiping out the deficit. Unlike his predecessor, he knew how to pass domestic spending cuts that stuck (not to suggest that he was better in general, but he was better at that particular, detail oriented, task). Hence, in part, the deficit rising again at the close of that ten year window, rather than rising ten years after the smaller Contract With America reforms.
He concluded negotiations for the NAFTA (Clinton re-opened them for the labor and environment side-chapters, but neither of those were hard to negotiate with Mexico or Canada), and most of the WTO negotiations.
He repealed CATCare, thus becoming the only modern president to substantially repeal an entitlement program and partly leading to the defeat of Hillarycare.
He sealed the Pax Americana by showing that America would not always cut and run when faced with opponents more fearsome than those found in Greneda.
Apart from school uniforms and the Glass Steagall repeal, what good thing does Clinton get credit for other than this raft of achievements accomplished before he took office?
Why can’t we accept that Presidents, like most people, fall on a bell curve–Few are great and fewer terrible. Bush 41 was somewhat above the median.
Bush’s leadership in the Iraq War pretty much put an end to the post-Vietnam malaise that had prevailed until then. Restoring belief in our military as a force for good in the world is an important legacy.
I also have a hard time thinking of a better man to have on the spot when the Soviet Union fell apart.
I struggle with the endgame in the Iraq War. It makes no sense to allow someone to invade another country with no consequence greater than returning to his original borders. On the other hand, if Bush 41 had no clearer vision of a post-war Iraq than he son proved to, it was probably a blessing that Bush 41 stopped our forces at the border.
A fine man, no doubt. I still think the best thing he ever did was give us George W, but I’m just one of those crazy neo-cons, what do I know?
I do have a question about Bush 41. Noting that he had served two terms as VP and one as the main man, I wonder if he was tired out from spending all that time on the front lines of a particularly difficult job under any circumstances.