George H.W. Bush - Classic or Dud

Last sane Republican, before the evangelical brainrot took over.

I voted for him in 1988 a few weeks after my 18th birthday. I was recovering from Ayn Rand-y delusions at the time, and its the last time I voted GOP.

Bush could have supported the 1989 Panamanian coup attempt against Noriega, and prevented the hundreds of civilian deaths caused by his intervention two months later.

Bush could have vocally intervened as intel and the ambassador to Iraq announced Saddam massing to invade Kuwait, and prevented tens of thousands of civilian deaths caused by the 1991 Gulf War and its aftermath in the suppression of Sh'ia / marsh Arab insurrection. In doing so, he would have also preserved the Iraq/Iran balance of power that had been a goal of U.S. foreign policy since the 1960s. Instead he created the preconditions for the still ongoing Saudi-Iran proxy war.

So, contrary to popular conceptions, he wasn't that good at foreign policy. OTOH, James Baker was probably the most effective secretary of state in the last 70 years.

Weird how this pic is the one where I finally see the resemblance between HW and Jr.

https://i.imgur.com/ZOADQtW.jpg

He wasn't the last sane Republican so much as one of the old guard's most conspicuous victims of the Reaganist brain rot.

My God, they are going to hold Bush up as John Adams. Trump won't be let in the door and he'll crack up.

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) December 1, 2018

I am taking a group of Italians round London today and have just realised why the flag on Buckingham Palace is at half mast. They had better not do that when trump dies.

He was relatively tough on Israel? at least to a degree you'll never see again

I read and reviewed When the World Seemed New about six months ago: a thorough study of Poppy's stewardship of the end of the Cold War. The scene that stays with me: the forty-first president guzzling two martinis on Air Force One in response to a kind of war-induced postpartum depression.

It won't happen, but I'd be interested in hearing from Ross Perot today. He had such a hate-on for Bush in '92--I think the general consensus is that Clinton would have won anyway with no Perot, but maybe not.

As president, George H. W. Bush unilaterally reduced the US nuclear arsenal by about half, without ill consequences. RIP

— Graeme Wood (@gcaw) December 1, 2018

Bush once again with the ill behaviour.

Gore Vidal called William F. Buckley's family the Sick Kennedys, but the Bush family better fits that role.

— Dennis Perrin (@DennisThePerrin) December 1, 2018

Thomas Mallon in The New Yorker: "George H. W. Bush is likely to be remembered as the last President of the republic not to have been intensely despised by a significant portion of its population." Not sure I believe it.

Worth a read. What boggles is that these men served in two GOP administrations and lost their fucking minds.

xp

That sounds right to me. Before that, Eisenhower? (Not counting ford)

Intensely being the key word

I will say that he was the last competent Republican president of my lifetime, and set against Ford and his two successors he looks like FDR.

This has probably been posted before somewhere on ILX (can't see it on this thread). Great photo:

http://usatftw.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/babe_ruth_george_bush.jpg?w=776&h=1024

His stats at Yale for '46/'47/'48

G - 76
AB - 263
H - 59
R - 43
RBI - 28
BA - .224

I hope he was Keith Hernandez with the glove.

http://sabr.org/research/complete-collegiate-baseball-record-george-hw-bush

His son was Keith Hernandez with the blow.

This is a major part of Bush’s legacy. It’s what his War on Drugs did to just one person. But it shows the human costs of that war in miniature detail. A high schooler was lured to the WH to sell crack and spent 7+ years in prison, so that the President could make a point on TV.

— Joshua Clark Davis (@JoshClarkDavis) December 1, 2018

Reagan-esque!

I think history is gonna judge every member of the 'sensible-gop' by whether or not they came out publicly against trump. the bushes could have used their stature to do something that was actually in the best interests of 'their legacy' and the long-term of the gop and they didn't.

I'm not sure, given his age and exile by the GOP, what strings Poppy could've pulled to stop Trump, but then he would know what it's like to have one's strings pulled.

I thought they did more or less come out publically against Trump (made easier because none of them actually held office, so they didn't have put that to the test, like Jeff Flake and the rest who criticize publically and then vote with Trump--plus one of them ran against Trump).

didn't Dubya actually admit he voted for Clinton? I have to check.

I think history is gonna judge every member of the 'sensible-gop' by whether or not they came out publicly against trump

it would be nice if they were also judged by like, their actions, but I guess this'll have to do

I remember feeling a deep sense of shame and anger when I visited the Amiriyah shelter in Iraq. George HW Bush killed more than 400 civilians huddled there on February 13, 1991. These are the crimes we should be discussing today.

— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) December 1, 2018

And here's this from @MarkKUpdegrove's 2017 book called The Last Republicans. https://t.co/CYYhEkiMLv pic.twitter.com/QosOjCI3RR

— Michael Kruse (@michaelkruse) December 1, 2018

h/t Ned

(xpost)

H.W. voted for Clinton, but it sounds like he didn't say so publically:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/04/george-h-w-bush-voted-hillary-clinton-called-donald-trump-blowhard/

Trump going to the funeral. God if only he were able to get to the mic to give an euology, that would be 10-20 minutes of fucking disaster I'd love to see

goddamn that Josh Clark Davis tweet thread is infuriating

My moderate-liberal mom always liked this guy for some reason. Can anybody (e.g. Alfred) explain the fuck why to me?

He was good at projecting a mild-mannered and polite persona to the public. And, of course, the media played along and made him seem pleasant and generally harmless.

and now of course the mild-mannered mien looks like a master class in presidential timbre or something

I thought they did more or less come out publically against Trump (made easier because none of them actually held office, so they didn't have put that to the test, like Jeff Flake and the rest who criticize publically and then vote with Trump--plus one of them ran against Trump).

W has criticized Trump obliquely but the best quote was after the inauguration when he described the proceedings as "some weird shit" or something like that. I hope they seat Trump between him and Jeb at the funeral. Maybe throw the McClains in there too.

guess she's running for president

George H.W. Bush was an American patriot who lived his life and served our country with dignity. From joining the Navy during WWII to the presidency, his devotion to public service was unmatched. Bruce and I send our heartfelt condolences to his family.

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) December 1, 2018

trump ragged on dubya constantly and made a fool out of jeb - even ignoring the 'it would be nice of you to help america avoid fascism' factor, they really didn't have a shortage of personal reasons to come out stronger against him.

xp

Lol Bushes were never gonna publicly support the family that threw them out of the WH

many xps

this would have easily swung the election.

Strongly disagree with this. Every time somebody like the Bushes spoke out against Trump, that just strengthened Trump. With has hardcore zealots, obviously, but if the argument is that the Bushes could have swayed Trump's softer support--people who voted for him more because they didn't like Clinton--I don't believe that either. I don't know how to frame it exactly, but the formulation that "strong condemnation of Trump from the Bushes tips election to Clinton," that just doesn't fit with that election at all.

Always curious what ppl expect pols like Warren to do, tweet YO HW SUCK MY DICK FROM THE BACK FASCIST PIECE OF SHIT #SCUMGANG FOR LIFE!!

Agree with clem

If anything, that's what helped lose the election for Clinton (not second-guessing--I would have made exactly the same mistake): we won't go campaign in Michigan, we'll just wait until good Republicans speak out against Trump and everybody sees the light.

Always curious what ppl expect pols like Warren to do, tweet YO HW SUCK MY DICK FROM THE BACK FASCIST PIECE OF SHIT #SCUMGANG FOR LIFE!!

you would retweet, you have to admit

Well, yeah

hoping AOC has the good sense to say nothing tbh

Lol Bushes were never gonna publicly support the family that threw them out of the WH

at this point the families are pretty buddy-buddy

Strongly disagree with this. Every time somebody like the Bushes spoke out against Trump, that just strengthened Trump. With has hardcore zealots, obviously, but if the argument is that the Bushes could have swayed Trump's softer support--people who voted for him more because they didn't like Clinton--I don't believe that either. I don't know how to frame it exactly, but the formulation that "strong condemnation of Trump from the Bushes tips election to Clinton," that just doesn't fit with that election at all.

the republican party is a mix of legitimate crazies and vanilla party members who wait for signals and toe the line. the party elite - many of whom openly, but quietly admitted they weren't voting for trump - didn't do a great job at signaling to the second group that trump was dangerous and that they actually weren't supposed to just vote straight ticket republican like they do ever other year. multiple presidents coming out against their own party would have been a pretty good signal that this wasn't just another election and trump wasn't just another republican. the crazies were always going to support him, the rest of the party wasn't a given.

last one I promise -- quote remind you of anyone

On July 3, 1988, @USNavy blew a commercial Iranian airplane out of the sky over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 civilians onboard, including 66 kids.

Bush defended this, saying, "I will never apologize for the United States of America, ever. I don't care what the facts are!" https://t.co/yofnaeOywC

— Nima Shirazi (@WideAsleepNima) December 1, 2018

goddamn that Josh Clark Davis tweet thread is infuriating

Seriously. I hadn't heard that story before.

wow, i didn't even know about that.

xp Flight 655

"Statement as Vice-president, during a presidential campaign function (2 Aug 1988)[1]. Some commenters at the time saw this as a reference to the Navy warship USS Vincennes having shot down Iran Air Flight 655 on July 3, although Bush did not explicitly mention the shoot-down in the speech. The quote of the week section of Newsweek (15 August 1988[2], p.15) described the quote as "George Bush, speaking to a group of Republican leaders about the accidental downing of an Iranian airliner", and in "Rally Round the Flag, Boys" by Michael Kingsley in TIME magazine (12 September 1988), the quote was described as "the Vice President's reaction to the shooting down of the Iranian civilian airliner"."

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush

(not to defend him, but context)

the crazies were always going to support him, the rest of the party wasn't a given

If you weren't one of the crazies, did you really need one of the Bushes to spell out for you that Trump was potentially dangerous? I assume you would have been non-crazy enough to figure that out for yourself just from observing the campaign. I think we watched different elections. The only actions that were going to change the 2016 result would have come from Clinton, not external forces. (And again--it's a hard thing to search and round up comments--I'll stand by the statement that the Bushes did speak out publically against Trump. Maybe not as forcefully as you would have liked, but I think they did.)