We
begin to see clearly in the rearview mirror of history, and George H.W. Bush
has lived long enough to be appreciated as the Lone Star Yankee, perhaps the
last unapologetically centrist Republican
to enter the White House, winning California on the way to an
electoral landslide..
A real-life former Bush
speechwriter, Christopher Buckley, has
been all but drummed out of the conservative clique his father did more than
anyone else to help found but retains his perch as an unusually civil and
lighthearted voice in often coarse and remorseless civic discourse.
A
sober look at the first Bush presidency shows an honorable man able to bridge
the Northeastern Republican tradition with the Sunbelt conservative ascendancy
of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.
To borrow the old Smith Barney ad slogan,
Bush succeeded the old-fashioned way—he earned it. Climbing from the oil fields
of Texas after serving in World War II and attending Yale to a perch in
Congress and then rebounding from a failed senatorial campaign to serve as
ambassador to the United Nations, Republican National Committee chairman,
ambassador to China, and CIA director successively, Bush was a team player in a
narcissists’ game who believed a combination of hard work and good works would
result in success. He was right.
Almost alone among 1960s Southern-bloc
Republicans in Congress, he voted his conscience on an anti-discrimination
federal housing bill and caught constituent hell for it. As president he signed
the Americans With Disabilities Act and negotiated a balanced plan to reduce
the deficit with congressional Democrats, incurring the wrath of conservative
populists.
When the Berlin Wall fell, he did not crow but allowed democracy to
take root on its own merits in the former Soviet republics. And after
marshaling the first post–Cold War international coalition to kick Saddam
Hussein out of Kuwait, his little-c conservative national-security team
declined to invade Baghdad. “Some people said, ‘Why didn’t you guys take care
of Saddam when you had a chance? Why didn’t you go to Baghdad?’” former
secretary of state James Baker remembered in the American Experience documentary dedicated to 41.
“Nobody asks me that question anymore.”
In
his post-presidency, Bush 41 formed an unlikely friendship with Bill Clinton,
the man who defeated him for reelection in 1992. And of course the family found
vindication in 2000, making the Bushes the first family since the Adamses to
pass the presidential baton between generations. But 41’s politics, at home and
abroad, stand distinct from his son’s.
One
more thing: George H.W. Bush has become an unlikely fashion plate, defiantly
owning the title as our preppiest ex-president. This last living WWII-vet Oval
Office occupant chooses to show his retiree rebellion in a succession of colorful socks.
This habit has gone from what must have been a hoot in the country club to a
style as defining as FDR’s cigarette holder or Reagan’s cowboy hat. This
flourish may not self-consciously reach for the iconic imagery, but it is
surely more endearing because of its essential self-effacing modesty.
The
image of the Obamas honoring the Bushes in the White House does not fit
established angry partisan narratives. But it reflects reality—the essential
interpersonal civility of both first families as well as the patriotism that
outweighs partisan bitterness when our politics are seen with a sense of
perspective. That is as good a lesson as any with which to honor the presidency
of George H.W. Bush.
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