RIP President George H.W. Bush

Not the Persian Gulf War itself, but assembling the global coalition to support and fight it was the largest triumph of US diplomacy since the Marshall Plan. RIP.

 

I posted a similar in the politics thread, but again, I'll say RIP to the last president we've had that truly checked all of what I feel are the qualification/ability boxes to be a true POTUS.

 

When he ran for president in 1980, people said he had the best resume in Washington. Highly recommend Jon Meacham's bio of him. RIP.

 

A Bonesman gone.

Last of the analog, piston-driven Presidents.

Rest.

 

I didn't vote for him, but I regret it. In hindsight, I wish he would have won a second term and the name "Clinton" would be as much a historical footnote as "Dukakis."

 

As vice president in 1986, Bush came to the Cape and personally met the Challenger families the afternoon of Jan. 28. He then came to the media center and held a short news conference, then came around and spoke with each of us briefly.

If you're old enough to remember, there were real concerns that a Russian ship in the area may have shot down the Shuttle, so the Secret Service was particularly on edge. If you're trying to get back from the media center to Merritt Island, Kennedy Space Center/Canaveral AFB is mainly a bunch of two-lane back roads in the middle of nowhere swampland.

I was done for the day and heading back to Melbourne, driving closely behind a silver box truck when suddenly the rear doors opened and two men with dark glasses waved a couple of automatic rifles in my direction, motioning me to back off. Guessing Mr. Bush was inside.

Thank you for your service, Mr. Bush.

 

Because of course there was.

 

I loved that he held friendships with the other presidents. His spokesman tweeted out that President Obama had visited with him earlier in the week and they always had a very warm friendship. He and Bill Clinton worked together for aid for Hurricane Katrina and Haiti and they grew to be friends after being rivals (they are describing the 1992 election as bitter but I don't remember it that way. It was very competitive but I don't remember any of the debates getting particularly nasty. They were just political opposites).

He just seemed like a genuinely good, gracious humble human being that loved his country (his CIA years are the most interesting to me) and was a deserving face of the group they called the greatest generation.

 

RIP. We seem to be losing all the good ones without replacing them.

 

Bush was a representative of the Eastern prep elite that dominated the US national security community from WW2 until the second Iraq War pretty much croaked it. He had all of its strengths, high-minded patriotism, recognition of the importance of diplomacy, belief in an international order to avoid war, etc. and all of its weaknesses, a lack of touch with the actual American citizenry being foremost of them. So he did superlatively well when the Soviet Union collapsed and in responding to the invasion of Kuwait, but was unable to even conceive of a response to a recession that cost him his Presidency.
He visited Fort Myers for Sox spring training in March '93. I remember seeing him and thinking, :"he doesn't look all that unhappy about being an ex-President."