REMEMBERING GEORGE H.W. BUSH
He was known for his integrity, not warmth
WASHINGTON — George H.W. Bush was a man with a matchless résumé — combat pilot, diplomat, vice president, then president of the United States — but great communicator was not on the list. That was Ronald Reagan's strength.
“Fluency in English is not something I’m often accused of,” he once said.
Nor was he given to the grand designs he once dismissed as “the vision thing.” He was a pragmatist, no showman. That was a style that worked for a term but not when he sought a second, losing, he thought, because he wasn’t “a good enough communicator.”
George Bush — the H.W. came into use later when his son George W. Bush became president — began his presidency in 1989 with a guarded declaration of independence. Guarded because conservatives never had been Bush fans and were determined to keep Republicans on the Reagan track. Independent because Bush did not want his administration seen as Reagan revisited.
“There’s going to be change, but hopefully a building on what’s happened,” Bush said in an interview with The Associated Press before his 1989 inauguration. “I’m the one calling the shots. I’m the one who’s going to set the agenda.”
He had overcome the political detractors who called him a wimp, a Reagan lapdog, all résumé and no action.
In 1966, Bush won the first of two terms in the House from Houston, and from the start his political ideology did not match common labels. He considered himself a centrist; Texas Democratic foes called him a rightwinger. He supported civil rights legislation despite opposition at home. Once a supporter of abortion rights, he became an ardent foe. He later said his views had evolved.
That seemed the case on more than one issue, fodder for his critics when he got into national politics in 1980 after a succession of appointed jobs: ambassador to the United Nations, chairman of the Republican National Committee, envoy to China, director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
He was a reliable loyalist, defending and deferring to the leaders who chose him. As party chairman, he echoed Richard Nixon’s Watergate denials almost to the end.
The loyalty instinct was part of Bush’s Republican establishment heritage. He was the son of Prescott Bush, who served as senator from Connecticut. In the post-World War II era, centrist eastern Republicans dominated party councils. It was a system of trust in which custom counted and rules were unspoken but understood.
When Bush ran for president in 1980, he was in a field of seven Republicans led by Reagan. That’s when he dismissed Reagan’s budget notions as “voodoo economics,” a line he would regret when as vice president he wound up defending the same program.
Two terms later, it was Bush’s turn. Nominated to succeed Reagan, he spoke of a kinder, gentler nation — and then balanced the soft words with hard ones, in the phrase that became a trademark until he erased it. “Read my lips,” he said. “No new taxes.”
Bush won the general election against former Gov. Michael Dukakis easily. But he was a president without a blueprint, and within weeks of taking office he had to deny that his administration was drifting without clear purpose. He had to deal with the costly savings and loan crisis and bailout, and a national debt that had tripled since 1980 The tough campaigner of 1988 seemed distant and aloof in the 1992 race against Bill Clinton. Democrats painted Bush as the president who couldn't communicate or connect with voters.
Clinton was viewed as empathetic and articulate, and he won the election. Even so, when Bush left office, the polls showed that well over half the country approved the man, even though they had spurned the president.
Perhaps that had something to do with an attitude he did succeed in communicating:
“Don’t confuse being soft with seeing the other guy’s point of view.”