Bay State pols pay their respects
Massachusetts Republicans with deep Bush family ties yesterday remembered the late former first lady Barbara Bush for her candidness and compassion.
Andrew Card, who was secretary of transportation under Bush’s husband, President George H.W. Bush, said she had a “deep and abiding impact on my conscience.”
“She had an unvarnished way of describing what you should be,” Card said, “and she caused you to correct your way and put you on a better path.”
Bush White House assistant Ron Kaufman recalled meeting Barbara Bush and her husband in 1977 at the Ritz Carlton.
“I thought, I better never make a mistake with her,” Kaufman said with a chuckle. “I was frightened to death because she was such a candid, honest, moral, sincere person.”
She was also “funny, witty, smart and loving,” he said.
Kaufman remembered at one point giving her husband what he thought was “brilliant political wisdom, and she basically said that’s a lot of hooey. If it wasn’t for Barbara Bush, I’m not sure there would have been a President Bush . ... But nobody was a better advocate and friend to me over the years.”
Gov. Charlie Baker tweeted last night: “I had the chance to meet former First Lady Barbara Bush on several occasions & also watched her interact with rooms full of people. Tons of grace & charm. Thank you for your service to our country. RIP.”
Former Gov. Mitt Romney, also on Twitter, remembered Bush as a woman who “raised a family of service & character, stood by her beloved husband in the best & worst of times, and spoke her convictions with courage & passion. The great First Lady of our times. Ann and I will profoundly miss her friendship, her compassion, & the twinkle of her eye.”
Barbara Bush championed literacy, held infants afflicted with AIDS at a time when people were frightened of the disease and brought the press along when she slipped a donation into a Salvation Army red kettle after she heard the charity had been shunned by a shopping mall — causing the mall to reverse course.