Bush calls for an end to pandemic partisanship
WASHINGTON — Former President George W. Bush called on Americans on Saturday to put aside partisan differences, heed the guidance of medical professionals and show empathy for those stricken by the coronavirus and the resulting economic devastation.
In a three-minute video message, Bush, who rarely speaks out on current events, struck a tone of unity that contrasted with the more combative approach taken at times by President Donald Trump as the former president evoked the sense of national solidarity in the wake of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“Let us remember how small our differences are in the face of this shared threat,” Bush said in the professionally produced video set against music and photographs of medical workers helping victims of the virus and of ordinary Americans wearing masks. “In the final analysis, we are not partisan combatants. We are human beings, equally vulnerable and equally wonderful in the sight of God. We rise or fall together, and we are determined to rise.”
While Bush never mentioned
Trump’s name, the sitting president clearly took the message as an implicit rebuke and lashed out at his predecessor Sunday.
In a Twitter message, Trump paraphrased a Fox News personality saying, “Oh bye the way, I appreciate the message from former President Bush, but where was he during Impeachment calling for putting partisanship aside.”
Trump then added in his own voice, “He was nowhere to be found in speaking up against the greatest Hoax in American history!”
Bush’s message was part of a series of videos aired online as part of a 24-hour livestreamed project, “The Call to Unite,” that also featured Oprah Winfrey, Tim Shriver, Julia Roberts, Martin Luther King III, Sean Combs, Quincy Jones, Naomi Judd, Andrew Yang and others.
Former President Bill Clinton also delivered a message, speaking into a camera in what looked like a video chat from his home.
“We need each other, and we do better when we work together,” he said. “That’s never been more clear to me as I have seen the courage and dignity of the first responders, the health care workers, all the people who are helping them to provide our food, our transportation, our basic services to the other essential workers.”
In his video message Saturday, Bush recalled the difficult days after Sept. 11.
“Let us remember, we have faced times of testing before,” he said as images flashed on the screen of him comforting relatives of those killed in the attacks. “Following 9/11, I saw a great nation rise as one to honor the brave, to grieve with the grieving and to embrace unavoidable new duties. And I have no doubt, none at all, that this spirit of service and sacrifice is alive and well in America.”