A view of George H.W. Bush, from an opponent’s side
On Friday, Nov. 30, 2018, one of the true giants of the 20th Century – what Henry Luce, the founder of Time magazine called “the American Century” – passed away at the advanced age of 94.
He was George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st president of the United States. Most Americans remembered him as the world leader who oversaw the collapse of the Soviet Union and the defeat of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War in 1991.
I, however, recalled President Bush as my main enemy! I was the speechwriter for the Democratic candidate he defeated in 1988, Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis. Gov. Dukakis was one of the few presidential aspirants with local ties: He graduated from Swarthmore College in 1955 with a degree in History.
In 1988, I entered the presidential campaign at midpoint. I hoped to bring a historian’s perspective to Mike Dukakis’ campaign at a time when it already seemed to be struggling to reach the American electorate. (I had received my history education locally, with a degree from La Salle and master’s from Villanova.) The governor welcomed me aboard his campaign heartily.
Although we all labored mightily through the weeks ahead, we could read the political writing on the wall. Mike was plagued by rumors (never proven) of mental illness earlier in his life at a time when mental illness was still a social taboo. Mike’s photo of him in the cockpit of an M1 Abrams battle tank, in an effort to portray him as commander-in-chief, bombed mightily (not my idea)! The final blow came when Willie Horton, a convicted Massachusetts murderer who was released on a prison furlough program that Dukakis had approved, assaulted a woman in Maryland. On election night in November 1988 Mike only carried 10 states and the District of Columbia. George H. W. Bush, who had served President Ronald W Reagan as his Vice President, now succeeded him in the Oval Office.
We were sad. We had given our all to the good fight and we had lost. Yet some time after the election, I received a wonderful letter from the governor and his beloved wife, Kitty (Katharine). His letter was upbeat and filled with hope for the future. If there had been any bitterness in Mike after his defeat, it was gone. He helped me to heal.
By the time of Inauguration Day on 20 January 1990, I wanted to hear what our new president had to say to us. President Bush began his Inaugural Address with “we meet on democracy’s front porch, a good place to talk as neighbors and as friends. For this is a day when our nation is made whole, when our differences, for a moment, are suspended.” When I heard the words that our new president said, I felt the conviction behind them.
As the Bush Years began, it was clear that he had intended his Inaugural speech to be a guide for what was to come. He had a strong sense of right and wrong, and did not hesitate to use American military force to carry it out. In December 1989, in Operation Just Cause, he used 24,000 U.S. troops to oust the drug lord Manuel Noriega from power in Panama. Two years later, Bush marshaled a multi-national coalition to drive the army of Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm. The commander of the victorious coalition army was U.S. Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who was a graduate of Valley Forge Military Academy in nearby Wayne, Pa.
At home, President Bush on July 26, 1990, would sign into law the Americans With Disabilities Act, the ADA. The ADA prohibited discrimination against any “qualified person with a disability.” At the time, I was reporting on the Barrier Awareness handicapped Advocacy group in Delaware County. The association was chaired by a valiant blondehaired lady named Edna, whose last name I sadly forget. For Edna and her brave comrades, the Americans With Disabilities Act was their Declaration of Independence from the obstacles that an unthinking public had put in their path.
Along with the signing of the Americans With Disabilities Act, President Bush also renewed the landmark environmental protection landmark legislation Clean Air Act. Yet an ailing economy hung over the Bush White House like a dark, threatening cloud. The “peace dividend” that was expected to come with the end of the Cold War in 1991 never materialized. The unemployment rate went up in 1991. Worse still, in the face of Bush’s 1988 “read my lips, no new taxes” promise, he had to do just that. Then in September 1992, just two months before he would be up for re-election, the Census Bureau revealed that 14.2 percent of Americans lived in poverty.
During the 1992 presidential campaign, the economy remained the main issue. Even worse, Bush was unable to make clear his hopes and plans for the future. He called this problem “that vision thing.” In the end, President Bush lost the election to his Democratic Party challenger, Gov. William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton of Arkansas.
After his defeat, Bush did not let his loss mold him or twist him. In fact, he became fast friends with the man who defeated him. President Bush would say of President Clinton that “it’s hard to stay mad at that guy.” Together, the two presidents would raise money an the awful tsunami wrecked Indonesia and for the victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005.
When President Bush left office, he was the last of the five U.S. presidents of what the NBC newsman Tom Brokaw called “the Greatest Generation,” those Americans who had fought (and too often died) in the titanic struggles of the Second World War of 1941 to 1945.
The first was President Dwight D Eisenhower, who was elected in 1952. Coincidentally, all other four, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and George H. W. Bush had served in the US Navy in the fight against the Japanese in the Pacific.
Upon the news of President Bush’s passing, our current President Donald J. Trump summed up eloquently what many Americans felt about President George H. W. Bush.
President Trump said: “Through his essential authenticity, disarming wit, and unwavering commitment to faith, family, and country, President Bush inspired generations of his fellow Americans to public service.” On completing this article, I am reminded of what U.S. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton said when President Abraham Lincoln died in April 1865:
“Now he belongs to the ages.” Although he was my political foe long ago, today I sincerely mourn the passing of Bush 41.