General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsEllieBC
(2,988 posts)Some people are better people than others. Obama is not just like us. We are not just like him. Hes better. And thats why he is where he is and the rest of us will have to clean spittle off our monitors later.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,708 posts)The praise was a tad bit effusive but a person's death is the last big chance to say something nice about him or her.
Butterflylady
(3,537 posts)That's about as nice as I can be when it comes to the Bush family.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,708 posts)calimary
(81,085 posts)I was really touched by the class with which George Senior and Barbara greeted the Clintons and their then-pre-teenage daughter Chelsea.
The incoming First Family arrives at the White House to be greeted by the outgoing First Couple. Its a tradition by now.
Ill never forget how HW greeted Chelsea so warmly and affectionately and said Welcome to your NEW HOUSE!
Her dad had just denied him what many (including him, Im sure) thought was his entitlement to a second term. During a nasty campaign. Rendered him a one-termer, which had to be at least somewhat humiliating. And he was about to hand over the front door keys to the residence he felt he deserved to keep for four more years, and probably rather ardently didnt want to give up. And yet he was kind, welcoming, and totally charming to that shy young girl. So was Barbara. Like grandparents more than political foes.
I couldnt help noticing that. And Ill remember that about him for a long time.
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)I mean, they may not have, but they certainly COULD have.
Unlike the message of "IQ45 and Flotus" which they couldn't have come up with given an entire year to write it.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,708 posts)Likely because of their graciousness.
cwydro
(51,308 posts)An excellent tribute.
Stallion
(6,473 posts)he knew Reagan's economic policy was a joke-Voodoo Economics- and he knew the Religious Right were snake dancers
His greatest weakness is that he wasn't strong enough politically to stand up for what he truly believed and he was one of the first in the modern Republican Party to abandon his principles for political expediency. That road leads to Donald Trump and the destruction of the Republican Party.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)PatrickforO
(14,557 posts)The evil architects of this winning is everything approach were, of course, Richard Nixon, Lee Atwater, and Karl Rove. We still have Rove, and the stench of this approach extends now all through the Republican party, particularly at the national level.
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,235 posts)He raised taxes and tried to undo reaganomics. The reaganites and evangelicals made him a 1-termer for that.
mountain grammy
(26,595 posts)thegoose
(3,115 posts)Skeletons galore
Jarqui
(10,119 posts)I can't agree with that. Two rock solid prior examples:
Nixon, Watergate for example
Reagan, Iran Contra for example
"he wasn't strong enough politically to stand up for what he truly believed"
I have mixed feelings on that.
I have mixed feelings about his presidency and his service.
Scotch-Irish
(464 posts)Reagan didn't have much upstairs through all of that.
Gothmog
(144,884 posts)It really was the tax increase Bush signed on to that doomed his presidency but set the stage for the last time the federal budget would be near balanced. That was no small achievement and it probably contributed to the booming economy that lasted through most of the Clinton presidency. Money that would have gone into the bond market to cover the federal deficit was now available to go to other uses (some good and some bad). Bush may have been uneasy with the Evangelicals but he should have known they weren't going to vote democrat under any circumstances.
PatrickforO
(14,557 posts)Here's a man with dignity, pride, class, manners and noble character.
Best president in my lifetime, for sure.
grantcart
(53,061 posts)Bettie
(16,058 posts)however, I feel for the people who loved the old man.
I don't generally dance on graves, but when the Orange Circus Peanut dies, I will be joyful that he no longer exists in the world. I will also not have any sympathy for anyone related to him and I honestly doubt that anyone actually loves him.
onecaliberal
(32,763 posts)previous President.
Moebym
(989 posts)A strong, effective, intelligent leader who could make Putin quake in his boots, and who just so happens to be a woman. Instead we have a guy who grovels at Putin's feet and uses the power of his office to attack his enemies and enrich himself at the expense of others.
onecaliberal
(32,763 posts)Of a supposed human could be better than Secretary Clinton is mind boggling on a level I will never ever understand. I blame everyone who failed to vote or wasted their vote. The people who support that abomination are dead to me.
Gothmog
(144,884 posts)DesertRat
(27,995 posts)elmac
(4,642 posts)didn't murder a bunch of people, didn't devastate Democracy so yes, I think he deserves a R.I.P.
Fuzzpope
(602 posts)Wash and wax his Mercedes from his Biscayne Blvd home back in the 80's when I was a late teen.
I have nothing further to add, aside from RIP.
(BTW, his son is the real a-hole, way more than the father.)
peggysue2
(10,819 posts)cultivating our Better Angels. I think we'd do well to follow his advice.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)in both him and Michelle. The best I can do is to say nothing.
Hekate
(90,525 posts)God knows, Trump is utterly incapable. I am so grateful President Obama does: you can feel him pausing a decent moment to let Trump have a chance, then stepping forward to do the job.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Sorry Mr. President. I understand that you are being Presidential, but history is just that.
RHMerriman
(1,376 posts)As president, Bush I was my last CinC; although I didn't see action in Kuwait/Iraq, I probably would have been in theater if the PGW had gone on longer - for example, if the Hussein regime had collapsed and the Allies had occupied the entire country.
Which, as bad as that would have been, probably would have been better for the world than the history that panned out. So, I won't give him a great amount of credit for strategic thought in terms of SW Asia - as a GI Generation president, he knew that winning the peace was as important as winning the war, and he fumbled the peace.
Along with that, he did manage the US response to the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR pretty well, all things considered, so it's a mixed bag.
He was, in fact, a fairly representative example of the GI Generation when in positions of power postwar, with all their faults and strengths. On balance, he successfully avoided a confrontation via force of arms with the Soviet bloc, which was the positive sine qua non of post-1949 US policy; but he also saw the US as an imperial power, which is the negative aspect of the same group of men.
He was, of course, a patriot who was willing to put himself in harm's way, and did during WW II, and he appears to have managed his personal life with a minimum of scandal. He was, at times, willing to be a true Protestant ascendency patrician and do the moral thing, as when he called out David Duke as a racist in the Louisiana governor's race and endorsed the Democrat - even though Duke was the obvious outgrowth of Atwater's Southern Strategy for the GOP. I will give him some credit for those sorts of decisions.
In comparison to Nixon, Reagan, Bush II, and Trump, in retrospect, Bush I looks like a genius as a political leader and strategist, but in reality, he was a decent man, with the positives and negatives of his generation and class, and who was poorly met by the reactionary Republicans rising up around him.
I never voted for him, but when I was in uniform, I didn't think he was going to throw away my life and the lives of those I served with on a political whim, unlike Nixon in 1969-73 or Bush II in Iraq - or, for that matter, Trump.
Sometimes, once one takes the oath and writes the proverbial blank check to one's country, that's the most one can expect.
Not the worst epitaph.
Fair winds and following seas, Mr. Bush.