RIP, George Bush: Man of few equals
Published 10:58 am Tuesday, December 4, 2018
George Herbert Walker Bush was every bit of what former Gov. Ann Richards said of him — “born with a silver foot in his mouth.” But in leading with a jibe toward Bush, the Republican presidential candidate in 1988, Richards gave short shrift to Bush’s other, more creditable qualities, which lasted for a lifetime of leadership and dedicated service that oftentimes inspired fellow Americans. Those qualities included courage and integrity and loyalty and kindness, and they never faded.
Neither Americans nor Texans should shortchange George Bush, a great man.
The 41st president, who died Friday at his Houston home at 94, was born to patrician heritage but, like his father before him, made his own way in the world. That path led him from World War II service to Yale University to Odessa, Texas and his start in the rough-and-tumble oilfield business with a company owned by a family friend. He might have more easily taken a position in finance on Wall Street — that would have led to a charmed life — but George and Barbara Bush were looking at the long haul with their own sense of independence and adventure. Texas was a great place to find all of that, as it had been for westward-moving Americans for more than a century.
Within a short few years, Bush helped form Zapata Petroleum — it was named for a Marlon Brando movie — and secured his future, financially. It also paved the way for Bush to enter politics, first as a Republican county leader, then as a statewide U.S. Senate candidate.
Like his father, former U.S. Sen. Prescott Bush of Connecticut, the young Bush became a fiscal conservative and social moderate. He did so after flirting with the party’s right wing; that was unlike his father, an Eisenhower Republican, who supported civil rights and shunned McCarthyism. The son veered back toward a more moderate political philosophy and generally held that course.
Bush would have led a significant life of public service without ever capturing the Oval Office. He was, at turns, a national party leader, a U.N. ambassador, an envoy to China, the CIA director.
His energetic run in a crowded GOP field for the presidency in 1980 outdistanced everyone except for Ronald Reagan, who made him vice president for eight years. In his single term as president, Bush had large foreign policy successes, including forming a global coalition against Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. But a wavering economy and the third-party candidacy of Ross Perot undercut his reelection effort.
Nonetheless, he had few equals as a public servant and fewer still for serving with compassion and public decency. He was a role model as a husband, father and countryman. His life was well lived; his legacy will be long lasting.