I’m all for fond remembrances of former President George H.W. Bush in the wake of his recent death. But to erase Bush’s embrace of the Willie Horton ad, his nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court and his role in Iran-Contra, to name a few of the less than wonderful parts of his record, is to erase significant parts of the man’s life and the person that he was.
On Fox News Sunday yesterday, host Chris Wallace gushed, “For years, I have felt George H.W. Bush was the greatest living American.” Wallace is entitled to his personal opinion but as a newsman, he’s not entitled to airbrush imperfections out of Bush’s life and turn him into a legend. But that’s what happened on Fox News Sunday yesterday. To be fair, Wallace and Fox News are hardly alone in such an endeavor. But since writing about Fox News is my job and since Wallace is supposed to be one of Fox’s most respected and fair news anchors, I’m focusing on him.
To commemorate Bush yesterday, Wallace played clips from his two interviews with Bush. Then he interviewed Dick Cheney and James Baker. Before Cheney was George W. Bush’s vice president, he served as H.W. Bush’s defense secretary; Baker served as H.W. Bush’s secretary of state. Predictably, they had only glowing words about Bush. And heck, next to Trump, even W. looks good.
But in the panel discussion that followed, there was no excuse not to mention other aspects of Bush’s record: For one thing, while Bush seemed like a decent, civil man in person, there is no question that he ushered in the beginning of right-wing incivility and indecency, both with the infamous Willie Horton ad and with an attack on opponent Michael Dukakis’ membership in the American Civil Liberties Union. The former suggested that black rapists would run wild in the street if Dukakis became president and the latter suggested that concern for civil liberties made him somehow less American than Bush. He neglected the AIDS epidemic plaguing the county and he was involved in and helped to cover up the Iran-Contra affair. Perhaps worst of all, Bush replaced Thurgood Marshall on the U.S. Supreme Court with Clarence Thomas. Even if you like Thomas, that controversial pick deserved a mention as a counter to all the talk of Bush's bipartisanship.
Nevertheless, Wallace’s panel consisted of Bush-family insider, Karl Rove, Cheney’s daughter, Liz Cheney, and liberal, African American Juan Williams. But even Williams presented a mythical Bush:
WILLIAMS: You know, I—the way I think of it, Chris, is sort of optimism versus pessimism. Morning in America. A kind kinder, gentler America, versus American carnage as a message coming from the leader to the American people. So when I think of President Bush, I think of someone who crossed the aisle.
You know, I was really taken by what Karl just said about his best friend being a Democrat and—while he served those two terms in Congress. And, of course, he followed Reagan’s pronouncement, 11th commandment, speak no evil of another Republican. Versus Donald Trump, who has a polarizing relationship with Democrats, clearly fractured, but also attacks other Republicans who don’t agree or embrace him. And, again, I think also of policy issues, like guns. You know, after Oklahoma City in ‘95, President Bush quit the NRA, quit his lifetime membership. After what happened in Parkland, Florida, you see President Trump not only saying that we should arm teachers, but continue to do business with the NRA.
ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos got it right. The panel’s mostly positive reminiscences of Bush also acknowledged his flaws. Cokie Roberts summed it up nicely when she said, “The truth is that it is more admirable—I always say this about the founding fathers—it’s more admirable to be human than to be a bronze statue. … Because it’s easy for bronze statues to do good things. It’s hard for humans.”
Watch the hagiography below, from the December 2, 2018 Fox News Sunday.
(H/T and thanks to Kevin Koster for his assistance with this post)
I do think it’s appropriate to mark the passing of George HW Bush as a career politician and an apparently loyal family man. Of course, he was the son and heir to an extremely wealthy New England family, so he wasn’t brought up in a hardscrabble life. Of course, he went to serve in WWII, signing up on his 18th birthday as required by his family to establish his credentials for a future life in politics and society. Looking at his record, one can see a clear path and pattern of being set up for career and political success, and Bush dutifully followed each of the steps he was instructed to take.
George HW Bush had an unfortunate political record, including his opposition to the Civil Rights Act and various other Hard Right behaviors. For all of the discussion of his civility, he had plenty of unfortunate moments in public, some of which were downright hateful. His tenure at the CIA is especially troubling. (And even that was part of an obvious grooming for the top slot)
His tenure as Vice President and then as President was truly regrettable, and marked by a series of attempts by him to show that he was manlier than the New England millionaire he really was. As VP, he was part of one of the most corrupt White Houses we have ever seen in our history. As President, his policies resulted in thousands upon thousands of needless deaths, both here at home and abroad. His administration completely bungled the Iraq/Kuwait situation and then lied about it to push a totally unnecessary and vicious war action. His invasion of Panama was a particularly feckless action, resulting in massive death and destruction in that country. He worked to pack our courts with Right Wing idealogues, including both of his Supreme Court appointments. We need to remember that David Souter was put forth as a “stealth candidate” by John Sununu in an attempt to sneak a Far Right jurist onto the highest court. It was only because Sununu was mistaken that we wound up with an independent centrist for two decades. But that wasn’t the intention – they were thinking they could get another Robert Bork onto the court without the fireworks of 1987. When this gambit failed, they went back to the old playbook of just appointing an openly Far Right jurist, even an unqualified one like Thomas. In short, George HW Bush was not the fine man that Right Wingers today are attempting to lionize. He was a career partisan and occasionally a quite vindictive man. His behavior, along with Reagan’s, paved the way for the declension we’ve seen in the now-open hatred and viciousness practiced by the Right Wing in this country. It’s true that his son George W was an even worse President, and that the current Pence White House is ten steps farther down in the sewage. But that doesn’t suddenly make George HW Bush a great President. It just means that the Right Wing has simply become more craven and vicious with time.
Granted, the elder Bush family behaved themselves well in retirement and did the occasional good deed. But this was not the selfless work of a Jimmy Carter, who dedicated himself to good works over the past nearly 40 years. This was simply the correct behavior of an extremely wealthy New England family.
Truman is correct to note that when it comes to the eventual passings of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, we will not be seeing anything like this hagiography, particularly not from Fox News and AM Radio. Given how Rush Limbaugh frantically injected as much bile as he thought he could get away with (such as insults against the Clintons and a vicious statement about President Obama), it’s not hard to foresee how that display will occur. But that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone – people like Limbaugh are, for whatever reason, extremely insecure and angry about themselves. They can’t resist an opportunity to act out.