Thread by @MatthewWolfff

George Herbert Walker Bush was a great man. He devoted his life to public service, starting when he enlisted to fight WWII at the age of 17, culminating as POTUS.

He was also a flawed man who sometimes compromised his better angels for political gain.

He was human.

A thread.

Bush was born into privilege, the son of a prominent banker and US Senator. Despite this, he delayed his college education and enlisted in the US Navy after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, at the age of 17.

Bush became one of the youngest commissioned aviators in the Navy.

During an attack on Japanese installations on Chichijima, Bush’s bomber was hit by flack and his engine set ablaze. Bush managed to fly several miles from the island before bailing out. He spent hours on an inflatable raft before being rescued by the submarine USS Finback.

For the next month, Bush participated in the rescue of several downed airman by the submarine. Many downed airmen were executed and eaten by their captors.

Bush flew 58 combat missions, received the Distinguished Flying Cross, 3 Air Medals, and the Presidential Unit Citation.

Bush was the last moderate Republican to serve as President. As a Congressman, he voted for the 1968 Fair Housing bill, incurring his constituents wrath. He worked with Democrats on clean air legislation, and in 1990, as Pres, signed the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Bush was awash in contradictions. The same man who voted for fair housing in 1968 railed against the 1964 Civil Rights Act in his Senate campaign of that year. He vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1990, heeding alarmist warnings of “racial quotas.”

Bush signed a cut down version with the Civil Rights Act of 1991, providing an employee right to a trial by jury over discrimination claims, but limited the amount a jury could award.

He also replace the civil rights and jurisprudence icon Thurgood Marshall with Clarence Thomas.

In 1976, a Chilean dissident and 2 bystanders were killed by a car bomb in DC. The Bush CIA planted false articles clearing the Chilean military, but the mastermind was the Chilean Intel chief, a payed CIA asset.

Under Bush’s head, the CIA supported state sponsored terrorism.

Conservatives of Bush’s generation fell victim to fear of the far left, a fear which lead them to make terrible decisions and sponsor murderous dictators.

A related fear caused Bush to continue to sacrifice a generation of gay men to court extremest evangelical voters.

As the Aids plague was killing a generation of gay men, Bush promised a “kinder gentler” Presidency than his predecessor. Instead, he stocked his cabinet with homophobes, dragged his feet on drug treatment, and refused to address prevention.

By signing the Americans with Disabilities Act, Bush had provided protection from discrimination for people with HIV. He also signed the Ryan White Care Act, which provided fed funding for people with Aids with little resources.

In the end, it was too little too late. 100,000 people had died of aids by the end of his Presidency, with 150,000 further reported with HIV. It’s hard to quantify how many lives could have been saved with funding for safe sex education and condom distribution.

In other ways, Bush saved the US from catastrophe. Reagan had entered his Presidency thinking the US could win a nuclear war. Bush ignored the hawkish element of his base that called for increased aggression as the Soviet Union declined, instead signing the START treaty.

During the First Gulf War, Bush avoided mistakes his son would make. Driving Sadam Hussein from Kuwait, he opted for containment instead of the quagmire of chaotic regime change without a plan the US would pursue in the following decade, knowing it cemented his rep as a “wimp.”

The Bush of the 1980 primary was a pro-choice Republican who denounced the supply side psuedo-economics invading his party as “voodoo economics.” Later that year, he had reversed those positions to serve as Reagan’s VP.
What’s a politician to do?

It can’t be denied that Bush was a kind man. Most of the praise of him from the right has focused on this, from people who would likely have denounced him as a “wimp” for that same kindness.
His basic decency, while not universal, is something we are starved for in this age.

Bush’s ultimate selfless decision, the one that cemented his defeat in reelection, was to break his promise not to raise taxes. He knew a mounting recession combined with the draconian benefit cuts needed to sustain Reagan’s tax cuts would spell misery for many Americans.

Some have criticized Bush for aiding the rise of a GOP that has abandoned it’s principles to win at any cost. It’s an argument with some merit, but I think the real fault lays with us, the American citizens. Politicians do what they must to get elected, we determine those musts.

Americans have abandoned any pretense of responsibility for a basic understanding of civics, and shun nuance in political discourse. Instead, we crave mudslinging and fights better suited for reality television. Even Dems can be conned with fight rhetoric in lieu of substance.

I don’t mean to imply that the issues we face aren’t worthy of a fight, but America is in desperate need for leaders willing to sacrifice their self gain to make decisions vital for our country. We must learn to reward substance above mudslinging, a nobler class of leader.

For all his flaws, Bush sacrificed reelection by making an unpopular decision, but one that was best for the nation. He put America’s needs ahead of his own.

Perhaps that is his greatest epitaph.

I invite you to take me to task if you disagree with me. Twitter being what it is, it’s impossible to cover all aspects of Pres Bush’s life, good or bad.

His life is now a matter for historical debate, a reasonable discussion of his virtues and failures is important.