George Herbert Walker Bush

The 41st president of the United States and father of 43rd president George W Bush, George Herbert Walker Bush is a case study in the harsh lessons of relativity.

Widely considered during his presidency to be an ineffective failure as a leader, the first President Bush (though not, in fact, George Bush Senior) cannot help but shine in comparison to his complete disaster of a son. Indeed, one of the most stunning accomplishments -- indeed, perhaps the only stunning accomplishment -- of the 43rd president's tenure is that he has made his father's term in office seem spectacularly successful by comparison. Such comparisons are instructive:

- While the first President Bush was widely perceived as wimpy and ineffectual, he at least was a genuine war hero who fought with honor in the Second World War and was shot down by Japanese enemy pilots prior to his 21st birthday -- in marked contrast to his son, who dodged military service in Viet Nam by serving a stint in the Air National Guard, which he did not even bother to complete. Furthermore, Bush 41 was an actual combat veteran who generally spoke softly and reasonably, while his son is a draft-dodging slacker who comes across like he personally defeated the Axis.

- While the first President Bush had an idiosyncratic way of speaking and often made comical gaffes, his son strikes many as being an outright idiot; Bush 41 was simply a nervous, slightly addled speaker who let his mouth get ahead of his brain, whereas his son comes across as a dimwit whose brain isn't even in the race. So incompetent a speaker is Bush 43 that an entire genre of malversation known as the Bushism has sprung up around him. George W. Bush, when he opens his mouth, recalls his father far less than he does his father's running mate, Dan Quayle.

- While the first President Bush started a war against Saddam Hussein that could easily have been prevented and which resulted in terrible consequences for the Kurds, it was at the very least in response to a blatant (if avoidable) act of aggression on the part of Saddam Hussein and did not conclude with a disastrous occupation of a foreign country. The second President Bush's war against Iraq was even more preventable, even less justifiable, even more poorly planned, and had almost no support from the international community. It also proved so horribly ill-conceived that it took almost no time at all to devolve into a quagmire, cost far more human lives (both American and Iraqi), led to an overall increase in terrorism in the Middle East, damaged our global standing nearly beyond repair, and resulted in massive looting and corruption by American corporations and contractors.

- While the first President Bush formed a cabinet of time-servers, political patrons, do-nothings and nonentities, the second President Bush did far worse, stocking his cabinet with blinkered young ideologues, horribly corrupt crony-capitalists, and leftovers from the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. So incompetent and secretive was 43's administration that members of 41's, most notably Brent Skowcroft, became some of its most vocal critics.

- While the first President Bush chose Dan Quayle, a callow moron, as his running mate, the second chose Dick Cheney, who, while intelligent, was remarkably cruel, sinister and vicious, and had a proclivity for shooting people in the face.

- While the first President Bush made political hay out of mocking Michael Dukakis as being weak on defense, the second actually initiated one of the most reprehensible smear campaigns in political history against John Kerry, a thrice-decorated war hero who served in the war George W. Bush actively avoided.

- While the first President Bush chose as its master of dirty tricks the horrible Lee Atwater, who launched the racist and manipulative Willie Horton campaign, the second President Bush handed the reigns over to Atwater's protege, the monstrous Karl Rove, who did far worse. In addition, Bush 41 generally confined his racism to attack ads, smear campaigns and the war on drugs, while 43 expanded it to included the deliberate disenfranchisement of thousands of voters in the Florida election of 2000 and the grinning willingness to fiddle while blacks drowned in New Orleans. George W. Bush has the lowest rating amongst black voters of any president in American history.

- While the first President Bush was an eastern-establishment big shot with innumerable political connections, a rich and powerful family, millions of dollars, an Ivy League education, and a history of benefiting from nepotism, so did the second President Bush, who nonetheless attempted to paint himself as an "outsider".

- While the first President Bush, like most Republicans, seemed to think that the single worst thing that anyone could experience in America would be having to pay taxes, and vowed never to raise them, he at least realized that this was ultimately unworkable and went ahead and raised them anyway (although he memorably called it a "revenue enhancement" rather than a tax). The second President Bush would clearly rather let the entire country die slowly and painfully than ever make his rich friends have to pay one penny more than they already are, and became the first president in American history -- and very likely the first ruler in the history of humanity -- to lower taxes during wartime.

- The first President Bush only served one term, and the time he won, he didn't steal the election.

It has often been said that George W. Bush is his mother's son -- that is, he has far more of the characteristics of his mother Barbara Bush, insofar as he is mean, petty, short-tempered, vengeful and self-righteous -- than he does of his father. He has taken all the bad characteristics of a plutocratic, attention-deprived, uncommunicative, and cronyistic president and added to them false tough-guy swagger, utter corruption, and a formidably impenetrable religiosity. George W. Bush may well be not only the only man who could make his father's presidency seem successful by comparison; he may be the only man who could make you long for a Quayle presidency.

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_h.w._bush (George H. W. Bush biography)

http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/Vietnam/gulf-war-fingrut.html (Gulf War I as a preventable mistake; the Glaspie memo)

http://www.thememoryhole.org/mil/bushsr-iraq.htm (41's reasons for not invading Iraq)

http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/review/article_full_story.asp?service_id=10407 (Scowcroft, other prominent Republicans break ranks against 41)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/bush/ (George W. Bush as mother's son; Air Force Reserves controversy; paints self as political outsider)