George Bush, the 41st president of the United States and the father of the 43rd, who steered the nation through a tumultuous period in world affairs but was denied a second term after support for his presidency collapsed under the weight of an economic downturn and his seeming inattention to domestic affairs, died on Friday night at his home in Houston. He was 94.
His death, which was announced by his office, came less than eight months after that of his wife of 73 years, Barbara Bush.
Mr. Bush had a form of Parkinson’s disease that forced him to use a wheelchair or motorized scooter in recent years, and he had been in and out of hospitals during that time as his health declined. In April, a day after attending Mrs. Bush’s funeral, he was treated for an infection that had spread to his blood. In 2013, he was in dire enough shape with bronchitis that former President George W. Bush, his son, solicited ideas for a eulogy.
But he proved resilient each time. In 2013 he told well-wishers, through an aide, to “put the harps back in the closet.”
Mr. Bush, a Republican, was a transitional figure in the White House, where he served from 1989 to 1993, capping a career of more than 40 years in public service. A decorated Navy pilot who was shot down in the Pacific in 1944, he was the last of the World War II generation to occupy the Oval Office.
Mr. Bush was a skilled bureaucratic and diplomatic player who, as president, helped end four decades of Cold War and the threat of nuclear engagement with a nuanced handling of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the liberation of Eastern Europe.
Yet for all his success in the international arena, his presidency faltered as voters seemed to perceive him as detached from their everyday lives. In an election that turned on the economy, they repudiated Mr. Bush in 1992 and chose a relatively little-known Democratic governor from Arkansas, Bill Clinton, a baby boomer, ushering in a generational shift in American leadership.
If Mr. Bush’s term helped close out one era abroad, it opened another. In January 1991 he assembled a global coalition to eject Iraqi invaders from Kuwait, sending hundreds of thousands of troops in a triumphant military campaign that to many Americans helped purge the ghosts of Vietnam.
But the victory also brought years of American preoccupation with Iraq, leading to the decision by George W. Bush in 2003 to topple the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, in a war that taxed American resources and patience.
The elder Mr. Bush entered the White House with one of the most impressive résumés of any president. He had been a two-term congressman from Texas, ambassador to the United Nations, chairman of the Republican National Committee, United States envoy to China, director of the Central Intelligence Agency and vice president, under Ronald Reagan.
And he achieved what no one had since Martin Van Buren in 1836: winning election to the presidency while serving as vice president. (Van Buren did so in the footsteps of Andrew Jackson.)
Now that the "speaking nicely of the recently departed" part is out of the way, let's get back to reality. Poppy Bush's claim to fame is that he's the elected Republican president who arguably did the least amount of damage to America in my lifetime (and arguably the Republican who did the least amount of damage to America in the last 70 years outside of Eisenhower) precisely because he was limited to one term. And he got that one term with his infamous Willie Horton ad in 1988 that ushered in the era of modern race-baiting politics.
Ford's caretaker stint was wholly undone a few days in with his pardon of Nixon, a supremely immoral act that haunts us to this day, Reagan was a racist, hateful monster of a bigot who was essentially Trump without the Russia baggage (and Poppy was his Mike Pence), Dubya was a foreign policy and economic disaster that we've still never recovered from, and Trump, well, is Trump, just two years in and already at the bottom of this list of rogues.
And yet the damage he did to America was substantial. He carried over Reagan's awful and inhuman AIDS policies. His former CIA Director days meant his meddling in America's foreign policy led directly to the Bosnian conflict, the narcotraficante era in Mexico and Central America, the war crimes in Iraq and rise of Al Qaeda and the American militia movement, and he wrecked the economy to boot
It was only that last one that cost him so badly we threw him out for Clinton and Ross Perot. People forget in 1992 he got just 37% of the vote. Even with Perot's performance, that was abysmal. Even McGovern did better at 38% in 1972, and Goldwater got 39% in 1964. Only Alf Landon in 1936 did worse in the last 100 years with his 36%, losing to FDR. Hell, even Hoover got 40% in 1932.
This is the moment he lost to Clinton, Perot or no Perot.
We basically dodged a massive bullet on a second Poppy Bush term, so he was limited in the carnage in his wake. The nicest thing I can say about him is that he didn't veto the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1992, the full extent of my hagiography.
And now he's gone. I shed not a tear.
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