The Passing Of Poppy Bush

Former President George H.W. Bush passed away last night at the age of 94.

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.

Last Call For Obama Makes The Grade

Now out of office, Barack Obama can officially be ranked by C-SPAN's tabulation by presidential historians, and the man from Hawaii ends up in the 12 spot, maybe not Mount Rushmore territory, but certainly one of the better chief executives we've had.

Former President Barack Obama was ranked 12th best among 43 former presidents in in C-SPAN’s third-ever survey of dozens of presidential historians.

The network asked 91 presidential historians to rank every former president on 10 leadership attributes. C-SPAN also performed the survey in 2000 and 2009. 

Obama ranked favorably compared to his immediate predecessors: George W. Bush ranked at No. 33 (up from 36 in 2009), George H.W. Bush was No. 20 (down from 18), and Bill Clinton held steady at No. 15. 

Ronald Reagan was judged the ninth best president of all time, up from No. 10 in 2009.
In a press release accompanying the results, historian Richard Norton Smith, an academic adviser for the project, noted that five of the top 10 judged presidents in the American pantheon served between 1933 and 1969. 

“It reinforces Franklin Roosevelt's claim to be not only the first modern president but the man who, in reinventing the office, also established the criteria by which we judge our leaders,” he said.

The full list:

So yeah, for those of you playing at home, Dubya moved up a few notches into "C-plus Augustus" territory, and James "Oops I accidentally The Civil War" Buchanan still sets the nadir for the office. Reagan, still silly overrated, and Big Dog's still hanging at 15. Jimmy Carter is in the middle of the pack at 26, and Poppy Bush rounds out the top 20.

One has to wonder where The Donald will end up on this list.  I'm betting south of Hoover.

Jeb Comes To Jesus

It looks like Bush, Inc. is making some frank decisions about the candidacy of Jeb, and the big guns are coming out to try to save him.

Jeb Bush will attend a finance meeting this weekend in Houston convened by former President George H. W. Bush and attended by Bush's brother, former President George W. Bush, CBS News has learned.

The session, designed to assess where Bush's candidacy stands in the face of large-scale staff cutbacks and underwhelming poll numbers, will also be attended by Bush's mother, Barbara Bush. The governor's campaign confirmed the meeting will be held Sunday and Monday.

CBS News has also learned George W. Bush will headline a fundraiser for Jeb Bush in Georgetown (Washington, DC) on Oct. 29. The fundraising email, which went out earlier this week, was sent by George W. Bush's two former chiefs of staff, Andy Card and Josh Bolten. Jeb Bush will not attend the fund-raiser.

The email, sent to Bush-Cheney alumni, praised Bush's "extraordinary record of accomplishment and conservative innovation" and said that George W. Bush "looks forward to seeing his old friends at this event and to sharing his enthusiasm for Jeb's candidacy." Bolten and Card suggested that for those who can't make the event, there would be "other opportunities around the country," and the email closed, "Your help today will help position Jeb for a successful outcome."

The event underscores the need for the former Florida governor to lean on his brother's fund-raising prowess to aid his struggling campaign.

Don Poppy, Barbara and Dubya are making it clear that playtime is over and the "real adults" are in charge of Jeb's campaign now.  He's blowing it, and the operatives are now taking over the reins. Their first act is getting the rabble back in line and that line is "Jeb will be the nominee and next President" and all the weight of the Bush network is being brought to bear.

We'll see just how much power the Bush crime family has left these days.  It's still considerable, but enough to counter the rage of the Tea Party and the rise of Trump/Carson as clear front-runners?

I don't know about that one.  But I'm still not convinced Jeb's done.  There's still tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars, and that will keep him in the race through at least the early primary states.

After that though, who knows.

Sunday Long Read: Poppy, The Gipper, And Haig

Dallas Morning News journalist Alan Peppard gives us this week's Sunday Long Read as he interviews Poppy Bush about the events of the last day of March, 1981, the day John Hinckley shot President Reagan, and how that turned Reagan's most bitter GOP foe into his best friend.

Accounts of the afternoon tend to be dominated by the sensational storyline of Secretary of State Alexander Haig’s declaration that “I’m in control here.” But Vice President George H.W. Bush’s pitch-perfect reaction to the crisis lies largely unexplored in the shadow of history. He had only recently been Reagan’s energetic opponent, a fact that was fresh in the memories of Reagan loyalists. The steady hand he showed after the assassination attempt would linger in the minds of his admirers as one of the defining moments of his public career.

Now 90, Bush consented to an email interview for this story. His comments, along with hours of tapes from inside the White House Situation Room, never seen photographs taken aboard Air Force Two and interviews with participants in the crisis shed new light on the day Reagan became the fifth sitting president to be shot and the only one who lived.

“I recall thinking about Nancy and the president when I first heard how bad the situation really was,” Bush told The News. “Even though it was still early in the administration, I didn’t think about them as president and first lady, but rather as friends.”

Yeah, I know.  Reagan and Bush went on to cause untold damage to the American middle class over the next eleven years.  But I also remember sending the White House a crayon picture I drew of Space Shuttle Columbia as a get well card for President Reagan when I was six.  And Al Haig tried some crazy, crazy stuff back then.

It's worth a read just from a historical perspective, at least.

Nunn, Your Business

So it seems somebody got a hold of Democrat Michelle Nunn's strategy documents for her Georgia Senate run from back in December, and have waited until now to feed them to National Review.

Advisers for Democratic Senate Candidate Michelle Nunn (GA) warned that she might come off as "too liberal" and "not a real Georgian" and also laid out exactly how Nunn needed to approach key demographic groups to win the Senate race.

The documents, which seemed to be posted in December for a brief period of time, were reported by National Review on Monday. 

One of the memos said that there is a "tremendous financial opportunity" to draw from in the Jewish community among fundraisers. But, the memo warned, "Michelle's position on Israel will largely determine the level of support here." 

The documents also said that Asian Americans would need to be key fundraisers. The Asian American community was described as "very tight" and that people in that community strive "become citizens quickly."

It's very blunt and calculated advice for Nunn, you know, the kind of frank, high-level analysis you'd expect for a political consultant.  National Review is of course screaming bloody murder.  And if you want to know why this waited until now to drop, the answer is pretty simple:

The section on research into Nunn's background shows some initial concerns that her tenure as head of the Points of Light, a nonprofit that encourages volunteerism, could be used against her. Nunn has touted her background there as a positive attribute in the campaign, as also recommended in the document.

The document identifies several areas of concern related to Points of Light including: "grants to problematic entities," "layoffs," and "service awards to inmates, terrorists."

The National Review story reports that according to an IRS document, Points of Light awarded a more than $33,000 grant to Islamic Relief USA, a charity with ties to Islamic Relief Worldwide, which has ties to Hamas.

The Nunn campaign noted to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Points of Light did not give money but rather validated Islamic Relief USA as a legitimate charity.

The "service awards to inmates, terrorists" reference is apparently, according to National Review, to Nunn and an entity under the Points of Light umbrella praising Shareef Cousin, a former death-row inmate whose murder conviction was overturned but who later pleaded guilty to other crimes.

So boom, Michelle Nunn is now a "terrorist sympathizer".  It's complete nonsense, of course, but apparently somebody thinks Nunn is enough of a threat that this turd had to land square in the punchbowl.  You'd better believe the super-PAC ads attacking Nunn over this are on the way.  This all stinks to high heaven, but that's how the GOP rolls.  The story was apparently broken by NRO's Eliana Johnson, daughter of Power Line clown Scott Johnson, so that's everything you need to know about that.

The GOP knows that they need to run to table in order to get control of the Senate, and they'll do whatever they need to do in order to go after Democrats.

Am-Bushed On The Internets

This is simultaneously awesome and horrific.

The apparent hack of several e-mail accounts has exposed personal photos and sensitive correspondence from members of the Bush family, including both former U.S. presidents, The Smoking Gun has learned.

Oh awesome.

Included in the hacked material is a confidential October 2012 list of home addresses, cell phone numbers, and e-mails for dozens of Bush family members, including both former presidents, their siblings, and their children. The posted photos and e-mails contain a watermark with the hacker’s online alias, “Guccifer.”

Correspondence obtained by the hacker indicates that at least six separate e-mail accounts have been compromised, including the AOL account of Dorothy Bush Koch, daughter of George H.W. Bush and sister of George W. Bush. Other breached accounts belong to Willard Heminway, 79, an old friend of the 41st president who lives in Greenwich, Connecticut; CBS sportscaster Jim Nantz, a longtime Bush family friend; former first lady Barbara Bush’s brother; and George H.W. Bush’s sister-in-law.

Both Heminway and Nantz corresponded with Bush, 88, about playing golf and visiting the Bush compound in Kennebunkport, Maine.

The hacked e-mails, sent between 2009 and 2012, include correspondence between Nantz and George W. Bush’s scheduler about an October 2010 golf outing in Dallas. One e-mail includes the street address for Bush, 66, as well as the four-digit code Nantz needed to enter at a security gate. A second e-mail includes details of where Nantz and Bush planned to have dinner after their Saturday golf outing.

One of the hacked Heminway e-mails was sent to him by Brit Hume, the Fox News political analyst, days after the 2012 presidential election. “Election outcome disappointing, but there are many silver linings,” Hume wrote in the November 9 e-mail.

Our liberal media?

Look folks, hacking the email accounts of the Bush family is probably one of the all time worst ideas I can think of.  Poppy Bush was former head of the CIA and well as president, and Dubya, well, he's a vindictive little jackass, so yeah, there will be a head rolling at some point.

But hey, some stronger privacy laws on the internet might be a good idea, yeah?