Bush 41 is getting pretty old to be publishing a book without offending people I think. He's 91. But, everyone knows he means well.
First President George Bush Swings at Son's Aides, Rattling Clan
| New York Times | - |
WASHINGTON
- Former President George Bush's unusually sharp indictment of his
son's presidential advisers touched off a round of recriminations on
Thursday that exposed rifts within America's leading political dynasty
and complicated its efforts to ...
First President George Bush Swings at Son’s Aides, Rattling Clan
WASHINGTON
— Former President George Bush’s unusually sharp indictment of his
son’s presidential advisers touched off a round of recriminations on
Thursday that exposed rifts within America’s leading political dynasty
and complicated its efforts to recapture the White House.
Mr. Bush’s assertion in a new biography that Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld undercut George W. Bush’s
presidency rattled the extended Bush political world, and forced the
second Bush son now seeking the presidency, Jeb, to straddle an awkward
line between family and politics.
At
91 and in the twilight of a long and storied public life, the first
President Bush evidently felt free to express views he had long
suppressed in the interest of family harmony. Mr. Cheney, he said, was
“very hard-line” and too eager to “use force to get our way”; Mr.
Rumsfeld was an “arrogant fellow” full of “swagger.” He used the same
phrase, “iron-ass,” to describe both men.
The comments, included in Jon Meacham’s “Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush,” to be published by Random House
next week, drew a biting retort from Mr. Rumsfeld on Thursday. “Bush 41
is getting up in years and misjudges Bush 43, who I found made his own
decisions,” Mr. Rumsfeld said in a statement.
The
father’s comments also prompted the son to come to his advisers’
defense. “I am proud to have served with Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld,”
said George W. Bush. “Dick Cheney did a superb job as vice president and
I was fortunate to have him by my side throughout my presidency. Don
Rumsfeld ably led the Pentagon and was an effective secretary of
defense.”
But
no one was put in a more uncomfortable position than Jeb Bush, who has
labored to define his own identity separate from his famous father and
brother while mounting his own campaign for the White House this year.
Once again he was compelled on Thursday to talk about his family rather
than his own plans for the country. On the campaign trail, he suggested
his father was trying to find a way to take the heat off George W. Bush
by faulting advisers for troubles in his administration.
“My
brother is a big boy,” Jeb Bush told NBC News. “His administration was
shaped by his thinking, his reaction to the attack on 9/11. I think my
dad, like a lot of people that love George, want to try to create a
different narrative, perhaps, just because that’s natural to do.”
Jeb
Bush said that Mr. Cheney “served my brother well as vice president and
he served my dad extraordinarily well as secretary of defense.” He
added, “We have to get beyond, I think, this feeling that somehow 1991
is the same as 2001.”
The
seemingly divergent messages from different corners of the Bush family
represented the latest chapter in a long-running and at times operatic
drama. For years, the relationship between the two Bush presidents has
captivated the nation, generating endless speculation, articles, books,
television reports and even a big-screen movie — “W.” — that starred
Josh Brolin and was directed by Oliver Stone.
Caught
in the middle now is the next son, who is trying to accomplish what no
family has done in American history with a third Bush administration.
Those
who have worked for either of the two presidents strongly testify to
their deep love and scoff at what they call overwrought Oedipal theories
of rivalry and resentment. Just last year, George W. Bush published his
own biography of his father, venerating him in loving terms. The elder
George Bush has often bristled at criticism of his son. Both men hate
being “put on the couch,” to use a phrase each one employs.
Yet
few who know them well would assert that they see the world exactly the
same way. The younger, brasher and more conservative George W. Bush has
made clear that he shaped some of his policies in the White House based
on the lessons of what he saw as his father’s mistakes. Friends of the
older, more genteel and moderate President Bush have often said he was
deeply uncomfortable with the more hawkish elements of his son’s
administration.
In
the new book, the first President Bush expresses his love and support
for his son and sticks by his decisions to go to war in Iraq and remove
Saddam Hussein from power. But he gently chides his son for “hot
rhetoric” like his “axis of evil” speech, and says that the real
responsibility for the way Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld operated belonged
to the president. “The buck stops there,” he said.
What
was so surprising about the comments was not their sentiment, but
rather that the older Mr. Bush would express them in public. When Mr.
Meacham went back to show him a transcript of his remarks and ask if he
wanted to clarify, the ex-president took none of it back. “That’s what I
said,” he told Mr. Meacham.
The
remarks reflect a long history with both Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld.
The elder Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld were rivals going back to the 1970s,
and although Mr. Cheney served as his defense secretary, Mr. Bush told
Mr. Meacham that Mr. Cheney had changed as vice president.
Speaking with Fox News on Thursday, Mr. Cheney took the comments in stride, saying he viewed “iron-ass” as a compliment.
“I
took it as a mark of pride,” he said. Given the devastating losses on
Sept. 11, 2001, he said many would agree that “I was aggressive in
defending, in carrying out what I thought were the right policies.”
Having
never written a true memoir of his own, Mr. Bush effectively decided to
use Mr. Meacham’s book as a last chance to make his case for history.
The
elder Mr. Bush opened up to Mr. Meacham in a series of interviews from
2006 to 2015 in which he spoke more candidly than many politicians
would. He described his youth and how he “lusted” after young girls when
he himself was young, including a couple who “had nice racks.” He also
mused about his friend Bill Clinton’s marriage. “I don’t feel close to
Hillary at all,” Mr. Bush said, “but I do to Bill and I can’t read their
relationship even today.”
Like
so many former presidents, he measured himself against the 42 other men
who have held his office. “I feel like an asterisk,” he told Mr.
Meacham wistfully one day at the family’s cliffside house in
Kennebunkport, Me.
“I
am lost between the glory of Reagan — monuments everywhere, trumpets,
the great hero — and the trials and tribulations of my sons,” Mr. Bush
reflected on another day in Houston, where he also has a home.
On
still another occasion, he fretted about the judgment of historians.
“What if they just find an empty deck of cards?” he asked.
Diaries
that Mr. Bush gave to Mr. Meacham opened a contemporaneous window into
his time in office. Even in private, Mr. Bush seemed determined through
the first war with Iraq in 1991, but afterward fell into an emotional
despondency, a “letdown,” once he was no longer at the center of a
profound mission. He considered not running for a second term.
“I’m
not in a good frame of mind now,” he dictated into his diary shortly
after American troops vanquished Iraqi forces and expelled them from
Kuwait. “My whole point is, I really don’t care and that’s bad — that’s
bad. But I’ll get in there and try.”
For
a president who lost re-election in 1992 after being perceived as out
of touch, Mr. Bush sensed his political doom even when he was at the
peak of his postwar popularity.
“The common wisdom today is that I’ll win in a runaway, but I don’t believe that,” he dictated in March 1991 as he returned on Air Force One
from a rally with troops. “I think it’s going to be the economy” that
“will make that determination. I think I can talk proudly about what
happened in Desert Storm, but I think it will be overshadowed in the
fall of ’92 by other issues.”
On that, at least, he proved prescient.
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