Story highlights
- Bush is returning to the national stage in the role of an elder statesman
- Return comes as Trump's new administration is rocking Washington
(CNN)Ex-presidents
tend to recede from public view, particularly when they leave office --
as George W. Bush did -- with a Gallup approval rating hovering around
30%.
But Bush is returning to
the national stage this week in the role of an elder statesman. He's
promoting his new book "Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief's
Tribute to America's Warriors" in television appearances and before a
sold-out crowd Wednesday evening at the Ronald Reagan Presidential
Library in Simi Valley, California.
His
return to the political scene comes as President Donald Trump's new
administration is rocking Washington with upheaval and instability. It
underscores the contrast in tone between the two most recent Republican
presidents and serves as a reminder of how the expectations surrounding
presidential rhetoric and tone have changed over the years.
Bush
"was a president who after 9/11 talked about Islam as a religion of
peace," said Steve Schmidt, a Republican strategist and former Bush
aide. "He talked about the act of illegal immigration -- people who took
great risk coming across the desert -- as an act of love for their
families."
"All
presidents have been in difficult times and divisive fights, but there
was a normalcy of behavior expected of the American head of state
rhetorically," Schmidt said.
He
cited the recent example of Trump blaming generals for the loss of
Senior Chief Petty Officer William "Ryan" Owens during a covert mission
in Yemen. ("They lost Ryan," Trump said in an interview with Fox News
that aired Tuesday).
"That's not
how George W. Bush, or Barack Obama, or Bill Clinton, or George Herbert
Walker Bush, or Ronald Reagan talked about the military," Schmidt said.
"He was a president who served in turbulent times and was controversial,
but as is always the case -- when a president has distance from their
presidency, voters look at them and are much more likely to see their
virtues than their flaws."
Trump
tempered his tone -- at least temporarily -- with a strong performance
at Tuesday's joint address to Congress. The emotional high point of his
speech came when he spoke directly to Owens' wife, Carryn, who watched
the speech from the first lady's box.
He
also spoke in more measured terms about race and the need for the
country to unify even as he maintained hardline positions on issues such
as building a wall along the US border with Mexico and repealing and
replacing Obamacare.
On the news
interview circuit this week, Bush has been peppered with questions about
Trump's controversial actions on immigration and his targeted travel
ban (which was halted by the federal courts).
Bush,
whose brother Jeb was hazed by Trump during the Republican primaries,
never warmed to Trump in the general election. In interviews this week,
he has been careful to avoid personal criticism Trump, but made his
displeasure clear about both the political climate and some of the
President's policies.
"I don't like the racism, and I don't like the name-calling, and I don't like the people feeling alienated," Bush told People Magazine. "Nobody likes that."
Bush took issue with Trump's characterization of the press as the enemy.
"I
considered the media to be indispensible to democracy, that we need an
independent media to hold people like me to account," Bush said on NBC's "Today"
earlier this week. "Power can be very addictive, and it can be
corrosive, and it's important for the media to call to account people
who abuse their power, whether it be here or elsewhere."
During
an interview with "Sunday Today" host Willie Geist, Bush also seemed to
make the case for the so-called "Dreamers," who were brought to America
as young children, to stay in this country.
"I
think somebody who has vested time and effort and can make a
contribution to our country will be a really good citizen," the former
President told Geist. "See in Texas, we grew up with a lot of people of
Hispanic heritage and we're used to the contributions they have made to
our state and to our country."
At the same time, he acknowledged the political difficulty in finding compromise on changes to the immigration system.
"I
tried to reform it and one of my big regrets was that I couldn't get
Congress to respond," he said. "And I think the plan I laid out
ultimately would be the plan that would be accepted."
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