Posted on 11/03/2003 11:09:54 AM PST by Lance Romance
A new book by former first lady Barbara Bush proves there is. It's a busy life, with a dazzling aura and filled with places to go and things to do, without the pressures of public life.
Before the start of President George H. W. Bush's 1992 reelection campaign, I interviewed Barbara Bush and found her ambivalent about whether she wanted a second term as first lady. Even so, she hit the campaign trail to try to help her husband in his losing race against Bill Clinton.
Afterward, Barbara Bush didn't seem to share the bitterness I've seen in other women whose husbands had gone down to political defeat.
And when it came time for her son, George W. Bush, to make the big leap from governor of Texas to president of the United States in 2000, she went all out to rally the voters in his behalf.
She now occupies a rare place in history along with Abigail Adams as a woman who was both wife and mother to a president.
She begins her memoir, "Barbara Bush Reflections," on her son's inauguration day, Jan. 20, 2001, and had hoped to end it on that same joyful note. But the 9-11 terrorist attacks gave her the impetus for another chapter dealing with that transforming event.
She recalled asking her son at that time what she could do to help. He said: "Mom, if you really want to help, go out and BUY! BUY! Buy!"
The book is chatty, candid, and filled with charming and humorous anecdotes based on diaries she has kept over the years. Her renowned feistiness comes through.
Her book reveals her unconditional devotion to her husband and offers other insights. Her sons tease her about her bad cooking. She is a golfer. She has had two post-White House hip operations. She is very respectful of other former first ladies.
She admitted frustration during her son's presidential election campaign in dealing with the media "feeding frenzy" over the "C" word. She found out that "C" meant cocaine and was shocked that reporters were checking out rumors that her son had used the drug in the past.
"My gut feeling is that he should not answer the question," she said. "Not because he has or has not used drugs, but because what he did 25 years ago is not relevant now."
Mrs. Bush did express some sympathy for her son's opponent in the presidential race, Vice President Al Gore, when he arrived for the Bush inaugural with a "broad smile on his face" but had to sit one seat over from the Supreme Court justices.
"I'm sure Al Gore has no love for them after their vote to stop the recount" in Florida assured his defeat. "I'm sure he (Gore) thinks he (Gore) won the race, and although I don't, I do feel sorry for him," she wrote. "Have bags, will travel" seemed to sum up her life since the Bushes left Washington to return to Houston, where they reside.
The former president was invited back to the White House several times for ceremonial events during the Clinton era.
At the White House signing of a peace agreement between the Palestinians and Israelis in 1993, she recounts that Bush met Yasser Arafat and found the Palestinian leader to be "charming."
"Amazing," she wrote. "Whoever thought that we'd recognize him -- a sworn terrorist?. ..One man's terrorist is another man's hero."
Her book describes a question-and-answer session when her husband was asked why he had not gone on to Baghdad after the U.S.-led coalition liberated Kuwait in the first Gulf war.
He responded that once Kuwait was freed, the U.S. mission was complete, she notes. He explained that if he had ordered the troops to continue northward to Baghdad, the United States would have lost support in the Arab world and among other allies. The coalition would have fallen apart.
Furthermore, he said: "Had we gone into Iraq, many civilians would have been killed, and we probably would not have found Saddam..."
"We would have lost many young men and women," he said. "And whose son and daughter should he have sent?"
She said her husband ended the discussion by saying: "To kill for the sake of killing is just not our way." It's too bad the former president did not impart that bit of wisdom to his son before "W" decided to embark on another war with Iraq for reasons that have turned to mush.
(Helen Thomas can be reached at the e-mail address hthomas@hearstdc.com).
It's too bad the former president did not impart that bit of wisdom to his son before "W" decided to embark on another war with Iraq for reasons that have turned to mush.
It was almost a pleasant article, even with Helen shamelessly raising the Cocaine rumor. It's too bad "W", as she like to call him, didn't strap her wrinkled octagenarian ass to the first Bunker Buster to hit Baghdad.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.