Posted on 03/01/2010 5:45:42 AM PST by rightwingintelligentsia
The late Alexander Haig blamed George H.W. Bush for the world's dim view of the United States' after the collapse of the Soviet Union, saying the former president misread events and in the world, refused to get rid of Iraq's Saddam Hussein and squandered America's dominance.
The late Alexander Haig blamed George H.W. Bush for the world's dim view of the United States' after the collapse of the Soviet Union, saying the former president misread world events, refused to get rid of Iraq's Saddam Hussein and squandered America's dominance.
In never-before-published excerpts from a July 2000 interview with Fox News' James Rosen, Haig, who as Ronald Reagan's secretary of state famously declared he was in charge after the president was shot, said the former President Bush didn't see the mayhem emerging from the end of the Cold War and undermined the coalition by not removing Hussein at the end of the 1991 Gulf War.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Hey, you caught that, too. ;-)
Political reality is what prevented him.
1. The same RINO power interests that compelled him to select Bush were still there in 1984 and Reagan still needed their co-operation. Plus, Reagan WAS the President and Bush only the VP. VP's are constrained to publicly support their President, and Presidents have the final word. Bush could do much less mischief as VP than he could have as a disgruntled vocal critic from outside. Finally, as I noted in my prior post, Reagan possessed sufficient political skill and charisma to work around most of their efforts to contain him. In short, he "handled" them better than they handled him.
2. Bush was a popular Vice-President who was viewed very favorably by the American public. The good will of the public towards Reagan extended by default to his Vice-President. The general public was not at all aware of the internal power issues we're discussing here. Bush never did anything publicly which Reagan could have used as a justification to replace him without opening up an even worse can of worms.
3. George and Barbara Bush are, individually and personally, nice people. The Reagans developed a good degree of genuine friendship with them, which also enabled Reagan to deal effectively with whatever efforts Bush may have made to deflect his agenda.
Bottom line is that, in a popular administration in which the President and Vice-President are both widely respected, dumping that Vice-President, absent some egregious malfeasance on his part, would be political suicide.
Remember, too, they were going to offer it to Ford as a seeming co-Presidency (for which I’m glad it didn’t end up with him. Because while Ford was a nice man, he was also a liberal RINO).
McCain gave us Obama.
Yep. Haig hated his guts, and with good reason. Baker is and has always been an Arab stooge, and pushed both Reagan and H.W. in their direction when it suited him.
My apology - you're right. I incorrectly included him. It wasn't Rockefeller himself, who had already died. It was, however, Rockefeller's political allies, what is generally known as the Rockefeller wing of the Republican Party who applied the pressure. That did happen.
Yep, I got that part wrong. Mea "culprit"...
Powell was the person who argued against finishing off Saddam to George H.W. Bush.
And then, in the second Gulf War, it was Powell as Secretary of State who lost access to Turkey as the staging point for the northern front into Iraq, causing the USA to spend another week moving material to the south. The left wide open the entire north and west part of Iraq for Hussein to spirit out his WMD's, and for his army to melt back into the populationm.
If Powell has secured Turkey's cooperation, I believe that we would have found Saddam's WMD's, the army would have been destroyed, and 7 years of "Bush Lied" would never have happened.
-PJ
Lots of blame to go around, I agree.
To have right ideas does not, alone and by itself, always make one right for the job - either the job we chose or the job we are given.
It is almost of equal or greater importance to find our true calling in life; and our “temperament” may have a role in that. We can still have great and good ideas about many other things.
1. The same RINO power interests that compelled him to select Bush were still there in 1984 and Reagan still needed their co-operation. Plus, Reagan WAS the President and Bush only the VP. VP's are constrained to publicly support their President, and Presidents have the final word. Bush could do much less mischief as VP than he could have as a disgruntled vocal critic from outside. Finally, as I noted in my prior post, Reagan possessed sufficient political skill and charisma to work around most of their efforts to contain him. In short, he "handled" them better than they handled him.
2. Bush was a popular Vice-President who was viewed very favorably by the American public. The good will of the public towards Reagan extended by default to his Vice-President. The general public was not at all aware of the internal power issues we're discussing here. Bush never did anything publicly which Reagan could have used as a justification to replace him without opening up an even worse can of worms.
3. George and Barbara Bush are, individually and personally, nice people. The Reagans developed a good degree of genuine friendship with them, which also enabled Reagan to deal effectively with whatever efforts Bush may have made to deflect his agenda.
Bottom line is that, in a popular administration in which the President and Vice-President are both widely respected, dumping that Vice-President, absent some egregious malfeasance on his part, would be political suicide.
I wholeheartedly agree with your third point and admit that it would have made his decision very painful. However, I disagree with your conclusion. Reagan could have added Charles Manson to the ticket and still have prevailed over Mondale/Ferraro....
Ford as VP in 1980 would’ve likely meant no Bush presidents FWIW. VP has little effect but the question is: would Ford have run for POTUS in 1988 (he would’ve been about 75)? Maybe, but impossible to say.
There would’ve been enormous pressure by Conservatives to dump Ford in 1984 for the simple fact that there would’ve been no clear heir apparent to Reagan. No way in hell Ford would’ve been seen as acceptable by 1988, not at 75 for starters (plus, I believe he also would not have been able to run again in ‘92). It would’ve been interesting had Reagan beaten Ford in ‘76 with his liberal running mate, Sen. Schweiker. Ironically, supposedly Schweiker moved rightward thanks to his affiliation with Reagan (so much so that it’s unfortunate he chose to retire in ‘80 and have Specter as his successor. I’d have rather kept Schweiker, since at least he was loyal).
I don’t know about the plausibility of dumping a former President from the ticket. There would certainly be political ramifications. You would have to assume he would be there all eight years. The question is - knowing what we know now - Bush or Ford from the beginning?
Dumping the VP is not without precedence in the modern era. Ford did it with Rockefeller in 1976, bowing to the realities that he needed to appeal to Conservatives, and put Bob Dole on the ticket (folks on here forget Dole was considered a Conservative hero in those days, especially after his spectacular save in his 1974 reelection, for which, like his wife later would, nearly lost after a single term).
And FDR dumped Wallace like used Christmas tree. Which is unfortunate. Unless he kneeled before Zod (surrendered to the Soviet Union) he would have been out on his butt in 1948.
And if it had been McArthur/Bricker against FDR/Wallace maybe we would have won in 44. Especially if Mac hinted around that FDR was sickly.
As for Haig maybe he would have made a good VP. That way he really would have been “in charge”.
I don’t know if that was FDR himself or the party bosses that were very concerned about the liability Wallace posed, but FDR was in bad shape by ‘44. As it was, there were only 2 people seriously considered, Justice William Douglas and Truman. Truman was the more “moderate” pick, as Douglas was quite liberal (although not as execrable as Wallace).
I can’t have imagine a MacArthur/Bricker ticket in ‘44 for one good reason, MacArthur would never have left his military posting in the middle of war, period. It’s unfortunate for us that we didn’t have a stronger President present for the Yalta Conference, instead of a terminally ill FDR who had no business being there and was no match for Stalin.
Gen. Haig was an interesting character (did you know he worked for Gen. MacArthur in Korea ?), but not much of a politician, he came and went pretty quickly in the ‘88 Presidential primaries (and endorsed Dole — would Dole have picked Haig for VP had he won the nomination ?). Haig was the one supposedly credited with getting the “wimp” label attached to GHW Bush, which he never quite shook. Of course, Haig was likely the de facto President during the Summer of ‘74, anyway.
I love reading comments about Henry A Wallace. His politics aside, I also found him interesting.
The guy was a scientific and economic genius. He taught farmers how to work smarter instead of harder. He invented hybrid corn, a product that needs no explanation. He had a thirst for knowledge that was incredible.
He grew up a midwestern Republican and remained one for much of his life but as the years went on, he drifted away and started dabbling in far eastern mysticism.
For a man of his genius, he was very politically naive and I think that partially led to him being ousted as VP in 1944. FDR played him like a flute and led him to believe that he was gonna be on the ticket in ‘44.
He was most certainly used by Communists when he ran for President in 1948. They were active in his campaign and when questioned about it, he expressed a nonchalance about it that raised eyebrows. Instead of rejecting their involvement, he said that he invited everyone on his campaign.
If there was ever a Democrat who was responsible for the “Blame America First” mentality that permeated the Democrat Party, it certainly was Henry A Wallace. He blamed the US for provoking Russia into a Cold War.
In his later years, he endorsed several Republicans for President and not long before he died, admitted that he was duped by the Russians and pro-Russian supporters in the US. Before he died, he literally allowed himself to be turned into a human guinea pig so researchers could study the Lou Gehrig’s disease he was afflicted with.
If you ever want to read a good book about him, try “American Dreamer” by John Culver. You can find it at the library.
Thanks for the comments. I knew most of that about Wallace, including that he had supposedly returned to his ancestral party.
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