GHW Bush is an interesting guy, and he has been around. I thought what he did re: the build-up and execution of Desert Storm was brilliant; that was very hard to do, and he did it admirably.
One of his negatives is that he just comes across as cold. He is no doubt a very loving and warm person with his family, but with non-family members he just doesn’t come across well.
I voted for him in 1988 and again in 1992 (though by then he had become a disappointment, but the alternative — Bubba Clinton — to me was unacceptable). He was not a good campaigner in 1988 and he was a terrible campaigner in 1992.
Now, at age 92, I think he is approaching the end. I hope he is comfortable and at peace, and that his family receives God’s comfort, as well.
Interesting note: I read somewhere that he was the youngest or one of the youngest naval aviators in WWII.
God speed, Mr. President.
“September 2, 1944. As he and his two-man crew dove their Avenger bomber through anti-aircraft fire toward a Japanese radio tower on the volcanic island of Chichi Jima, 150 miles north of Iwo Jima, his plane was hit at 8,000 feet and caught fire. He finished his dive, dropped his four 500-pound bombs successfully on target and headed out to sea.
He could have tried to make a water landing, something he had done once already when another Avenger he was flying lost power. That day, he and his crew got out of the plane and into the life raft before the plane sank. But this time, the burning Avenger could blow up before they got to the water. He ordered his radio operator and gunner, neither of whom he could see from the cockpit, to “hit the silk,” an order heard on the radio by crewmen in other U.S. planes. No response. He remembers banking his plane steeply to the right to lessen the slipstream pressure on the rear door and help his crew mates exit. Then, at about 3,000 feet, Bush bailed out and hit his head on the plane’s tail.
He landed in the ocean and freed himself from his chute. Another Avenger dived to signal the location of his life raft, which he swam to and climbed in.
His head was bleeding and he was throwing up from having gulped seawater. He secured his revolver and started hand-paddling furiously away from Chichi Jima, where Japanese gunboats had already headed out to get him. Avengers and the Hellcat fighters that protected them strafed the boats but soon had to return to San Jacinto. Young George, who would later be awarded the Navy’s Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions that day, didn’t feel much like a hero. He feared correctly that his crew mates were dead. In that life raft, he began asking himself the question that still haunts him in his Houston office at age 82: “Did I do all I could to save them?” In the raft, he cried. It seemed like a miracle when more than two hours later the periscope of the submarine USS Finback appeared.
“Welcome aboard, sir,” a sailor said as Bush was hauled on deck while the sub’s photographic officer recorded the scene on his 8mm camera.”
http://www.historynet.com/george-hw-bush
I had the same thoughts about Desert Storm. To get Arab sign off from nations in the region, was something he seemed to do with ease. He’d been around and new people. He was able to do something I don’t think others could have pulled off nearly as well.
I agree with the rest of your thoughts also.
Thank you.