#43 George W. Bush Part 2

<-------(This has got to be the sauciest picture of a president and his staff that I have ever seen!)
Really Cool Stuff about George W. Bush
1. George W. was the first governor of Texas to be elected twice in a row! “He unexpectedly won a political contest against a popular incumbent and became the first Texas governor to be elected to two consecutive terms” (p. xiv).
2. George W., like his father, attended the prestigious Phillips Academy in Andover, MA. “It is the oldest incorporated boarding school in the nation with an endowment larger than many colleges. It was founded in 1778, a place where George Washington sought to enroll his nephews” (p. 24).
3. Many do not know this but George was actually engaged before he met Laura. “The betrothal of George W. Bush to Cathy Lee Wolfman was announced in the Houston Chronicle’s society page. They had planned to marry before their senior year in college, but they postponed the wedding. Time apart led their relationship to cool, and they called off their plans, parting as friends” (p. 29).
4. Being a history major myself, I am pleased to tell you that George W. is as well! “Following his completion of a degree in history at Yale, George W. Bush faced the same issue as any other young man ready to start his life: deciding what to do with it” (p. 33). Although I, alas, did not attend Yale, I admit that I also was faced with such a dilemma after graduation.
5. I think it’s cute when the progeny of our presidents date each other. “George’s friends all knew who his father was and were rightfully impressed when a special government plane landed at their base to shuttle their comrade to Washington DC. George was answering a request to serve as a one-time dinner date for President Nixon’s daughter, Tricia” (p. 36).
6. I’m not sure what this proves about George W. but it’s an interesting statistic. “As governor, Bush oversaw more executions than any governor in modern history. In all, 153 executions were scheduled, and Bush commuted only one” (p. 62).
7. Dick Cheney, Bush’s veep, was a remarkable man in his own right. “Cheney would become one of Bush’s most trusted advisers and the most powerful vice president in U.S. history” (p. 70).
8. Bush’s contested victory in the 2000 election generated a good deal of anger and resentment. “The 36-day postelection battle had left the country weary and many Democrats angry. The Secret Service was so concerned about the safety of the incoming president that, for the first time in US history, the presidential inauguration was declared a ‘National Special Security Event,’ requiring anyone wishing to attend the inauguration to have permission from the government. The event spawned the biggest inaugural protest in Washington, D.C. since the Vietnam War, despite the wet and icy conditions” (p. 79).
9. The war in Iraq was the first preemptive war in American history. “The two speeches together provided Bush’s justification for preemptive war, something the United States have never undertaken” (p. 109).
10. Hurricane Katrina, in general, broke a lot of records. “Unfortunately, Brown took the job just before the most destructive natural disaster in American history” (p. 139). “All told, the Coast Guard rescued and evacuated more than 33,000 people from New Orleans, FEMA Urban Search and Rescue teams saved another 6,500 and the Department of Transportation assembled 1,100 buses to evacuate New Orleans residents to several states and the District of Columbia. The Department of Defense mounted the largest civilian airlift on American soil in US history” (p. 141).
11. The recession that began during Bush’s presidency was the worst in decades. “Just over one year before Bush finished his second term in office in December 2007, the worst recession in 70 years began” (p. 151).
12. George W. almost left office without vetoing a single piece of legislation. “In July 2006, he finally decided to veto his first bill—taking longer than any president since John Quincy Adams to do so” (p. 157).
13. Summary: “Whatever his legacy, Bush will be considered a consequential president. He was at the helm when the United States suffered its worst attack in history. He used controversial extensions of executive authority in attempting to thwart additional attacks, potentially creating a precedent for those who follow him. He initiated two major wars, one of which is now the longest US war in history. He was also at the helm when the worst recession in 70 years hit the nation” (p. 179).


For a juvenile-type book, George W. Bush: A Biography was remarkably informative and well-written. Kudos, Mr. Roundtree. The author didn’t beat around the bush (haha!) either when it came to discussing some of George W.’s more entertaining episodes and his decision-making processes. I really enjoyed this straightforward approach to 43’s presidency; it was a nice, comprehensive account of pretty much everything George W. did up to the present (including a truly interesting and amazingly detailed portrait about the Bush family tree. Even though I was familiar with this story thanks to George H.W., I was still fascinated at the information provided). In fact, after reading Dead Certain, it just confirmed my good opinion of Clark Roundtree and all that he managed to get across in under 200 pages.

So what do I think about George W.? Honestly, I really don’t think he was the worst president of all time but it’s true—he did make some truly heinous decisions as president. The reason that he did so, I feel, can be laid at the door of his personal loyalty to his friends and staff. It appears that loyalty was, in Bush’s world, the highest accolade you could say of someone and once he had admitted you to his inner circle, you were included and defended by him For-EV-ER (picture the kid from The Sandlot saying it). I’m thinking of a good many people who showed loyalty to the president but who were really not worth his loyalty in return, i.e. Michael Brown of FEMA, George Tenet of the CIA, Donald Rumsfeld of the DOD, Paul Bremer of the CPA, etc. But the problem was not the people surrounding Bush but his blind loyalty to them in return. When I read his bios, I got the impression that once Bush liked someone, he simply let them go to the task at hand without much direction or accountability. He was obviously not a micromanager but I really felt like he could have asked more pointed questions to these people he put in charge of important shit. Roundtree comments on this flaw. “But more troubling than blind loyalty was Bush’s failure to ask tough questions and demand unvarnished answers from those who served him” (p. 176-77). In other words, Bush was more of a LBJ rather than a JFK, if you know what I mean. Ha!

In the end, though, I felt like everything Bush was as a person and everything he did throughout his lifetime was a product of his family background. I don’t want to go all psychological on you but it’s hard not to see how his place in his family led to all the good, and bad, things in his life. It’s obvious (to me and to the biographers that I read) that, perhaps without meaning

to, George Sr. and Barbara hurt their eldest son by preferring Jeb over him. Jeb was the smart one, the one who did everything right and since he wasn’t the oldest, he was allowed to go his own way. George W., on the other hand, was the eldest and thus had to follow in his father’s footsteps. What hurt was that George Sr. was so adept at everything. It’s no surprise then that George W. did the exact opposite in a sort of rebellion—he didn’t try too hard at academic stuff, he didn’t do as well at sports, and he couldn’t seem to find his own path in life. In my earlier blog on George W, I asked whether it was a coincidence or not that George W. decided to run for governor at the exact moment that Jeb did. Frankly, I don’t think it was. It was a time for George W. to put his father and mother’s feelings to the test and what it proved was very hurtful. “Following the telephone call, George told his aunt Nancy: ‘It sounds like Dad’s only heard that Jeb lost, not that I’ve won.’ Poppy [George H.W.] told the news media: ‘The joy is in Texas, but our hearts are in Florida’” (p. 56).

Personally, I feel like it was due to this treatment by his parents that George W. worked so hard to be elected president in the first place. If he had been unconditionally loved, like his brother, maybe he would have been secure in just being governor and nothing more. What do you think? Did George W’s insecurity lead to his road to the White House? Did he need to be president to prove to his father he was better, in the long run, than Jeb? I love family drama (just not my own, of course).