Friday, November 6, 2015

Thank You, Poppy

As if Jeb Bush wasn’t already struggling to bail out the Titanic that is his run for the presidency with a teaspoon, along comes a biography of his father, George H.W. Bush, wherein the former president calls out Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld for being terrible influences on his other son’s administration.

At 91 and in the twilight of a long and storied public life, the first President Bush evidently felt free to express views he had long suppressed in the interest of family harmony. Mr. Cheney, he said, was “very hard-line” and too eager to “use force to get our way”; Mr. Rumsfeld was an “arrogant fellow” full of “swagger.” He used the same phrase, “iron-ass,” to describe both men.

The comments, included in Jon Meacham’s “Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush,” to be published by Random House next week, drew a biting retort from Mr. Rumsfeld on Thursday. “Bush 41 is getting up in years and misjudges Bush 43, who I found made his own decisions,” Mr. Rumsfeld said in a statement.

Really classy there, Rummy, to basically call the senior Bush a doddering old fool.  You’re the reason we should keep Gitmo open; so we can send you there.

The father’s comments also prompted the son to come to his advisers’ defense. “I am proud to have served with Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld,” said George W. Bush. “Dick Cheney did a superb job as vice president and I was fortunate to have him by my side throughout my presidency. Don Rumsfeld ably led the Pentagon and was an effective secretary of defense.”

Family dynamics don’t really work well with public policy and governing — just read Oedipus Rex, King Lear or Henry IV — so it will be interesting to see how the next son stepping up views not only his father’s and brother’s time in office but how he would lead and whom he would choose to advise him.

At the very least it should lead to a really interesting conversation around the Thanksgiving table at the Bush home.

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