Bush 43 on Bush 41
In all our history, we've had just two sets of father-and-son Presidents . . . John and John Quincy Adams; and George H. W. and George W. Bush. The younger George Bush (President # 43) has quite a bit to say about his father (#41), and in an interview at his Presidential Library in Texas, George W. Bush has much to tell our chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer:
Schieffer asked, "Do you think you would've been president had it not been for him?"
"Well, I wouldn't have been born had it not been for him!" President George W. Bush laughed. "He introduced me to politics. I mean, had he gone into politics and turned out to be a lousy father or a lousy husband, I probably wouldn't have been interested."
And so they stand, side-by-side in bronze. Two presidents, father and son, whose presidencies were intertwined unlike any others.
A father whose public image was often at-odds with what his son says is his true nature -- like a parachute jump on his 90th birthday earlier this year. It's the scene that launches a new biography our 43rd president has written about the 41st.
"So what does the son say to an elderly parent who keeps jumping out of airplanes?" Schieffer asked.
"Keep jumpin', man!" replied Mr. Bush. "It's as Mother said: 'I'm glad your father's jumping out at the church we go to up in Maine, because if it doesn't work, we won't have to go very far for the funeral.'"
Schieffer asked, "He was dogged by critics who said in one way or another he was weak. The word 'prudent' was always associated with him. Newsweek magazine did a cover in the '88 campaign saying he had to confront the wimp factor."
"I was furious," said Mr. Bush. "I mean, George Bush is a man of enormous courage. He's just not really good about beatin' his chest. But his life is one that is, if you analyze it properly, it's full of courageous decisions."
George Herbert Walker Bush was born to wealth and power. But when World War II came, he defied his family and enlisted on his 18th birthday.
A carrier pilot, he flew 58 missions, and was shot down over the Pacific.
He married his sweetheart, Barbara Pierce, and after the war, Bush seemed destined for Wall Street.
Instead, he chose the road less-traveled, packing his family off to the rough-and-rowdy oil town of Odessa, Texas.
"The oil boom in '48, you know, made housing pretty difficult to find," recalled Mr. Bush. "He goes down there and finds a duplex for Mother and me and himself [that] had an indoor plumbing, one of the few indoor bathrooms in Odessa. And we shared the bathroom with two hookers.
"Yeah," he laughed. "I delight in the imagery of East Coast comfort to, you know, two ladies of the night sharin' a bathroom with George and Barbara and little George W. He wasn't looking for comfort. He was looking for challenge, and found it."
The GOP pegged him as a rising star, which lead to appointments as U.N. Ambassador; Chairman of the Republican Party; U.S. Envoy to China; and Director of the CIA.
In 1980, moderates in his party urged Bush to run for president, and he came charging out of the gate.
From "Face the Nation," Jan. 22, 1980:
Bush: "What we will have, you see, is momentum. We will have forward, Big Mo being on our side, as they say in athletics."
Schieffer: "'Big Mo'?"
Bush: "Yeah. Mo momentum!"
But "Big Mo" got rolled by the Reagan revolution. Bush accepted a job he never wanted -- eight years as Reagan's vice president. It was a calculated gamble, and in 1988 it paid-off.
His eldest son had followed him into the oil business, and into politics as well.
At the Republican National Convention in 1988, George W. Bush said,
"Texas casts all its votes for her favorite son and the best father in America, George Bush."
Bush won the presidency by promising to "stay the course," and with a pledge ("Read my lips") against new taxes.
He took office at an historic moment: Within a year, the Berlin Wall came down. Soon after, the Soviet Union collapsed.
"One of the unique strengths of George Bush is that he had the capacity to put himself in the other fella's shoes," said Mr. Bush. "He thought a lot about, you know, what he could do to embolden (as opposed to weaken) Mikhail Gorbachev, because he felt Gorbachev was headed in the right direction in term of, not only the break-up of the Soviet Union, but as well as the liberation of Eastern Europe."
In 1990, came another call for liberation, when Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.
Bush assembled a coalition, led by U.S. troops, that quickly won back Kuwait but left Saddam Hussein still in power in Iraq.
For Bush, victory was short-lived: Saddled with a flagging U.S. economy, he broke a campaign promise and raised taxes. It cost him support in his own party -- and, eventually, the presidency.
"After the Gulf War," said Schieffer, "his favorable rating went to 89 percent. But then, he was defeated in the election."
"Plunged from 89, to 39 on the poll that really mattered," said Bush.
At age 68, George H. W. Bush went back to Texas.
But the Bush saga was not over.
The morning of January 20, 2001, when George Walker Bush took the oath of office, suggested redemption. But history would once again overtake a Bush presidency.
On September 11, 2001, President Bush spoke to the nation:
"Today, we've had a national tragedy. Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country."
After striking at the Taliban in Afghanistan, George W. Bush turned to an old enemy, opening a new front in the war on terror: Iraq.
Schieffer said, "You write in the book, when you decided to send troops into Iraq, it was not to finish what your dad had started."
"Yeah. There are very few defensive moments of the book, and that happens to be one, because a lotta people were conjecturing -- clearly he had only one thing in mind, and that was to finish the job his father didn't."
"Did you ask your dad for advice on this?"
"Not really," said Mr. Bush. "At one point in time, at Camp David, he did say, 'If the man doesn't comply, you gotta follow through with what you say.'"
On March 17, 2003, President George W. Bush addressed the Iraqi nation:
"It is too late for Saddam Hussein to remain in power. It is not too late for the Iraqi military to act with honor and protect your country by permitting the peaceful entry of coalition forces to eliminate weapons of mass destruction."
Schieffer asked, "Were you surprised when you gave the ultimatum to Saddam, that he didn't leave? Did you think there was a chance he ..."
"I really did, yeah. You know, when he was captured, I was told that the FBI agent that talked to him, he said, 'I just didn't believe Bush.' And it's hard for me to believe he didn't believe me. But that's what he -- I think that's, that's accurate.
"It was just hard, in retrospect, for me to look back and say, I don't see how he could -- I don't see how he could doubt my word."
Schieffer asked, "Do you have any regrets about that, Mr. President?"
"Well, no, I have regrets that uh, that --"
"I mean, do you ever feel that maybe it was the wrong decision?"
"No, I think it was the right decision," said Mr. Bush. "My regret is that a violent group of people have risen up again. This is 'Al Qaeda plus.' And I put in the book, they need to be defeated. And I hope we do. I hope that the strategy works."
There's little doubt the volatile Middle East will provide a backdrop for our next presidential election. And with another of George H.W. Bush's sons, Jeb, contemplating a run, Schieffer asked former first lady Laura Bush about the personal side of this political family.
"What was it like marrying into this group?" he asked.
"Marvin Bush said it was like moving into 'Animal House,'" she laughed.
""Lemme say something here on this," Mr. Bush interjected. "It was a huge advantage for me, and a huge advantage for Dad, to have married the type of women we married. Obviously, Laura's style's a little different from Mother's, thankfully. Sorry, Mom!" he laughed.
"You can't say that," Laura Bush laughed.
"No? But there were both women who could handle the chore. And you never had to worry 'bout it."
Schieffer asked, "Is he Barbara's son or George Bush's son?"
"Well, both, for sure," she replied. "People used to say -- or George did, too -- that he had his daddy's eyes but his mother's mouth. But both. He got the best characteristics, I think, of both of them."
No one in modern history has a better insight into another man's presidency than George W. Bush. He knows he could never be objective, but he says that really isn't the point.
"Look, there's a lotta stereotypes in politics, you know? People like to create a portraiture and, you know, a lotta times they really didn't understand George H.W. Bush."
"Is that the reason you wrote this book?" asked Schieffer.
"No, it's a tribute to him," replied Mr. Bush. "It's a bouquet to a guy I love."
For Part Two of Schieffer's interview with President Bush, to be broadcast on "Face the Nation," click here.
For more info:
- "41: A Portrait of My Father" by George W. Bush (Crown); Also available in Large Print Trade Paperback, eBook, Unabridged Audio Download and Unabridged Audio CD formats
- George W. Bush Presidential Center, Dallas, Texas