The Chicago Tribune
When George H.W. Bush left the White House, he was enveloped in an aura of failure. The economy had been through a recession, Saddam Hussein was still defying the world and the president was the clueless patrician who strained to convince voters that he understood their economic problems.
More than 62 percent of Americans voted against him in his 1992 bid for re-election. He was seen as out of touch by Democrats, who decried his alleged inaction on the economy, and untrustworthy by many Republicans, who never forgave him for reversing himself and agreeing to raise taxes.
But long before his death Nov. 28 at age 94, Americans came to appreciate qualities in the elder Bush that they had once discounted.
In retirement, the elder Bush’s modesty, seriousness and gentlemanly grace softened the feelings of many who had voted against him. Bush, the son of a U.S. senator, had a record of public service that few presidents could match: decorated World War II naval aviator, congressman from Texas, ambassador to the United Nations, ambassador to China, director of central intelligence and vice president for two terms alongside President Ronald Reagan.
Shouldering responsibility came naturally to him. What did not come naturally were the political skills that made Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton so persuasive. Bush wasn’t comfortable selling himself, and when he tried, he was often awkward and inarticulate. That deficiency could be traced to his mother, who warned her children against overuse of the word “I.” He admitted he wasn’t good at “the vision thing.” But vision isn’t everything. Presidential historian Richard Norton Smith says Bush exemplified “statecraft over stagecraft.” His background in foreign affairs came in handy in the White House, where he did a quiet but masterful job of managing the demise of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European empire as well as the reunification of Germany.
He didn’t let Iraq get away with brazenly invading Kuwait, but after driving Saddam’s forces from that country, he ignored demands that he proceed to Baghdad and topple the tyrant. The U.S. won the war with 148 combat deaths.
Bush was faulted for inattention to domestic affairs. In agreeing with congressional Democrats on a deal to reduce the budget deficit, he infuriated conservatives by accepting a tax increase. But the compromise paid off: Spending grew by less under him than under any president since Dwight Eisenhower, and the deficit began shrinking.
It’s the fate of one-term presidents to be regarded as either unsuccessful or unimportant. But time is a great clarifier: Today, it’s clear that Bush was neither of those.
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