Tag Archives: George HW Bush

national news

Still waiting to turn the corner on the new president

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I believe I need counseling.

Here’s my dilemma. I have declared my willingness to “accept” that Donald J. Trump has been elected president of the United States. I can count electoral votes as well as the next guy; Trump got more than enough of them to win. He’s likely to sew up the victory today as the Electoral College votes for president.

However — and this is where the dilemma gets really serious, in my view — I cannot yet write the words “President” and “Trump” consecutively. (Take note that I have just avoided doing so.)

I intend to comment frequently on the new president. I’ll be watching him closely. I won’t be alone, quite obviously. I cannot speak for others bloggers/writers/commentators out there. I only can speak for myself.

It has become something of an obstacle for me to refer to the 45th president the way I have been used to referring to every single one of his predecessors. I routinely type the words “President Obama,” or “President (George W. or George H.W.) Bush,” or “President Clinton,” or “President Reagan” and so forth. I didn’t vote for all of those men to whom I refer in that fashion.

This new guy who will take office on Jan. 20? That’s somehow different. I cannot quite get to the root of it.

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Perhaps it is Trump’s singularly repulsive temperament. It might well be the endless litany of insults he hurled along the way to winning the highest office in the land. Maybe it’s the way he denigrated so many individuals and groups of people. It well could be the notion that he has presented himself — brazenly — as the smartest man ever to inhabit Planet Earth.

I’ll be careful in the future always to refer to Trump as the president. I accept the outcome of the election. However, my instinct — or perhaps it’s the latent childishness that I cannot let go — instructs me to avoid attaching the man’s title directly to his last name.

I cannot go there. I might not ever get there.

Help!

national news, political news

Trump redefines electoral ‘landslide’

trump-won-election-landslide

Donald J. Trump is measuring electoral landslides with a different set of parameters than most of us.

The president-elect keeps saying he won the election this past month “in a landslide” over Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Hmm. I wonder about that.

When I was studying political science in college, I always believed an electoral landslide — when talking about presidential elections — usually meant something akin to a 10-percentage-point popular vote margin, give or take.

The landslide elections in my lifetime occurred in 1952 and 1956, with Dwight Eisenhower’s two election victories over Adlai Stevenson; 1964, with Lyndon Johnson’s landslide win over Barry Goldwater; 1980 and 1984, with Ronald Reagan’s wins over Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale.

The 1988 election with George H.W. Bush defeating Michael Dukakis came close to a landslide.

Then you can measure Electoral College landslides, which often don’t coincide with popular vote landslides. George H.W. Bush scored an Electoral College landslide over Dukakis; Bill Clinton rolled up big Electoral College margins over Bush in 1992 and Bob Dole in 1996; Barack Obama’s electoral-vote victory in 2008 over John McCain could be called a landslide.

Now, back to the president-elect’s preposterous assertion of a “landslide” victory over Hillary Clinton.

He’s now trailing the loser by 2.6 million votes nationally. Yes, Trump won the Electoral College vote by a comfortable margin, at 306-232 — but it ain’t a landslide by what I consider to be most people’s measuring stick.

By all means, Trump won the election. He’s going to be the next president. However, the president-elect needs to stop with the delusion that he won by a landslide.

It was a squeaker, dude, in a deeply divided nation. Furthermore, he would do well to listen to the views expressed by the majority of those who voted against him.

entertainment news

C’mon, Donald … grow a set and let ‘SNL’ have its fun!

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Donald J. Trump defends his use of Twitter because of its currency as a “modern” form of communication.

But, honest to bleeping goodness, Mr. President-elect. Get a grip here!

“Saturday Night Live” has been poking fun at presidents and presidents-elect since it first went on the air in 1975. Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush the Elder, Clinton, Bush the Younger and Obama all have felt the good-natured barbs tossed by the “SNL” cast.

I guess I need to remind the president-elect how George H.W. Bush invited “SNL” comedian Dana Carvey to the White House to participate in a 1992 Christmas party the president was hosting for his staff. Carvey introduced the president as the president, doing his famous impression of GHW Bush. The president loved it!

Now? We get these idiotic tweets from the next president, bitching about how “SNL” is unfunny and “unwatchable.”

Suck it up, Mr. President-elect. If you’re as tough as you say you are in dealing with foreign leaders — friend and foe alike — you need to learn to accept a little good-natured satire.

It’s part of the job … that you sought willingly.

national news, political news

Obama might speak out as a former POTUS? Bad idea

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Barack Obama is sending some signals that he might not leave the public arena once his successor takes office.

The 44th president of the United States might keep speaking out even as the 45th president, Donald J. Trump, begins his term.

Let’s think for a moment about that.

OK. I’ve thought about it. It’s a bad notion. I hope the president rethinks his temptation to keep speaking out.

I have applauded two former presidents — George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush — for their decisions to stay away from the rough-and-tumble. Both men have declared their intention to stay out of the limelight. They both have said essentially the same thing: They had their time in the arena; it’s time to cede the spotlight to someone else.

I was particularly pleased that George W. Bush remained faithful to that pledge, particularly while former Vice President Dick Cheney kept popping off about President Obama’s foreign policy decisions. I urged Cheney to follow his former boss’s lead: Keep your trap shut, Mr. Vice President.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2009/03/follow-your-boss-lead-mr-vice-president/

Barack Obama’s time is coming to an end. He will have plenty of work to occupy his time while he returns to some semblance of a private life. He’s got a presidential library to plan and develop. He can set up a foundation that continues to speak to the issues near to his heart; the state of race relations comes to mind.

Should he provide post-presidential critiques of decisions that come from the man who’ll succeed him? I hope he keeps his thoughts to himself.

As many of his predecessors have noted, we have only one president at a time. The guy who’ll sit in the Oval Office will get plenty of hits from the rest of us out here in the peanut gallery.

national news, political news

There’s class … and then there’s Trump

Donald J. Trump keeps exhibiting a profound lack of class and grace as he stumbles his way toward a losing bid to become president of the United States.

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He needs to take a lesson from the gentleman on the right in this picture. That would be President George H. W. Bush. The other fellow in this photo is the man who defeated him in 1992, President Bill Clinton.

It’s a tradition for presidents to leave notes for their successor in the Oval Office. President Bush did so when he vacated the presidency on Jan. 20, 1993.

letter

It’s attached in the link I’ve added to this blog. Take a look at it.

It overflows with the kind of class one should expect in a losing candidate for the presidency. This note also is quite riveting, given that George H.W. Bush wrote it to the man who defeated him in a tough, aggressive and often negative presidential campaign.

What are we getting from the current Republican nominee as this campaign staggers toward the finish line? Bluster and threats.

 

national news, political news

Sessions invokes Reagan … while crowing about Trump

doanld

Jeff Sessions is arguably Donald J. Trump’s best friend in the U.S. Senate.

The Alabama Republican was on board early in Trump’s campaign for the presidency. Now he is upset that members of a big-time GOP family have turned their backs on Trump, the party’s presidential nominee.

Here’s the best part, though, of Sessions’ rant against former Presidents George H.W. and George W. Bush, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

He said, according to columnist Byron York: ” … millions of Americans, including this one, worked their hearts out for the Bushes in 1988, 1992, 2000, and 2004. And it wasn’t Bill Clinton that helped the Bushes get elected. It was the same voters, in large part, that elected Ronald Reagan and stand to elect Donald Trump.”

I am amused that Sessions would invoke Reagan’s name, suggesting that today’s Trumpkins mirror those who backed the Gipper all those years ago.

There’s another part of that calculation that needs a bit of scrutiny.

I cannot prove this, but my strong belief is that President Reagan would be aghast at Donald Trump’s ascent to the pinnacle of GOP power.

If only the president were alive today to weigh in.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-sessions-on-bushes-trump-snub-theyve-forgotten-who-elected-them/article/2602526

The former presidents Bush and Jeb Bush haven’t forgotten a thing. They are dedicated Republicans who have seen their party hijacked by a con man/entertainer/hustler/narcissist.

They, too, were loyal Reaganites. Indeed, George H.W. Bush was so loyal to the president that he tossed aside his long-standing pro-choice view on abortion to become a pro-life vice president during the Reagan administration.

Is Trump the true-blue conservative who would have earned the Gipper’s endorsement? Hardly.

He is an ignorant imposter seeking high public office for reasons that remain a mystery. He wants to “make America great again”? He has insulted the very people who continue to maintain America’s greatness in the world.

I refer, of course, to the men and women in uniform who fight every day to protect us.

Ronald Reagan would have nothing to do with this charlatan.

national news, political news

Bush 41 voting for Hillary

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This probably isn’t nearly as spectacular a political story as some are making it out to be.

Still, it’s an important development in the presidential campaign of 2016.

Former President George H.W. Bush — aka Poppy Bush, Bush 41 and Bush the Elder — has told a member of a leading Democratic family that he’s going to vote for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton over Republican Donald J. Trump.

The person who “outed” Bush 41 happens to be Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, a former Democratic lieutenant governor of Maryland — and the eldest child of the late Robert F. Kennedy.

Sure, it’s an important story. President Bush is as “establishment Republican” as you can get. He served in many high-profile government capacities before being elected president in 1988. Now he’s going to vote for the wife of the man who defeated him for re-election in 1992. Bush’s forsaking of Trump’s candidacy speaks to the reluctance among many Republicans to back their party’s nominee.

But hold on. Is this a jaw-dropper? Hardly.

President Bush is a dedicated family man who loves his children more than life itself. When a politician attacks the kids, as Trump did this year en route to the GOP nomination, it’s only natural for Dad to take it personally.

Trump called former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush “Low Energy Jeb” and chided him repeatedly for his failure to do better against Trump in the GOP primary campaign.

Then there is this: Trump said the younger President Bush — George W. — “lied” the country into going to war in Iraq. He accused W. of fabricating the pretext for taking out Saddam Hussein by saying he had “weapons of mass destruction” and that he was complicit in the 9/11 attacks.

Setting aside whether one believes Trump’s assertions about W.’s veracity — and they do ring true to me — it’s totally understandable that the first President Bush would hold those utterances against the man who made them.

With 49 days to go before the election, it remains to be seen whether Poppy’s plan to vote for Hillary will bring other disaffected establishment Republicans along.

As for George H.W. Bush’s apparent defection … I do get it.

medical news, national news, political news

Hillary’s health? Not an issue

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hillary-clinton-health-failing-photo-by-nathania-johnson

All this supposed hubbub over Hillary Rodham Clinton’s health has gotten me to recalling a time or two in recent history.

Presidents — and presidential candidates — sometimes get sick.

They’re human — yes? — just like the rest of us. They’re prone to physical ailments, bugs, viruses, runny noses, upset stomachs and, oh, you know.

The Democratic presidential nominee got a bit woozy at a 9/11 event the other day. She had to leave early. Why, how dare she get sick at a 9/11 event? The nerve …

B … F … D!

Well, do you remember the time President George H. W. Bush puked in the lap of the Japanese prime minister while they were sitting on the floor enjoying a meal? Was there concern then that President Bush could serve as commander in chief and leader of the Free World? Umm … no!

Or, how about the time President Ronald Reagan stumbled and bumbled his way through the first televised debate with Walter Mondale? There were questions raised in 1984 about the president’s fitness. How did he respond? With that classic answer to the question about his mental fitness, saying he would not “exploit for political purposes my opponent’s  youth and inexperience.” He brought down the house — and ended the discussion.

OK, so Hillary Clinton was feeling under the weather. Give her a break!

This health issue is a canard. It’s an insult and an attempt to insert ye another element of innuendo into this campaign.

national news, political news

Character takes center stage in campaign

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Michael Dukakis once declared during the 1988 presidential campaign that the issue that year was about “competence.”

Pure and simple, the Democratic nominee said. The voters would judge whether he or Vice President George H.W. Bush was competent enough to run the country.

Voters went for Bush.

This year, according to a Politico report, the issue is “character.”

It’s also about trustworthiness, which is an element of character.

Republican nominee Donald J. Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton are busy trading barrages over who between them is fit — or unfit — to become commander in chief.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/does-anyone-care-about-issues-anymore-or-only-whether-trump-is-crazy-214150

So far it’s clear to me that the GOP nominee’s fitness poses the greater concern.

He fluffs a response to a question about the “nuclear triad.” He says he won’t rule out the use of nuclear weapons. He gives his tacit blessing for other nations to acquire nukes.

Then we have his litany of insults, put-downs and mocking of others. A reporter with a physical disability. His various nicknames and childish rejoinders. His statements about women, a distinguished U.S. senator/war hero. His assertion that a judge cannot adjudicate a case involving Trump University simply because of his ethnic heritage. His ridiculous and gratuitous attack against a Gold Star family.

Character? Does this suggest a candidate with character?

Sure, Hillary Clinton is hardly the paragon of virtue. She has her own character issues with which to deal. Again, though, to my eyes they pale in comparison to the astonishing demonstrations that Trump has put forth.

Character will become the signature issue of this campaign.

As Politico reports: “To be clear: The candidates’ brands of invective are not equivalent. Nothing can quite compare with Trump’s endless—and seemingly spontaneous—flow of crude characterizations of anyone who would cross him. For better or worse, Clinton’s attacks are much subtler, and probably more strategic, since her own high negative poll ratings make it imperative that she portray Trump as so unpredictable, and even unstable, as to be an unacceptable choice for president.”

This campaign is getting uglier by the day.

national news, political news, State news

George P. breaks ranks with Dad, Uncle W. and Poppy

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Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush has swilled the Donald J. Trump Kool-Aid.

He says it’s time to support the Republican Party’s presidential nominee.

Well, I never …

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/08/07/george-p-bush-trump-holdout-urges-support-him/

George P. hasn’t exactly “endorsed” Trump, who performed a major hatchet job on the young land commissioner’s father, Jeb Bush, during the GOP primary. Trump’s campaign so angered others in the iconic political family that the Bushes’ two former presidents — George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush — stayed away from the Republican convention in Cleveland.

So did Jeb, of course.

According to the Texas Tribune: “From Team Bush, it’s a bitter pill to swallow, but you know what? You get back up and you help the man that won, and you make sure that we stop Hillary Clinton,” Bush said, according to video of the remarks provided by an audience member.

There you have it. The goal is to “stop Hillary Clinton,” the Democratic nominee. No matter what. Regardless of how Trump trashed P.’s own father, how he said Uncle W. deceived the nation and lied us into war in Iraq.

Politics at times produces the strangest alliances imaginable.

This appears to be one of them.