The nightstand next to the bed is piling up with books I am fixin’ to read.
One of them just arrived there. It’s titled simply, “41: A Portrait of My Father.” “41” is George H.W. Bush. The author is “43,” George W. Bush.
The 43rd president of the United States makes no bones about his intentions in writing this book. He calls it a “love story” about the greatest man he’s ever known. “43” wants to share with the world the qualities that have lifted his father to greatness.
I wanted to mention this book in the wake of news that George H.W. Bush was hospitalized the other day after complaining of shortness of breath.
The man is 90 years of age. His health isn’t good. President Bush suffers from Parkinson’s disease. He no longer is able to walk. His speech sounds a bit labored these days.
But oh, yes. He jumps out of airplanes, which he did on his latest birthday.
President “43” recounts that event in the prologue to his book.
I happened to be in New Orleans the night in 1988 when then-Vice President Bush accepted his party’s nomination for the presidency. The Superdome was packed with cheering convention delegates running around the floor wearing goofy elephant hats and their clothing festooned with campaign pins.
The nominee called for a “kinder, gentler” nation and pledged to govern that way if elected president. He was elected handily that year over the man for whom I voted, Michael Dukakis. I’ll concede that Bush didn’t conduct a kinder and gentler campaign.
Still, the president governed with a spirit of bipartisanship that, um, has been missing of late.
I’ve long held a great appreciation for this man’s background that, in my view, prepared him handsomely for the job he earned in that 1988 election. I continue to believe that, on paper, George H.W. Bush was the most qualified man ever to serve as president. Think about it: World War II combat veteran and aviator; businessman, congressman from Houston, CIA director, U.N. ambassador, special envoy to China, Republican Party chairman, vice president of the United States.
I am grateful that I was able to express my thanks and appreciation to him for all he has done for his country. I attended an event here in Amarillo in 2007 in which President Bush was the keynote speaker. I got an invitation to a luncheon that day and then got to shake his hand in one of those “grip and grin” reception lines.
“Mr. President, I just want to thank you for your service to the country,” I told him as we shook hands. He nodded and offered what I think was a heartfelt “thank you for saying that” to me.
He’s done it all. I look forward to plowing into George W. Bush’s account of his father’s great life.
Get well, Mr. President.
