George Herbert Walker Bush has passed away, the latest
President to serve only one term and the last one to serve in World War II. I
am not saddened by his passing, although elements of his legacy are remarkable.
He was the first President I recall from my childhood. Although I was born in
1980, and Ronald Reagan was the first President in my lifetime, I don’t
remember the Gipper. I do remember George H.W. Bush from the outset of his
administration, when he was sworn in as Reagan’s hopeful successor. In fact, in
January 1989 I watched his inauguration ceremony along with the rest of my second-grade
classmates.
What else comes to mind, however, when I think of the Elder
President Bush? My Aunt Frannie from West Mifflin, Pennsylvania in late 1991, the
last time that I visited her. She was irate in those days. Why? “Read my lips!
No new taxes!” she griped to me. Next, she pointed out the rising taxes shrinking
her already fixed retirement income. She later mentioned how every foreign-made
car on the streets of Pittsburg (right down the valley from her home) put four
Americans out of work. She probably would have voted for Trump if she were
alive today, but she definitely hated Bush.
Another childhood memory: A group of protesters outside of
my local post office were denouncing President Bush. “He is Nero-Minded!”, one
pamphlet read. The demonstrators informed me more about this New World Order,
an agenda troubles Americans even today. Our country should never surrender its
unique place—and role—in a world fraught with tyranny and seduced by socialism.
No doubt, Phyliss Schlafy was extremely dismissive of this so-called
Republican, especially since he remained committed to promulgating the
aggressive, interventionist foreign policy of the Kissinger era two decades
before. Governments which fight wars for the few at the expense of the rest
cannot continue.
Despite his rise to prominence with pro-America conservative
Ronald Reagan, Bush remained vocally committed to the Globalism fantasy, the notion
that nations should further cooperate, even submit their sovereignty to a
larger global agency in the pursuit of world peace. The contradiction manifested
itself so clearly when Bush posited a “New World
Order” as a commitment to the rule of law, when such legal
strictures require respect for individual nation-states, but certainly not to a
global organization like the corrupt, feckless United Nations. Bush signed into
law the legislative program which gave us Agenda 21 today.
Bush was a civilized statist, to say the least, but a statist nonetheless.
His reticence on the world stage was not commendable,
either, following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the downfall of the Soviet
Union, and the whole Communist enterprise. Some middling conservatives and
contrived moderate Republicans look to Bush’s effusive demeanor during that
time with fondness. “It was good for President Bush not to rub this massive
victory in Russia’s face,” they will claim. I could not disagree more. While
our leaders should seek peace with all world leaders, Bush should have
extensively commended his predecessor’s calm, dedicated resolve to consign
communism to the ash-heap of history. If there was a new world order to
celebrate, that was the time, an order where principled leaders fight for
individual liberty at all costs and sanction those countries who don’t. To this
day, I cry with joy recalling Berlins on both sides of the wall dancing,
cheering, and knocking down that tyrannical blockade. President Bush should
have welcomed those victories with greater acclaim.
The worst thing that Bush 41 did during his administration,
though? He betrayed his base, the Reaganites who had swept into power a
conservative revolution sixteen years in the making would see its reversal
during his one-term troubles. “Read my lips: no new taxes!” Bush had
triumphantly promised to great acclaim at the 1988 Republican National
Committee Convention. Two years later, November 5th, 1990, Bush said
to the voters “Kiss My Butt!” and signed into law a massive omnibus, riddled
with tax increases, which in turn became “Pay Through the Nose”. The fact that
the press and academy would praise “his courage” for raising taxes on the rest
of us was just sickening. There is no courage when forcing other people to pay
for your costs.
Despite his successful military
leadership during Operation Desert Shield—later Operation Desert
Storm—in Iraq, the recession which followed crippled Bush’s already waning
re-election chances in 1992. He was the architect of his own undoing. The roaring
Reagan Revolution economy wavered because of the tax increases. The supply-side
economics which allowed individuals, including business owners and wealthy
investors, to keep their money actually works. Bush the Big Government liberal
Republican called such free market reforms “voodoo economics” in his frustrated
bid for the Presidency in 1980. Bush was also a social liberal, comfortable
with abortion and certainly non-committal when it came to natural marriage.
A Rockefeller Republican long after the liberal Governor of
New York turned short-lived Vice President had passed away. Conservatism with
conviction (not globalist accommodation) rescued the United States from moral
and fiscal decline in 1980. That same resolve saved America with the election
of President Donald Trump—and with it a final repudiation of Bush’s elitist
statism. No wonder Bush voted for Hillary.
As expected, just as the legacy (liberal, anti-Trump) media
gushed over the deceased “Republican” US Senator John McCain, so too they are
tripping over themselves to celebrate George H. W. Bush. His private life, from
his 73-year marriage to Barbara Pierce to the storied legacy of his political
family succeeding on their own merits, deserves reflection and praise. His
service to the United States during World War II was commendable, as
he received the Distinguished Flying Cross for “bravery under fire”. Let the media fawn all they please about
President Bush, the dedicated family man and veteran. However, as President,
the elder Bush was a failure whose disregard for his party’s principles and our
country’s values were ill-placed in the White House.
