Former President George H.W. Bush Dead at 94

[Conservative Angle]

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By: Bill Trott

(Reuters) – Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush, who presided over the end of the Cold War and routed Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army but lost a chance for a second term after breaking a no-new-taxes pledge, died on Friday at the age of 94.

Bush, the 41st president of the United States, who lived longer than any of his predecessors and possessed one of the most impressive resumes in American political history, died peacefully at his home in Houston, according to a source close to the family.

His death at 10:10 p.m. Central time (0410 GMT) was first announced in a brief statement issued by longtime spokesman Jim McGrath, who said funeral arrangements had yet to be scheduled. No further details about the circumstances of his death were immediately available.

He was the father of former President George W. Bush, who served two terms in the White House during the 2000s, and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who unsuccessfully sought the 2016 Republican nomination for president.

"The entire Bush family is deeply grateful for 41's life and love, for the compassion of those who have cared and prayed for Dad, and for the condolences of our friends and fellow citizens," George W. Bush said in a statement.

The elder Bush, a Republican like his sons, also served as vice president for eight years during Ronald Reagan's two terms as president, before being elected to the White House himself.

He defeated former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, the Democratic nominee, in the 1988 presidential campaign, and lost his 1992 re-election bid to Democrat Bill Clinton.

Bush's death came seven months after that of his wife, former first lady Barbara Bush, to whom he was married for 73 years.

The former president, who served as a U.S. naval aviator during World War Two, had attended his wife's funeral in Houston in a wheelchair and wore a pair of colorful socks festooned with books, in honor of his late wife's commitment to literacy.

He had been admitted to a Houston hospital with a blood infection that led to sepsis a day after her funeral in April.

The Bushes had been regular fixtures in their adopted hometown of Houston after his presidency, but public appearances became more rare because of health problems as they reached their 90s.

But Bush was on the field in November 2017 as his eldest son, who served as the nation's 43rd president, tossed out the first ball at one of the Houston Astros' World Series games against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

He also had been joined by Barbara for the ceremonial coin toss when Houston hosted the Super Bowl in February 2017.

President Donald Trump paid tribute in a statement to his predecessor's "essential authenticity, disarming wit, and unwavering commitment to faith, family and country."

Trump added that Bush "inspired generations of his fellow Americans to public service – to be, in his words, ‘a thousand points of light' illuminating the greatness, hope and opportunity of America to the world."

EXTENSIVE POLITICAL RESUME

George Herbert Walker Bush, the Connecticut Yankee who came to Texas to be an oilman, died as the patriarch of a Republican political dynasty. His son George Walker Bush was president from 2001 to 2009, making them only the second father and son to hold the office, after John Adams (1797-1801) and John Quincy Adams (1825-1829).

His second son, Jeb, launched his own campaign for the presidency in 2015 before dropping out in February 2016. Bush's father, Prescott Bush, had been a senator from Connecticut.

Bush had first sought the presidency in 1980, campaigning on experience gathered as a U.S. congressman from Texas, envoy to China, director of the CIA, U.N. ambassador and chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Ronald Reagan, the former actor and California governor, vanquished him in the Republican primaries but chose Bush as his running mate, hoping Bush's reputation as a moderate would balance his own hard, conservative image.

After two terms in the Reagan White House, Bush ran for the presidency again in 1988 and defeated Dukakis by winning 40 of the 50 states.

The high points of Bush's presidency included the end of the Cold War, a decisive victory over Saddam's Iraqi army in 1991, along with the soaring popularity it won him at home, and progress on Middle East peace.

But Bush's foreign affairs victories were overshadowed by a stagnant economy at home. He broke his "read my lips" pledge not to raise taxes and lost his 1992 re-election bid to Clinton.

Bush, who was born June 12, 1924, in Milton, Massachusetts, grew up wealthy, attending elite schools but putting off college so he could enlist in the Navy at 18. He flew 58 missions off carriers in World War Two and survived being shot down over the Pacific.

After returning from the war, he married Barbara Pierce, with whom he would have six children. After he graduated from Yale on an accelerated schedule, the Bushes headed to the oil fields of West Texas.

It was there that Bush became involved in politics, first losing a U.S. Senate race in 1964 before winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1966.

After two terms and another failed Senate bid in 1970, he was appointed by President Richard Nixon as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. In 1974, President Gerald Ford made him an envoy to China and later director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Bush did not endorse fellow Republican Trump, the eventual winner of the 2016 presidential election, who attacked both Jeb and George W. Bush during his campaign. He did not publicly say whom he voted for in the election, but a source told CNN he went for Trump's Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Bush did send Trump a letter in January 2017 saying he would not be able to attend his inauguration because of health concerns, but wishing him the best.

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[Jayhawker]

By Silvio Canto, Jr.

President George H W Bush, or Bush 41, as many refer to him, passed away in Houston, Texas.

It's not a shock to hear that a 94-year-old man dies. At the same time, I was not aware of any last-minute health issues, as we were with Mrs. Bush.

We will miss President Bush 41. I'm not talking about his politics or presidential legacy. My guess is that he will rank high among our one-term presidents, such as President Adams.

We will remember Bush 41 for two things that characterize that generation of men. I saw them in my late father, a generational contemporary of Bush 41.

First, they were tough as nails. They got up every day knowing that life had no guarantees or safety nets. Bush 41 learned this when he was shot down and floating in the waters of the Pacific, knowing that a shark could attack him in a heartbeat. My father understood it when he came to the U.S. with a wife and three kids, ready to start again.

Second, they were gentlemen in private and public. They raised their sons to be gentlemen, too. In their world, a gentleman did more than buy the latest fashions or tell ladies what they want to hear. A gentleman acted with class, from celebrating victory to conceding defeat.

"A man of a different era" is what they are saying in the coverage. We could use a bit more of that era, or a time when men were tough and genteel at the same time.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/12/gwhb_a_president_and_a_gentleman.html

 

[Jayhawker]

‘I Love You, Too’: George Bush’s Final Days

By Peter Baker Dec. 1, 2018

George Bush had been fading in the last few days. He had not gotten out of bed, he had stopped eating and he was mostly sleeping. For a man who had defied death multiple times over the years, it seemed that the moment might finally be arriving.

His longtime friend and former secretary of state, James A. Baker III, arrived at his Houston home on Friday morning to check on him.

Mr. Bush suddenly grew alert, his eyes wide open.

“Where are we going, Bake?” he asked.

“We’re going to heaven,” Mr. Baker answered.

“That’s where I want to go,” Mr. Bush said.

Barely 13 hours later, Mr. Bush was dead. The former president died in his home in a gated community in Houston, surrounded by several friends, members of his family, doctors and a minister. As the end neared on Friday night, his son George W. Bush, the former president, who was at his home in Dallas, was put on the speaker phone to say goodbye. He told him that he had been a “wonderful dad” and that he loved him.

“I love you, too,” Mr. Bush told his son.

Those were his last words.

Mr. Bush’s final days, as recounted on Saturday by Mr. Baker, who saw him repeatedly at the end and was in the room when he died, were remarkably peaceful after an eventful 94-year life that took him from the skies of the Pacific during World War II to the Oval Office at the end of the Cold War.

[Read about the legacy of former President George Bush.]

“I can’t even hardly talk about it without welling up,” Mr. Baker said in a telephone interview. “It was as gentle a passing as I think you could ever expect anyone to have. And he was ready.”

In addition to the former secretary and his wife, Susan Baker, others in the room with Mr. Bush were his son Neil Bush and his wife, Maria, and their son, Pierce. Marshall Bush, a granddaughter, was there. So were Jean Becker, the former president’s longtime chief of staff, and the Rev. Dr. Russell J. Levenson Jr., rector of St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston, as well as two doctors, Clint Doerr and Amy Mynderse, and a couple of caregivers.

In an interview on Saturday, Dr. Levenson, who has been Mr. Bush’s pastor for more than 11 years and visited repeatedly in recent weeks, said the former president was comforted that he would soon rejoin Barbara, his wife of 73 years, who died in April, and Robin, their daughter, who died in 1953 of leukemia at the age of 3

“There was no question he knew where he was going and who he was going to be with,” Dr. Levenson said. “He was looking forward to being with Barbara and Robin again.”

After Mrs. Bush’s death in the spring, Mr. Bush told friends that he was not yet ready to die. He had been suffering for years from a form of Parkinson’s disease that made it impossible for him to walk and increasingly made it difficult for him to speak. But after his wife’s funeral, he resolved to hang on long enough for one last summer at his family home in Kennebunkport, Me.

When he returned to Houston in the fall, he was somewhat diminished. He and Mr. Baker went out for oysters on the half shell two weeks ago. “Then things sort of went downhill from there,” Mr. Baker said.

Mr. Baker visited about 10 days ago and found Mr. Bush sitting in the library of his Houston house. They had a drink.

“Jefe,” Mr. Baker said, using his Spanish nickname, “Chief,” for Mr. Bush. “You want to live to be 100?”

“Yes, I do,” Mr. Bush answered, “but I don’t think I’m going to make it.”

Theirs was an extraordinary friendship, unique in the annals of the American presidency. They were close long before their political alliance, getting to know each other on the tennis courts of the Houston Country Club some six decades ago and bringing their families together for Sunday barbecues, touch football games and cocktails on Christmas.

Mr. Bush was there when Mr. Baker’s first wife died in 1970 and recruited him to help run his Senate campaign to take his mind off his grief. While they lost the race, it began a partnership that would ultimately take them to the top. Mr. Baker, 88, ran all three of Mr. Bush’s campaigns for the presidency, in 1980, 1988 and 1992, and served as his secretary of state during the end of the Cold War. Statues of the two men stand across a park from each other in Houston.

A spotlight on the people reshaping our politics. A conversation with voters across the country. And a guiding hand through the endless news cycle, telling you what you really need to know.

Mr. Bush did not get out of bed the last few days. Former President Barack Obama visited on Tuesday while in town for an event with Mr. Baker. By Thursday, Mr. Bush had stopped eating and was losing weight.

He told his medical team that he did not want to go back to the hospital, where several times in recent years he had been treated and seemed close to death, including most recently just after Mrs. Bush’s death.

“This is the most competitive man I ever knew in my entire life,” Mr. Baker said. “He demonstrated that right up until the very end. He competed with death — although he did say it’s time to go. But he kept fighting, he kept coming back.”

When Mr. Baker came to the house early on Friday morning, Mr. Bush seemed to rally a bit, and it appeared that he would defy death one more time. He began to eat again. He had three five-minute soft-boiled eggs, a favorite, as well as a bowl of yogurt and two fruit drinks. “Everybody thought this is going to be a great day and he’s back and he’s bounced back again,” Mr. Baker said.

Mr. Baker left around 9:15 a.m. but decided to return in the evening when he and Mrs. Baker were on the way to dinner with some friends. “He was sitting up in bed and was able to converse with people,” Mr. Baker said.

But in the car on the way home from dinner, the Bakers received a phone call urging them to come back to Mr. Bush’s house. They arrived about 8:15 p.m. “He had slipped considerably,” Mr. Baker said.

Ronan Tynan, the Irish tenor, had called earlier in the day to ask if he could drop by, and when he showed up, Ms. Becker asked him to sing to the president. Mr. Tynan sang two songs, the first “Silent Night” and the second a Gaelic song.

As he sang “Silent Night,” Mr. Baker said, “Believe it or not, the president was mouthing the words.”

Mr. Baker held Mr. Bush’s hand and rubbed his feet for nearly a half-hour. The other children, who live around the country, were called so they could tell their father goodbye.

Dr. Levenson, who arrived at 9:15 p.m., led those in the room in prayer. “We all knelt around him and placed our hands on him and prayed for him and it was a very graceful, gentle death,” he said. “It was very evident that that man was so deeply loved.”

There was no struggle, no prolonged period of labored breathing. At 10:10 p.m., the former president slipped away.

“If those things could be sweet,” Mr. Baker said, “it was sweet.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/01/us/politics/george-hw-bush-last-days.html

 

[Jayhawker]

Unlike John McCain, George H.W. Bush asked that President Trump attend his funeral.

 

[Conservative Angle]

Unlike John McCain, George H.W. Bush asked that President Trump attend his funeral.

Do you think Bush's funeral will be a bash President Trump fest, like they did during McCain's funeral?

 

[Jayhawker]

I don't believe so. I can't imagine otherwise. While the Bushes did not like Trump, they are not the type to make their dad's funeral into a political spectacle. Family and friends will express their feelings about Bush, not make it a Trump hit job. Those McCain eulogies were disgusting whenever they delved ad nauseum into vitriol about Trump. That was not the time nor place to express opinions of the president, but to honor the good things about McCain. That McCain banned Trump from his funeral and Bush wanted the president there says a lot about both men.