My George Bush

As part of my effort to become an author, a writer of books, I would meet with my publisher, who I will call "Greg" because that's his name and talk about book writing issues. For example, Greg wanted me to keep a list of possible book ideas.

One idea I've been kicking around is a book about the Presidents of my lifetime. It would be essays about the various Presidents from 1959 to the present, and of course, the essays would be simply hilarious.

The title of the book would be called My Presidents.

The title comes from a lady I used to work with at the insurance company. She would always refer to Ronald Reagan as "your President".

I know people disagree with this, but I think The President (whoever it is) is Our President (for better or worse).

For example, Jimmy Carter was Our President, from 1977 to 1981.

I've never been a big Jimmy Carter fan.

He was the governor of Georgia when I was in my early teens and I really can't think of too much he did while as governor except stand around and smile. I remember he took Amy trick or treating one time and it was on the news.

When he announced he was running for Presiden, my reaction was very contemporary:  It was "wait...what?"   I just didn't see Carter as a President. He couldn't handle Lester Maddox for goodness sakes.

His presidency was about what I expected. Pretty bad.  However, he was the President and he was my President too, even if he was attacked by a rabbit.

I thought about this a lot watching the coverage of the death of President George H. W. Bush.

First of all, I don't remember having a vote on having to add extra letters to George Bush's name.  I know it is the initials for his middle name: "Herbert Walker". It was meant to distinguish himself from his son, George W. Bush, who became a President, too, just in case you have forgotten. I thought the "W" did that, but that's just me.

I'm going to refer to the first President Bush as President George Bush.  I've referred to him over the years as "Dad Bush" and George W. as "Kid Bush".

I agreed with a lot that was said about President Bush's passing. A lot of it was very, very nice.

My only problem is that it was about 26 years too late.

I was a young adult when Bush somehow finagled his way on to the ticket with Ronald Reagan. If you don't remember, it had something to do with Gerald Ford, an idea about a "Co-Presidency", and Voodoo Economics.

Reagan-Bush won that year and Bush was absolutely the prototypical Vice President.  Everything Reagan did was great and Bush was an Apple Polisher, first class. As the great cartoon character Yogi Bear would say, he liked to keep those apples shiny.

That's because Bush wanted to become President too.  After eight years, he became President, defeating a lump of a man named "Michael Dukakis". Dukakis was a dreary candidate who made Walter Mondale look like Kid Rock.

He wasn't like Reagan. Reagan was "The Great Communicator".  Bush was just a "Communicator". When Bush spoke, his arms and hands seemed to go into a spasm. One arm would go in one direction while the other would go in the opposite.

His Vice President was J. Danforth "Dan" Quayle, whose main problem was he had nice hair and looked like he was fourteen years old.  A lot of the national media had a conniption when it was learned he joined The Indiana National Guard instead of being drafted for Vietnam. But, for six years, "Dan" had to be a weekend warrior, which isn't too bad now looking back on it.

Bush said, "Read My Lips, no new taxes".  Of course, in an effort for "bipartisanship," Bush compromised with the Democratic majority and taxes were raised. It was the reason that there was a rebellion in the Republican Party and caused Ross Perot to get into the race.

The rebellion and Perot were a couple of the factors which caused Bush to lose to William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton, the governor of Arkansas.  Bill Clinton was the only man to ever get into politics for the chicks.

As the early '90s Bush successes faded (the fall of The Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and of course, Desert Storm) we were soon treated to the internet boom, impeachment, and where Bill put a cigar.

When Bush lost, he invited Dana Carvey to The White House to perform for the staff.  Dana Carvey's impersonation of Bush neither looked or sounded like Bush, but Bush went along with the joke. Can you imagine President Trump inviting Alec Baldwin to The White House to perform for the staff?

Bush hardly said anything bad about anybody.  During the 1992 campaign, he said his dog knew more about foreign policy than Clinton.  That was the toughest thing he said.

He was a New England patrician who moved to West Texas and came to love The Oak Ridge Boys. That's so American and that was my George Bush.