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United States Government Politics

George H.W. Bush, 41st President of the United States, Dies At 94 (washingtonpost.com) 408

George H.W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States, has passed away tonight at the age of 94. As The Washington Post reports, he was "the last veteran of World War II to serve as president, he was a consummate public servant and a statesman who helped guide the nation and the world out of a four-decade Cold War that had carried the threat of nuclear annihilation." From the report: Although Mr. Bush served as president three decades ago, his values and ethic seem centuries removed from today's acrid political culture. His currency of personal connection was the handwritten letter -- not the social media blast. He had a competitive nature and considerable ambition that were not easy to discern under the sheen of his New England politesse and his earnest generosity. He was capable of running hard-edge political campaigns, and took the nation to war. But his principal achievements were produced at negotiating tables.

Despite his grace, Mr. Bush was an easy subject for caricature. He was an honors graduate of Yale University who was often at a loss for words in public, especially when it came to talking about himself. Though he was tested in combat when he was barely out of adolescence, he was branded "a wimp" by those who doubted whether he had essential convictions. This paradox in the public image of Mr. Bush dogged him, as did domestic events. His lack of sure-footedness in the face of a faltering economy produced a nosedive in the soaring popularity he enjoyed after the triumph of the Persian Gulf War. In 1992, he lost his bid for a second term as president.
Bush's spokesman Jim McGrath announced his death on Twitter, but didn't provide the cause of death. In 2012, he announced that he had vascular Parkinsonism, a condition that limited his mobility.

UPDATE: George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, has issued a statement on the passing of his father: "Jeb, Neil, Marvin, Doro, and I are saddened to announce that after 94 remarkable years, our dear Dad has died. George H. W. Bush was a man of the highest character and the best dad a son or daughter could ask for. 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."
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George H.W. Bush, 41st President of the United States, Dies At 94

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  • RIP (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Saturday December 01, 2018 @12:31AM (#57730316) Homepage Journal

    Thus goeth the last Republican politician that I still respected.

    • George HW Bush ushered in the era of Republican smear campaigns, that's his legacy.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        George HW Bush ushered in the era of Republican smear campaigns, that's his legacy.

        You might want to read up on Richard Nixon. He was a master smearer, but even he did not originate the artform.

        His smear describing his 1950 senate campaign opponent, Helen Douglas, as "Pink right down to her underwear" is a classic.

        Dick Nixon was, of course, the target of plenty of Democratic smears himself.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          Yes, and John Adams was a "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman." *a fool, a hypocrite, a criminal, and a tyrant*

          And Jefferson! "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father." *a weakling, an atheist, a libertine, and a coward.*

    • by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      I agree here - someone that you could still politely disagree with.

      He wasn't really someone that was able to "sell" himself as becoming a president, he more had the appearance of an accountant. But he did a decent job in the office.

    • Yikes.
    • by Junta ( 36770 )

      The last republican *president* worthy of respect, but there have been plenty of respectable republican politicians.

      Of course it's hard to notice them among the rabid anti-science, racist, and sycophantic behavior that dominates the party.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      Bob Dole is still alive -- the last Presidential candidate of the Greatest Generation and the last nominee to run as a genuine conservative.

  • by koavf ( 1099649 ) on Saturday December 01, 2018 @12:34AM (#57730322) Homepage
    Tho you can say a lot of things good and bad about him, I will always respect how he stood by Dan Quayle as his running mate, essentially knowing it would cost him the election. Any other snark or criticism aside (and there is plenty, sure) I think that speaks a lot to his character.
    • I will always respect how he stood by Dan Quayle as his running mate

      He had no choice. The lesson from 1972 is that you always always always stick with your VP choice no matter how utterly unqualified he turns out to be.

      Besides, after Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle doesn't look so bad.

      • by koavf ( 1099649 )
        Yeah, the way Thomas Eagleton was treated was shameful. The difference is that mental illness was not a good reason to ditch him but there were compelling reasons to ditch Quayle. It would be really easy for a long-term establishment person like Bush I to quietly convince him to "spend more time with his family" and choose a more attractive running mate.
    • by drnb ( 2434720 ) on Saturday December 01, 2018 @02:50AM (#57730680)
      Ross Perot cost him the election, not Quayle.
      • by Uberbah ( 647458 )

        Total myth. Perot "took" votes from Democrats as well as Republicans, and Clinton was passing Bush when Perot dropped out of the race before dropping back in.

        • by drnb ( 2434720 )

          Total myth. Perot "took" votes from Democrats as well as Republicans, and Clinton was passing Bush when Perot dropped out of the race before dropping back in.

          Perot took more from conservatives. Conservatives includes some democrats, democrats that were more inclined to support a Reason or Bush than a Carter, Mondale or Clinton. There were once these strange creatures called conservative democrats and moderate republicans that leaned conservative on defense and public safety but leaned liberal on social and civil rights.

          Polls don't mean crap, especially in such timeframes as between Perot's exit and return.

          Perot gave us Clinton. Nader gave us Bush Jr. Sande

          • by koavf ( 1099649 )
            The Nader lie is empirically untrue: most Nader voters would have not voted. This is just a canard.
            • by drnb ( 2434720 )

              The Nader lie is empirically untrue: most Nader voters would have not voted. This is just a canard.

              No, you are merely ill informed. Nader claimed that exit polls said 25% of his voters would have gone Bush, 38% would have gone Gore and the remaining (37%) would not have voted. That is a net 13% for Gore, and with Nader receiving 97K votes in Florida that is a net gain by Gore of 12K votes in Florida. Bush won Florida by 500.

              Nader voters would have otherwise leaned to Gore, as Perot voters would have otherwise leaned to Bush.

              • by koavf ( 1099649 )
                But Pat Buchanan "taking" votes from George W. Bush didn't swing the election? The other left-wing or progressive parties who got more than 527 votes didn't spoil it? *Bush* took more Democratic votes from Gore than Nader did. This is just a nonsense claim.
        • Total myth. Perot "took" votes from Democrats as well as Republicans

          He took equally from Democrats and Republicans. But the Democrats that voted for Ross were from the centrist "pro-business" wing of the party, and many of them would have drifted to Bush in a two person race.

          The Republicans that voted for Ross were those steamed about Bush's reversal on taxes. They would have never voted for Bill Clinton.

    • by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 ) on Saturday December 01, 2018 @03:06AM (#57730726) Homepage

      Dan Quayle? The man who spoke out against single mothers? Remember when Murphy Brown stopped her hit TV show, broke character, and spoke directly to him and all the misogynist bigots just like him, vigorously defending single mothers?

      History judges such people harshly.

      • by gtall ( 79522 )

        Pence is a carbon copy of Quayle with better media handlers...although I tend to think Pence is more of an evangelical nutjob than Quayle.

      • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 01, 2018 @10:20AM (#57731706)

        Dan Quayle? The man who spoke out against single mothers? Remember when Murphy Brown stopped her hit TV show, broke character, and spoke directly to him and all the misogynist bigots just like him, vigorously defending single mothers?

        History judges such people harshly.

        There is nothing wrong with single mothers (or fathers) /per se/, but it's not something that should be encouraged or looked on as an ideal situation. At the time that is how I interpreted his message (regardless of what he did or did not actually intend).

  • "Read My Lips...." (Score:3, Interesting)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Saturday December 01, 2018 @12:38AM (#57730332) Journal
    He was famous for saying, "Read my lips, no new taxes." and then raising taxes. Awful liar.

    In retrospect, that was a fairly harmless lie compared to what's come since.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ScentCone ( 795499 )

      and then raising taxes. Awful liar

      Not raised on his initiative or by his choice. At least he didn't promise that every family would save $2500 on their health insurance in order to ram a massive new tax through.

      • by Uberbah ( 647458 )

        He chose to sign the bill. What a president signs, a president owns. If he'd been a little smarter about it, he could have vetoed it the first time and then let it pass into law without his signature - and gotten a second term.

    • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Saturday December 01, 2018 @12:48AM (#57730370)

      He was famous for saying, "Read my lips, no new taxes." and then raising taxes. Awful liar.

      This lie, more than anything else, is why he lost in 1992. All politicians lie, but his promise of "no new taxes" was the core of his campaign. This promise was pretty much the only thing he ran on, and he repeated it over and over. Then he won, and immediately abandoned it.

      • He realized that he needed to raise taxes to protect US from a debt which at the time had just begun ballooning. No president since has given more than lip service to the debt crisis and that's why your great grandchildren will all be speaking Chinese in 100 years.
      • by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Saturday December 01, 2018 @12:58PM (#57732368)
        Civics 101: The President doesn't make the budget. The President suggests a budget, but ultimately it's Congress who gets to decide what does or doesn't make it into the budget. The President only gets to sign or veto the whole thing as one lump sum. He can't excise the parts of it he doesn't like while keeping the rest.

        The Democrats controlled both branches of Congress during his Presidency, and insisted the budget should have a tax increase. Bush refused to sign it to the point where the government went into shutdown. But he ultimately decided stopping the shutdown from further harming the economy was more important than keeping his promise, so he blinked and signed. The Democrats won, got their tax increase, and managed to dump the blame for it on Bush.

        The more you know...
    • by LostMyBeaver ( 1226054 ) on Saturday December 01, 2018 @12:55AM (#57730404)
      Nonsense... he has that southern drawl that makes him difficult to understand.

      If you understand redneck fluently (6 years in Florida helped me learn), he clearly said "Read my lips. No new taxis"

      And he stood by that 10000%, no matter where I traveled during that era within the US, there wasn't a single new taxi in service. They were falling apart left and right and I believe he double downed on his promise because I'm pretty sure he made it so that absolutely no service would be performed on those taxis either.

      I've always though that was unfair of people to falsely interpret his speech impediment to mean taxes instead of taxis.

      Golf carts on the other hand, they're not really taxis, so those did receive lots of updates.
  • He's only viewed with rose-colored glasses because the current vulgarian is so awful. He was a warmonger and the US incarceration rate increased 40%(!) during his tenure as President. We're still paying for some of the policies of his era today.

    Frankly, I think this country would have been a better/different place today if Michael "card-carrying ACLU" Dukakis had won in 1988. I don't really have much else to say about the guy, honestly. I have no emotional interest in mourning him.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      And we'll be paying for Clinton's balanced budget for decades to come. We'll pay for Reagan's mass deflation of currency forever. We'll pay for Obama's limp dicked social healthcare which started as "Healthcare for all" to a piece of paper that said "Affordable Healthcare Act" and really meant "There's nothing left in here from the original policy and we've let every politician in America earmark the shit of it. Oklahoma can no declare black people as aliens and teach creationism as science. But at least I
    • by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Saturday December 01, 2018 @01:52AM (#57730544) Journal

      He's only viewed with rose-colored glasses because the current vulgarian is so awful.

      He handled the end of the Soviet Union really well (even sending $1biilon to the former enemy). His team handled the end of the El Salvador civil war with (especially in retrospect) surprising skill. He also committed to "full enforcement" of the Anti-Apartheid Act in South Africa (unlike the Reagan administration). In many his foreign policy was great (and again, in retrospect, he made the right decision to not conquer Iraq).

  • One thing I've marveled at is that he was the most recent President to NOT be reelected. And that was almost 25 years ago. That's probably a good argument in favor of term limits.

    • That's probably a good argument in favor of term limits.

      We already have term limits for presidents.

      22nd Amendment to the United States Constitution [wikipedia.org]

      • by mentil ( 1748130 )

        I meant it's probably a good thing they're there, and it's an argument in favor of them in general.

    • by drnb ( 2434720 )
      His re-election failure was a fluke. Like Trump, Bill Clinton won the election with a minority of the votes. 3rd party candidate Ross Perot split the conservative vote, allow the fluke that was Clinton.
  • by kenh ( 9056 )

    Seriously, there isn't even a hint of a tech or geek angle to post this story on slashdot.

    • The nukes on Irak required some tech.
    • Its not that bad - at least it IS a current news story. Often we get old, not really tech stories.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • You would think that somebody with a uid as low as yours would have noticed by now that sometime users posts comment saying "not on /." because they have different views on "what matters".
    • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Saturday December 01, 2018 @01:18AM (#57730460)

      Seriously, there isn't even a hint of a tech or geek angle to post this story on slashdot.

      GHWB lived most of his life before computers or the Internet were widespread, but he wore glasses, was socially inept, and few women found him attractive. I always felt he was a geek in his heart, the "Calvin Coolidge" of his time. In many ways, he was "one of us".

      • by drnb ( 2434720 )
        GHWB was an accomplished athlete, a collegiate level athlete.
        GHWB believed in duty and responsibility, not entitlement, he used his father's power and influence to get into a combat unit.
        GHWB had the social grace and interpersonal skills to successfully interact with others, even others from different nations and different cultures and who had very different belief systems than he did.

        In short he was very little like "us", "us" being the slashdot community in general. Not performing well for the TV cam
    • Seriously, there isn't even a hint of a tech or geek angle to post this story on slashdot.

      News for Tech? No. News for Geeks? Also no. News for Nerds. Ahhh that was it. Your post reeks of a "no true nerd" fallacy.

  • by Misagon ( 1135 ) on Saturday December 01, 2018 @07:43AM (#57731204)

    George H.W. Bush was instrumental in undermining the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro ... and then bullshitting about it, calling the US a "global leader" for the climate in a speech.
    After having got a letter from his buddy Ken Lay at Enron [masterresource.org] before the event, he made sure sure that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change's mandatory emission cuts were replaced with voluntary measures. He also got it changed that developing nations would be exempt. For many nations, including the US -- the world's biggest polluter -- this meant no change at all. Also, that China -- then (and for some inexplicable reason, still ) classified as a "developing nation" could increase its emissions.

    Greenpeace called him a "environmental degenerate" and a "highway robber".
    It has been said by many researchers that have looked back, that if it hadn't been for Bush in '92, the world's climate would have been in a much better state than now.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      Detailed economic data on China as a whole is hard to come by, but the median wage in Shenzen and Shanghai is comparable to that of Croatia, about $1000/month. A college graduate in China can expect to make ab out 4000 yuan/month, about $574.

      China's immense economic power comes from sheer scale. On a per capita GDP basis China is considerably poorer than Croatia; it's poorer than Gabon. Those recent college graduates may only be slightly better off than their compatriots, but there's a lot of them. In fac

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