posted by Damozel |
It's tough when everyone hates your kid. And the first President Bush ("41"), now in his eighties, evidently suffers over criticisms aimed at his son. And in a way, I feel a little sorry for him. He seems to be taking it pretty hard.
“It wears on his heart,” [a long-time advisor] said, “and his soul.” [Stolberg, New York Times]
Yeah, that's definitely the down side of a dynasty, I guess. After all, it isn't as if Bush I's presidency was a resounding success. But now that President Bush I is getting on in years, he feels it more.
On the other hand:
Late last year, at the aircraft carrier christening, he grew emotional again, this time with President Bush in his presence. Before a crowd that included political luminaries from both administrations, as well as dozens of family members and friends, the father made a point of saying he supports his son “in every single way with every fiber of my body.”
The words were intentional, said his longtime speechwriter, Jim McGrath, who wrote them. [Stolberg, New York Times]
Intentional? Intentional as opposed to what? Also: speechwriter?
See, my
own mother (who prefers to be referred to as "a Southern lady")---and who is
a few years younger than Bush I, to be sure---wouldn't need a
speech-writer to come up with "intentional words" of support such as
those. In fact, I am pretty sure she has said to me at various stages during my bumpy, difficult life that she loves me with every fiber of her being.
But her support is always provisional. She wouldn't hesitate to tell me if she thought I'd got things wrong: if, say, I'd decided to invade Iraq. And if I'd done so anyway, and persisted in following my path without reference to the excellent advice of the Iraq Study Group, she'd probably call me what she (an admirer of his father) called Bush II: "a stubborn jackass." Furthermore, she'd keep saying it, to me if not to anyone else.
Which is exactly why the delicacy and tender restraint between father and son which this article implies doesn't move me so much as exasperate me.
As does this:
Last December, at an event honoring his son Jeb in his last days as Florida’s governor, the elder Mr. Bush broke down crying at the memory of Jeb’s bitter defeat in 1994. Mrs. Koch says her father is growing more emotional as he ages — “he has a tender heart that is getting tenderer” — which makes criticism of his eldest son that much harder to take [Stolberg, New York Times].
For heaven's sake. Does former president Bush not realize that most people's kids never even get to run for governor at all?
Comments