None of us are perfect parents and none of us have perfect kids. We can’t take credit for all their successes and we generally can’t be blamed for all their failures. But we do play a large role is shaping our children, and we can screw them up pretty good if we’re not careful. George W. Bush was screwed up by his parents. Some of it wasn’t anything they could control. It’s not easy to be the grandson of a senator and the son of a president, especially if you aren’t blessed at birth with the same types of skills that made them successful in business and politics. Many of us in the same situation would follow an initial path similar to Dubya’s: being the class clown, not trying too hard lest we fail, taking the easy road and riding on our privilege. I’ve never blamed George W. for being the way he is, only for having the lack of judgment and humility to realize that he wasn’t suited to life of public service.
With the passing of Barbara Bush, the nation is going through the ritual of praising all her virtues and accomplishments while ignoring completely her faults and shortcomings. That’s largely as it should be. Basic politeness and a healthy respect for our institutions requires that we focus on the positive when a First Lady passes on. But this custom is no friend of the truth.
Barbara Bush was extremely hard on her children, especially George who seems to have been a big disappointment to her. I had to cringe when I saw that she told the doctor on her death bed that George turned out the way he did because she smoked and drank while she was pregnant. The former president told the story in a lighthearted manner, suggesting that she was always making jokes like that. And that’s exactly the problem. That’s about the most vicious thing she could have said about her son as she was dying. It’s the kind of joke that has too much sincerity behind it to be funny. Why not say, instead, that she was proud of him and that he exceeded all her expectations? He was, after all, elected as governor of Texas and to two terms as president of the United States. Is that not enough for a mother, even if he was perhaps not a good president in the end?
This is how she damaged her son, and we’re all guilty of doing this to some degree or another with our children. But the world doesn’t suffer for it the way it did from the presidency of George W. Bush.
I like to allow a little time before I speak ill of the dead, which is why I held my tongue for a bit about Barbara Bush. As hard as it is for me to take, I recognize the value of treating our leaders and their families with a bit of deference and a sometimes undeserved default level of respect, so I can abide the tongue-bath the media has been giving the former First Lady. I definitely think people like Roger Stone go too far in the other direction:
Trump political consigliere Roger Stone unloaded on Barbara Bush in an Instagram post on Tuesday evening just hours after her death. There, Stone wrote that the former first lady was a “nasty drunk” and posted a quote from him suggesting that if you lit her body on fire it would “burn for three days.”
“Barbara Bush was a nasty drunk. When it came to drinking she made Betty Ford look like Carrie Nation #blottoBabs,” said Stone. “Barbara Bush drank so much booze, if they cremated her … her body would burn for three days.”
But you don’t have to be vicious in kind to note that Barbara Bush wasn’t a nice person. The main thing I will always remember her by was her reaction to visiting the Astrodome where refugees from Hurricane Katrina were being temporarily housed. A lot of the people there were black and from the swamped Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Ms. Bush was alarmed that they expressed an interest in staying in her state and suggested that they were better off living on a cot in a sporting facility than they had been in their homes.
“Almost everyone I’ve talked to says, ‘We’re going to move to Houston.’ What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.”
“And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them.”
We may never recover from her son’s presidency which seems to have permanently broken our country, and I don’t blame her drinking and smoking for that. I do think the way she treated her son had a lot to do with it, though. There are a lot of people she didn’t treat well, and that will be her most lasting legacy for me.
Why not say, instead, that she was proud of him and that he exceeded all her expectations? He was, after all, elected as governor of Texas and to two terms as president of the United States. Is that not enough for a mother, even if he was perhaps not a good president in the end?
Right? And he wasn’t even the “anointed” one. That was Jeb. Jeb! was supposed to be the son who became president, not C- Augustus. And Jeb! sucked as Florida governor. In fact, 3 out of the 4 of her sons were horrible people who should have spent time in jail.
Barbara Bush was a fucking monster and I’ve been saying this for decades, going all the way back to her goddamned dog “writing” a book (and all those other attempts to make her appealing).
I don’t know why the GOP is so neanderthal in their views of First Ladies, preferring cypher nonentities like Laura Bush or hellions like Barbara Bush to career professionals like Michelle Obama or Hillary. (Obviously Hillary’s a special case.) It’s despicable.
So bad, but bad-ass too
Amen brother. Thanks for putting into better words exactly what I’ve been thinking.
Like a lot of people who come from privilege, I don’t think she probably ever developed the kind of empathy and human understanding that only comes by at least brushing against difficulty now and then, and experiencing some sense of want in your life. I am not sure she ever had to struggle, certainly not for most of her adult life, and she was surrounded by all those others who were just like her, people having all the same life experiences and corresponding luxury of their own privilege.
She had the good fortune to spend pretty much her entire life in that bubble. That, in itself, is not her fault. But her seeming lack of effort to understand the sheer luck in drawing that long straw in life that she did, coupled with probably a natural inclination for cruelness of the kind she seems to have expressed on her deathbed certainly is not the kind of remembrance most people would want to have for themselves.
“But her seeming lack of effort to understand the sheer luck in drawing that long straw in life that she did, coupled with probably a natural inclination for cruelness….”
Realize, change the pronouns and you just described the entire white upper middle and upper class Republican vote?
Funny, those very thoughts entered my mind as I was typing that comment, and I felt a full blown diary getting ready to gush out of the keyboard. But I was sitting at work and could only get my short comment in.
There’s a downside to living in that bubble. It’s a pretty dysfunctional place or at least can be. From the little bit I’ve seen from the outside, with my nose against the glass, it looks to me like money exacerbates and fuels dysfunction. It doesn’t have to make one mean or crazy but it brings it right to the surface.
She grew up around a bunch of fuckers who thought too highly of themselves. She was fucked up from the start. But then most everyone is in one way or another.
This is similar to Disney child actors and the struggle they face transitioning to adulthood: When you have spent your formative years being told how fabulous you are (in order to get you to perform), it goes to your head.
Wealth, especially 2nd or 3rd generation wealth, tends to produce the same dynamic. When children are raised in wealth, chances are they are 1. not raised by the parents themselves, but by hired help and 2. the hired help is paid to assure you are happy and will kiss your ass to make that so. It’s not a healthy mental environment, and leads to the narcissism that we see in our Dear Leader.
The education gist for millennials has been (to a large degree) telling how fabulous every particular schoolchild is. What does the future hold?
. . . Exhibits B, C, and D for your (sound) premise.
For comparison, Donald’s mother came from a very poor background.
A little OT: Nasty she may have been but 92 years is a pretty good number for one alleged to have abused alcohol. Just sayin’.
My mother used to say of an alcoholic neighbor who lived into his 90’s that he did so because he was well preserved.
Smoking and drinking during the pregnancy. Yeah, that was what it was. Holy Hannah, that is one of the things I find so distasteful about that kind of life in a bubble privilege: never accepting responsibility for one’s bad behavior.
Thanks for the insight, BooMan. I didn’t know any of that about her.
I’ve lost interest in the whole “don’t speak ill of the dead” ever since FoxNews et al. flooded the airwaves and interwebs with “Hooray! A Notorious Terrorist IS DEAD!” before Nelson Mandela’s body was even cold and none of the other outlets called them on it.
I always had the impression from her comments and behavior Barbara was the Bush dynasty’s Machiavellian King Maker both literally and figuratively. If she’d had been a man, that is exactly how the media would be characterizing her. But, like Ivanka, the media still seems incapable of conceptualizing women as also being power hungry and ruthlessly ambitious as say Ratfucker Stone. His comments were directed at a internal rival in the conservative movement, not W’s mother.
My mom just died last Friday. I was at her bedside together with my father, my sister, my uncle and my adult children. The difference is my mom was a wonderful person, a woman who wanted people to love and care for each other.
She didn’t make it to 92, but I know she’d say she was satisfied with her 80 years. She wasn’t wealthy but I know she’d say she had more than enough. In fact, in her final days she mostly expressed gratitude for what she termed a wonderful life.
Now my mom wasn’t always easy. In fact, she carried more than her fair share of insanity and I’d place my childhood roughly in the lowest quartile for the extent of unpredictability and emotional abusiveness. But I’d bet it’s nothing compared to what Barbara put her poor little rich bastards through. She was one fucked up piece of work.
I guess it’s natural to only remember the good stuff. At my mom’s funeral, I spoke only of her wonderful qualities mostly because that’s all that was there for me. Her craziness was her craziness but it was never the deep truth of her heart. I spoke of the latter not to be polite or to obfuscate but because it was the bottom line when it came to my mom.
But listening to W., it appears that he held her in high esteem and she held herself that way too, expecting to be “received by Jesus with open arms” or something along those lines. Is it that she’s a kind and decent person deep down or is it merely that those who don’t care about others still have empathy for themselves?
I’m sorry for your loss, Parallax.
Thank you, AT. Of course we miss her. But I keep reminding myself of her words, that she had a great life. She would say 80 year old people are supposed to die. I’ve shed tears because she’s my mom, but my deepest tears (by far) are when children suffer — for them and their loved ones.
Wonderful honest tribute to your mother and a real credit to yourself as well.
Thanks my friend.
George H. W. Bush didn’t fix anything that Reagan broke — “kindler [sic] and gentler” notwithstanding.
George W. Bush didn’t break anything that Reagan hadn’t already broken.
There is ample anecdotal evidence, some of which you cite, that both men, as well as Barbara (rest her soul), were casual sadists, as well as being unable — on that note or any other — to keep track of the distinction between serious and unserious rhetoric.
There is also ample anecdotal and experiential evidence that, in the characteristics enumerated in the previous graf, they perfectly represent the “base” and the current leadership of the Republican Party.
The Bushes have done their worst; they will have no further opportunities to break sh1t.
The Republican Party can still do more harm, and means to.
The subtext of De mortuis nil nisi bonum is “keep your eye on the ball”.
From my own family experience I recognized in Barbara the actions of a keenly honed passive aggressive. Your quotes also point to that talent.
She always made the object of her remarks, jokes or not, want to come back to her for approval or forgiveness.
That she would tell the doctor, on her deathbed, that story about W, that he will now carry to his grave, was so indicative of a person who brushed aside personal responsibility by pointing to the failings of her son. Failings that she should have acknowledged that she had a hand in during those last hours.
Before I entered the glamorous life of being a school teacher, I spent ten years in an insignificant desk job inside the Beltway. I was, and remain, fascinated by all of the hard-working, unsung folks who support the temporary residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
I carpooled with these people, and I waited in line next to them to buy a cup of coffee. Sometimes I would chat with them at our kids’ soccer game, or while waiting for our daughters to come out of dance class.
These were very discreet ladies and gentlemen. Usually, they exude a quiet competence. One has to get to know them very well to get any juicy stories.
However, over the years I’ve had a couple of memorable conversations. One was with a member of the Secret Service detail, and one was involved in another part of White House operations. Both were long serving, and recently retired, or reassigned.
Both of these guys liked George W. and Laura Bush, and they liked the Obamas. They saw them as politicians, to be sure, but fairly decent people to
work for.
In each conversation, I braced myself for lots of invective about Hillary Clinton. Surprisingly, they found her more “challenging,” but they kept their powder dry.
To my surprise, one of them was profuse, and profane, in his criticism of Al Gore, who reportedly could flash into cruel and demeaning comments at the drop of a hat. I have no corroboration for this.
However, the real shocker was how much disdain both of them had for Momma Bush, Barbara. My God, they could not stand that woman. They both thought she treated the low-ranking folks in the White House like the “hired help.”
On the other hand, I crossed paths with staffers who adored George HW, and his wife. It appears that how one was treated by the elder Bushes was related to position and status.
Dogs sniff each other’s hind quarters, and urinate to mark their territory. I’ve done it, too, in a matter of speaking. I guess no amount of Phillips Andover and Yale can cure some of us of that animal trait.
Thanks for the anecdotal reminisces. I don’t necessarily agree with all the critical takes in this post and comments on Barbara Bush, as I sometimes think that we automatically put our blinders on vis-a-vis those whom we typically politically oppose. Your insight is helpful. Anecdotally, a friend here has/had a daughter in the Secret Service who back in the GWB years relayed how nice he and Laura were. I’m all too well aware how Bill and Hillary were made out to be pariahs after they left the WH.
Barbara Bush.
Wife and mother of aliens.
Alien to human feelings.
Alien to human needs.
Alien to human suffering.
She once said…publicly!!! (Making HRC’s various gaffes look like quotes from Socrates…)
“But why should we hear about body bags and deaths, and how many, what day it’s gonna happen, and how many this or that or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it’s not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that, and watch him [her husband, former president George H. W. Bush] suffer?”
I do not know if there is a hell. The current Pope suggested otherwise recently, but was of course countermanded by the Vatican controllers who need fear to keep control of their flocks/marks just as do politicians/con artists of almost every stripe.
Could be.
If there is?
God help her.
AG
The boy blunder said on television that his dear old mom was confident of an afterlife and that she would wind up in the good place. Sense of entitlement? Perhaps the ultimate white privilege?
“[S]he would wind up in the good place.”
Now I’m picturing Babs with Ted Danson and Kristen Bell.
“[S]he would wind up in the good place.”
Now I’m picturing Babs with Ted Danson and Kristen Bell.
Oops. Sorry for the double post. I thought it didn’t post the first time.
That’s cute. Plus I love that Ted Dansen is willing to play the fool. Sam has morphed into Norm.
It might be different for family legacies, but from what I can tell current research shows that parenting has the least effect of kids. Peers, environment are the lion’s share, with about 30% genetic which I guess is the parents fault, but isn’t exactly related to parenting.
Bullshit.
You carry the stamp your parents put on your soul to the end of your days. Just ask any adult that was abused by their parent/parents if it had no effect.
.
Precisely, as I know to my bitter cost. I’ve overcome what happened to me, but it hurt a lot, for a long time, it crippled me for extended parts of my life, and I would have been a far different person had they taken a different approach to my raising.
Where do the words no effect appear in my post? I said least effect. Stop putting words in my mouth.
Do people remember that Poppy Bush was at one time a Texas Congressman? My father was a Texas Congressman too and was in the House at the same time as Poppy.
The wives of the Texas delegation used to get together once a month to hold a lunch or something of the sort and my mother knew Barbara Bush well.
Although she’s gone now, my mother was of the Marge-Simpson-School of “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”
Nevertheless, she confided to us that Barbara Bush was about the meanest person she ever met. Just saying.