Posted on 12/03/2018 10:54:38 AM PST by conservative98
Good
IMHO Trump would be able to pull it off fine - but there is no reason for the family to want him to do it.Truth is, WJC and Hillary were closer to HW than Mr. Trump was. If they aren’t asked to speak, absolutely no reason why Mr. Trump would be.
Re: 60.
We will agree to disagree. And that’s the value of FR. Different viewpoints.
I did not know Sen. Simpson is still alive.
Jeb had more money than both of them together. Actually, Cruz was much more of a long shot. He over-performed.
He was ambitious like everyone else in national politics. "Rabidly?" I don't see it. That's just the kind of pejorative language people use against those they don't like. Bush was less ambitious than the Clintons or the Kennedys or Nixon or Obama or Reagan.
Give me a break. Bush was the son of a senator. He was a patrician with a political pedigree. Bush's career in politics began in 1963 when he was elected chairman of the Harris County, Texas Republican Party. The following year, he ran against incumbent Democrat Ralph W. Yarborough in the U.S. Senate race. Notice he entered politics in his 30s becoming the chair at 39. His first attempt at elected office was for senator. It indicates to me that he already had an inflated sense of himself.
He was defeated in his first election, for the U.S. Senate in 1964, but won election to the House of Representatives from Texas's 7th district in 1966. He was re-elected in 1968 but was defeated for election to the Senate again in 1970. And then the resume building began.
In 1971, President Richard Nixon appointed Bush as Ambassador to the United Nations, and in 1973, Bush became the Chairman of the Republican National Committee. The following year, President Gerald Ford appointed Bush as Chief of the Liaison Office in China and later made Bush the Director of Central Intelligence. Bush ran for president in 1980 and was defeated in the Republican primary by Ronald Reagan, who chose him as his running mate in his successful bid for presidency.
To say that Bush was "less ambitious than the Clintons or the Kennedys or Nixon or Obama or Reagan" is just nonsense. He was totally driven by his political ambitions overcoming setback after setback. He worked his way thru the system as an insider using appointments to jobs as resume building realizing that he was unable to achieve his ends thru elective office. He was the ultimate insider who was persistent and single-minded to get into the WH. The Clintons or the Kennedys or Nixon or Obama or Reagan had fewer setbacks and worked their way up thru electoral politics. Yes, except for the Kennedys. they all lost elections at one point or another.
Bush 41 must have calculated his every move including two years at the UN, and one year stints at the CIA, RNC and Ambassador to China. He lost to Reagan in 1980 but was successful in convincing Reagan that he should be the nominee to unify the party. No doubt his many connections as RNC chair helped create that imperative. And no doubt, the Reagan effect was the primary reason he won the WH in 1988. 1992 showed what a poor candidate he really was.
George W. Bush followed a different path, but it had already been paved by his father. Big money helped him be Governor and then President along with the name. Jeb was seeking a similar path in FL. He was to be the next in line.
That's on us. We didn't have to vote for them. But we did.
Really? I think it is the product of a flawed system that has been foisted on the public. It is very difficult to get on the ballot outside the system, which is why Trump is so exceptional. He won inside the system without having to become a third party candidate. The two party system constrains the choices and the party hierarchies steer the process. Outsiders don't win.
In sum, despite Bush's outward demeanor, he was rabid when it came to his political ambitions. He knew how to game the system and would not be denied. When two families dominate our political scene for almost forty years, there is something very wrong and the fault does not rest with the people. Corruption begets corruption.
I’m confident the family has more class than that. I seriously doubt that they would want that to be the story.
And it will be very low of GWBif he does that at his own fathers funeral. Somehow I don’t expect him to, but he has surprised me a lot with his behavior in recent times, and so has Laura.
Bush was ambitious. You don't get a shot at the presidency if you aren't ambitious - and persistent. It's not a crime or a vice in a politician. He saw his opportunities and he took them.
You want to say he was worming his way up to the presidency all the time. I don't know about that. In 1980, as in 2016, Republicans saw an opening and they crowded into the race. Under other circumstances, Bush might not have run at all.
Other politicians - the Clintons, the Kennedys, Obama, Reagan - had or were able to build movements of one sort or another to propel them to the White House. Bush was doing it on his own. If you want to say he was especially persistent, fine, but "rabid" is one of those pejorative terms that adds nothing of value to the discussion.
Truth is, WJC and Hillary were closer to HW than Mr. Trump was. If they aren’t asked to speak, absolutely no reason why Mr. Trump would be.
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There is a reason. The sitting President speaks at funerals of dead Presidents. But the Bushes want to keep the feud with President Trump going.
I don’t want to hear any Trump bashing or any alluding to Trump bashing by W. R
I also don’t want to hear W say in 2020 he voted for everyone but the President again. Suck it up and put your country first.
No they don’t. Pres Trump and First Lady Melania just visited Pres Bush lying in state and it was reported the Bush family requested it.
Bush was more than ambitious. He was obsessed with getting into the WH. He saw it as some sort of birthright. Kerry was very similar as was McCain. No one said it was a "crime." He made his opportunities. You just took issue with the word "rabid," which I believe is appropriate to describe Bush 41. He was fanatical in his political ambitions and it influenced his life decisions. As a country, we suffered the consequences.
You want to say he was worming his way up to the presidency all the time. I don't know about that. In 1980, as in 2016, Republicans saw an opening and they crowded into the race. Under other circumstances, Bush might not have run at all.
Of course that was his ultimate goal. In 1976 Bush was not in the Reagan camp. He was a Ford guy. In 1980 Bush had no shot winning only 7 primary races compared to Reagan's 44.
George Herbert Walker Bush; The Accidental Vice President
Although nominally still on a list of frequently mentioned running mates, George Bush was not really on Reagan's radar screen. Since the primaries, the two men had barely spoken, and they certainly hadn't discussed the vice presidency. Apart from serious policy differences, Bush had refused to admit defeat in the primary battles despite being vanquished by Reagan in 29 of 33 primaries and did not withdraw from the race until just before the California primary in June. Reagan considered the belated departure willful and unnecessary and was offended by it. Still, I thought Bush a viable alternative to Ford; he had the best credentials of the possible running mates mentioned. If not for the unsettled relations between the two, Bush could bring more to the ticket to help Reagan than anyone on the list of choices.
There was no question that a Bush candidacy would be a hard sell. Among Reagan's advisers, Nofziger and Casey viewed Bush as a liberal, and others were almost unanimously against him, some even contemptuous. I considered Bush a capable man whose positions were actually much closer to Reagan's than were Ford's, especially on foreign policy and defense matters. In 1978, Bush had requested my assistance on his campaign, but my commitment to Reagan was firm. Of the Reagan inner circle, I had the clearest channel to Bush and knew him the best.
Shortly before 7:30, I reached Stefan Halper, a Bush aide. Talking to him from the nearly empty suite, I asked him, in as circumspect a manner as possible, to seek Bush's assurance that he could support the platform ''with no exceptions.'' Halper knew what I meant: Was Bush interested in the job? Would he implicitly abandon his support for abortion and his opposition to supply-side economics by embracing the platform? I then called an old friend, Richard Fairbanks, to ask him to approach Bush with the same question. I wanted two sources of independent confirmation and knew Fairbanks was close to Bush.
At this point, Reagan emerged from his bedroom refreshed by the catnap and sat down in front of three muted television sets in the suite. Within moments, Gerald Ford appeared on CBS with Walter Cronkite, and Reagan asked that the volume be turned up. Cronkite wasted no time asking Ford if he and Reagan were discussing a ''co-presidency,'' which Ford affirmed by not disagreeing. Reagan looked appalled.
After the broadcast, the room cleared out. Reagan and I were alone. Reluctant to question him, but knowing that another track could never be started unless he agreed to it, I asked Reagan why he would not simply issue a statement denying that he had agreed to a co-presidency. There was a sense of resignation in his voice when he said, ''I can't.'' After a few seconds, he said aloud, almost rhetorically, ''Who else is there?''
''There's Bush,'' I suggested, half expecting him to close off the discussion. Instead, he paused and then said, ''I can't take him; that 'voodoo economic policy' charge and his stand on abortion are wrong.''
Sensing an opportunity, I reached for a copy of the platform lying on the coffee table, passed it to him and said, ''Governor, this is your platform, every word of it.'' I added that Martin Anderson, Reagan's chief domestic policy adviser, Peter Hannaford and I had scrutinized it carefully. ''If you could be assured that George Bush would support this platform in every detail,'' I asked, ''would you reconsider Bush?''
Reagan mulled this for a moment and then said, deliberately, ''Well, if you put it that way, I would agree to reconsider.'' The opening emerged.
That’s the bare minimum Bushes could have done. Fued still lives on.
Pres. Trump is attending the funeral.
I was afraid they would try to use the funeral to launch Jeb’s campaign against Trump for the 2020 GOP nomination.
I agree with your take on it.
The GI generation wanted to get back to work and start moving up the ladder. Those from privileged backgrounds thought they could get to the top of the ladder. Somebody like Bush whose father did reach the top of a ladder, probably expected he could do the same. But I don't see any "obsession" or anything "rabid" in that.
Senators are ambitious. You don't become a senator without being ambitious, and if you become a senator you start being ambitious for the presidency. Almost everybody in the Senate tries to be president at one point or another. If Bush had won his senate race, there wouldn't be anything remarkable in his running for president ten years later. I guess the problem is that Bush had the ambitions of a senator - his father had been a senator - without actually having a senate seat.
When I think of the truly ambitious, I think of people who went directly to their goal without detours or deviations. John Kennedy was like that, and his family was even more driven and focused than the Bushes could be. Bill Clinton wanted to be president since he was in high school. Even Obama went from state senator to president in four years. I don't see that kind of single-minded focus and purpose in Bush.
You are apparently thinking that because Bush fell down and got up again that he was grimly determined to become president at all costs. I don't see that. He lost his senate race, but Nixon took a liking to him for some reason (maybe he saw his younger self in Bush, maybe he admired Bush for taking on an incumbent Democratic Senator, or maybe he got along well with Bush's father who served with him in the Senate), so Nixon gave Bush a variety of jobs. I don't see Bush thinking, "I'm going to be CIA head, ambassador to China, and party chairman and punching all those tickets will make me a shoe-in to be president." It looks to me like he was doing the jobs offered. He liked being close to power, but I don't see any masterplan to end up in the White House.
I didn't love Bush, but I don't see him in the creepy, sinister light that some people do. I could say more about this, but it's clear I'm not going to convince you.
True enough. We will just agree to disagree. The Bush family is a political dynasty and I am sure that we will see more Bushes entering politics in the name of "public service" in the future. It is the family business just like the Kennedys. They are like cockroaches. Nothing will kill them off including nuclear war. We the little people should be grateful for their wisdom and sacrifice as they steer the ship of state--into an iceberg.
Watching now.
Melania sitting next to the arrogant ,chin in the air - Obama.
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