Prior to 1/20/17, there was no question as to who the worst president was in my now 60 year lifetime. My parents were born in 1933 and 1934, and there was no question as to who the worst president was in their lifetimes. As horrific as the past 22 months have been, they should not obscure how equally horrific 2001-08 were. When I first discovered this site ca. 2003, its most unifying feature was the profound antipathy towards W, Cheney, Condi, Rummy, et. al. and everything that they stood for. Things would only get worse over the remaining years of that national nightmare.
During all of the upcoming effusive bipartisan tributes to GHWB, let’s not forget that he and the Bush Clan were responsible for the dauphin’s reclamation of the throne. Let’s also not forget that the Clan knew of should’ve known of the heir’s manifest lack of qualifications for the presidency. Let’s not forget most of all that a candidate who lost the popular vote and who would’ve lost FL by any fair count would never have attained the presidency without the assistance of the Clan.
If any one person deserves particular credit for the (mis)use of the legal process to put W in office, it is family fixer James Baker III. Baker and Poppy went back to the unsuccessful TX-Sen campaign of 1970. Baker managed GHWB’s presidential campaigns in 1980 and 1988, and he served as Sec. of State from 1989-92. He heeded the family’s call when an enforcer was needed to nail down FL’s essential 27 EVs in 2000.
Among other noteworthy achievements, Baker brought Roger Stone, the wonderful man who gave us the Brooks Brothers Riot, down here. In Stone’s own words:
According to Stone, he didn't even want to get involved in the 2000 race at all until the GOP's recount head, James Baker III, called him up and asked him for his help. Stone said that Baker had helped him out in 1981 by getting Reagan and Bush to lend support to New Jersey Governor Tom Kean, whose campaign Stone ran. He owed him a favor.
“In this business, if you don't pay your debts you're finished,” Stone said.
Stone himself later expressed regrets for his role in W’s (s)election:
When I look at those double-page New York Times spreads of all the individual pictures of people who have been killed [in Iraq], I got to think, 'Maybe there wouldn't have been a war if I hadn't gone to Miami-Dade.’
"There have been many times I've regretted it,” Stone told me over pizza at Grand Central Station. “When I look at those double-page New York Times spreads of all the individual pictures of people who have been killed [in Iraq], I got to think, 'Maybe there wouldn't have been a war if I hadn't gone to Miami-Dade. Maybe there hadn't have been, in my view, an unjustified war if Bush hadn't become president.' It's very disturbing to me."
For me, the Brooks Bros. Riot will always be one of the worst of the many multiple miseries of that troubling time. When he was in private practice, I worked with one of the Miami-Dade election judges who fled from the mob. I’m also aware of the threats that he and his family received.
In the ensuing 18 years, I’ve tried to forget most of the details of the use of my profession to openly steal the presidency in my state. Katherine Harris’ voter purge still rankles years later. So does the fact that I knew at the time from personal experience that W was not remotely close to being of presidential material.
As a senior at Notre Dame in 1980, I was the chair of the FL delegation at our Mock Political Convention. W came to stump for his father, and he spent 15-20 minutes in a Q & A session with our delegation. At one point, a fellow delegate asked him a moderately difficult question, and he launched into a “I’m just an old country boy from Texas” shtick. It was an insulting response from a Yale grad who was clearly being groomed to be part of the 3d generation of his family in politics. I didn’t know that he had already run for the House 2 years earlier.
We all wish the best for our children, but anyone with a love of country that’s remotely close to that attributed to GHWB would acknowledge, however, reluctantly, that his namesake son was not of presidential timber. Such a person sure as hell wouldn’t send the family consigliere to another state and have another son mobilize the full powers of the governor’s office in that state behind that son’s attempt to thwart the will of the voters.
Amidst all of the pomp & circumstance to which we will be subjected in the coming days, let us recall a war of aggression in 2003 that was mismanaged in almost every way possible. Let us recall the near meltdown of our economy in 2008. Let us recall, most of all, a man who played an instrumental role in those man-made tragedies.