I'll follow President Obama on this one

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Link to tweet

[EllieBC]

1. I am just going to say it.

Some people are better people than others. Obama is not just like us. We are not just like him. He’s better. And that’s why he is where he is and the rest of us will have to clean spittle off our monitors later.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. The praise was a tad effusive but a person's death is the last big chance to say something nice...

The praise was a tad bit effusive but a person's death is the last big chance to say something nice about him or her.

[Butterflylady]

7. His family loved him.

That's about as nice as I can be when it comes to the Bush family.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. And George and Barbara were very fond of Bill and Barack.

[calimary]

22. I was no fan of the Bushes. However,

I was really touched by the class with which George Senior and Barbara greeted the Clintons and their then-pre-teenage daughter Chelsea.

The incoming First Family arrives at the White House to be greeted by the outgoing First Couple. It’s a tradition by now.

I’ll never forget how HW greeted Chelsea so warmly and affectionately and said “Welcome to your NEW HOUSE!”

Her dad had just denied him what many (including him, I’m sure) thought was his “entitlement” to a second term. During a nasty campaign. Rendered him a one-termer, which had to be at least somewhat humiliating. And he was about to hand over the front door keys to the residence he felt he deserved to keep for four more years, and probably rather ardently didn’t want to give up. And yet he was kind, welcoming, and totally charming to that shy young girl. So was Barbara. Like grandparents more than political foes.

I couldn’t help noticing that. And I’ll remember that about him for a long time.

[mr_lebowski]

3. Who would be surprised if BHO & Michelle wrote that themselves?

I mean, they may not have, but they certainly COULD have.

Unlike the message of "IQ45 and Flotus" which they couldn't have come up with given an entire year to write it.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. The Bushes were fond of both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

Likely because of their graciousness.

[cwydro]

4. I expected nothing less.

An excellent tribute.

[Stallion]

6. George H. Bush Could Have Been a Great (Republican) President If He Stuck to His Convictions

he knew Reagan's economic policy was a joke-Voodoo Economics- and he knew the Religious Right were snake dancers

His greatest weakness is that he wasn't strong enough politically to stand up for what he truly believed and he was one of the first in the modern Republican Party to abandon his principles for political expediency. That road leads to Donald Trump and the destruction of the Republican Party.

[pangaia]

8. Glad somebody said it.

[PatrickforO]

11. Indeed. Good observation.

The evil architects of this winning is everything approach were, of course, Richard Nixon, Lee Atwater, and Karl Rove. We still have Rove, and the stench of this approach extends now all through the Republican party, particularly at the national level.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

15. he lost re-election for sticking to his convictions

He raised taxes and tried to undo reaganomics. The reaganites and evangelicals made him a 1-termer for that.

[mountain grammy]

16. Well said.

[thegoose]

19. And that family ain't clean

Skeletons galore

[Jarqui]

24. "one of the first in the modern Republican Party to abandon his principles for political expediency"

I can't agree with that. Two rock solid prior examples:
Nixon, Watergate for example
Reagan, Iran Contra for example

"he wasn't strong enough politically to stand up for what he truly believed"

I have mixed feelings on that.

I have mixed feelings about his presidency and his service.

[Scotch-Irish]

28. Bush was knee deep in Iran Contra

Reagan didn't have much upstairs through all of that.

[Gothmog]

35. From Preet Bharara

Link to tweet

[modrepub]

26. Agree

It really was the tax increase Bush signed on to that doomed his presidency but set the stage for the last time the federal budget would be near balanced. That was no small achievement and it probably contributed to the booming economy that lasted through most of the Clinton presidency. Money that would have gone into the bond market to cover the federal deficit was now available to go to other uses (some good and some bad). Bush may have been uneasy with the Evangelicals but he should have known they weren't going to vote democrat under any circumstances.

[PatrickforO]

10. I love Obama more every time he does something like this.

Here's a man with dignity, pride, class, manners and noble character.

Best president in my lifetime, for sure.

[grantcart]

13. Yep

[calimary]

23. Yep.

[Bettie]

12. The Obamas are far better people than I am

however, I feel for the people who loved the old man.

I don't generally dance on graves, but when the Orange Circus Peanut dies, I will be joyful that he no longer exists in the world. I will also not have any sympathy for anyone related to him and I honestly doubt that anyone actually loves him.

[onecaliberal]

14. I cry each time I'm faced with the stark contrast of the joke in the oval now and the

previous President.

[Moebym]

18. I seethe with rage every time I think of what we could've had.

A strong, effective, intelligent leader who could make Putin quake in his boots, and who just so happens to be a woman. Instead we have a guy who grovels at Putin's feet and uses the power of his office to attack his enemies and enrich himself at the expense of others.

[onecaliberal]

32. It goes to show how much ground we need to cover. The fact that people thought a dangerous joke

Of a supposed human could be better than Secretary Clinton is mind boggling on a level I will never ever understand. I blame everyone who failed to vote or wasted their vote. The people who support that abomination are dead to me.

[Gothmog]

34. I miss having a real POTUS

[DesertRat]

17. Always a class act. Great words, Mr. President.

[elmac]

20. he was the best republican president since Ike

didn't murder a bunch of people, didn't devastate Democracy so yes, I think he deserves a R.I.P.

[Fuzzpope]

21. I used to..

Wash and wax his Mercedes from his Biscayne Blvd home back in the 80's when I was a late teen.

I have nothing further to add, aside from RIP.

(BTW, his son is the real a-hole, way more than the father.)

[peggysue2]

25. President Obama has spoken often about . . .

cultivating our Better Angels. I think we'd do well to follow his advice.

[lunatica]

30. President Obama always leads by example and I respect that

in both him and Michelle. The best I can do is to say nothing.

[Hekate]

27. I have come to count on Barack Obama to say the presidential words for us in moments like this...

God knows, Trump is utterly incapable. I am so grateful President Obama does: you can feel him pausing a decent moment to let Trump have a chance, then stepping forward to do the job.

[guillaumeb]

29. The examples of being racists?

Sorry Mr. President. I understand that you are being Presidential, but history is just that.

[RHMerriman]

31. As president, Bush I was my last CinC; although I didn't see action in KUwait/Irqa

As president, Bush I was my last CinC; although I didn't see action in Kuwait/Iraq, I probably would have been in theater if the PGW had gone on longer - for example, if the Hussein regime had collapsed and the Allies had occupied the entire country.

Which, as bad as that would have been, probably would have been better for the world than the history that panned out. So, I won't give him a great amount of credit for strategic thought in terms of SW Asia - as a GI Generation president, he knew that winning the peace was as important as winning the war, and he fumbled the peace.

Along with that, he did manage the US response to the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR pretty well, all things considered, so it's a mixed bag.

He was, in fact, a fairly representative example of the GI Generation when in positions of power postwar, with all their faults and strengths. On balance, he successfully avoided a confrontation via force of arms with the Soviet bloc, which was the positive sine qua non of post-1949 US policy; but he also saw the US as an imperial power, which is the negative aspect of the same group of men.

He was, of course, a patriot who was willing to put himself in harm's way, and did during WW II, and he appears to have managed his personal life with a minimum of scandal. He was, at times, willing to be a true Protestant ascendency patrician and do the moral thing, as when he called out David Duke as a racist in the Louisiana governor's race and endorsed the Democrat - even though Duke was the obvious outgrowth of Atwater's Southern Strategy for the GOP. I will give him some credit for those sorts of decisions.

In comparison to Nixon, Reagan, Bush II, and Trump, in retrospect, Bush I looks like a genius as a political leader and strategist, but in reality, he was a decent man, with the positives and negatives of his generation and class, and who was poorly met by the reactionary Republicans rising up around him.

I never voted for him, but when I was in uniform, I didn't think he was going to throw away my life and the lives of those I served with on a political whim, unlike Nixon in 1969-73 or Bush II in Iraq - or, for that matter, Trump.

Sometimes, once one takes the oath and writes the proverbial blank check to one's country, that's the most one can expect.

Not the worst epitaph.

Fair winds and following seas, Mr. Bush.

[Gothmog]

33. Great Statement by President Obama

[MFGsunny]

36. K & R

[Still In Wisconsin]

37. Fair winds and following seas, sir. n/t