Dead Presidents

Anonymous asked:  What do you think about Republicans who want Obama to fail at his job?

To be fair to Republicans, there were plenty of Democrats who wanted George W. Bush to fail at his job, too.  It’s borderline treasonous thinking.  We only have one President, and our President — whether Democrat or Republican — are not the Presidents of their party, but the Presidents of all of us.

I want all of our Presidents to succeed.  Sometimes, I want a different President, or I want the President we have to lose an election, but I never want our President to fail.  If our President fails, we all lose out on something.  It’s not good for anybody; even his political opponents.

While Republicans like Dick Cheney or Mitch McConnell take shots at President Obama at every turn, I’ll hope that the majority of Republicans throughout the country feel the same way as George W. Bush, who has said, “I love my country a lot more than I love politics.  I think it is essential that Obama be helped in the office.”

When George H.W. Bush emerged from Ronald Reagan’s shadow in 1988 to seek the Presidency in his own right after nearly eight years as Reagan’s Vice President, many of his opponents and political pundits saw him as an out-of-touch, humorless, patrician, WASP who, in the famous words of Texas Governor Ann Richards, “was born with a silver foot in his mouth.”  Probably the most frustrating incident of the 1988 campaign was when Newsweek ran a cover story called “Fighting the Wimp Factor” which questioned whether Bush was tough enough to be President.

All of these labels were patently unfair when directed towards Bush, who would eventually defeat Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis in November 1988 and become the 41st President.  After all, Bush enlisted in the U.S. Navy on the very day that he turned 18 years old during World War II, was the youngest pilot in the entire Navy upon earning his wings, and flew 58 combat missions in the treacherous Pacific.  Out of the fourteen pilots in Bush’s squadron, he was one of just four to come home at the end of war, and that was despite surviving three plane crashes during his service, one of which he saw him barely evading capture after being shot down by the Japanese.  Bush’s toughness should have never been questioned.

Yes, George H.W. Bush was a patrician and a WASP who was born in Massachusetts, the son of a U.S. Senator, and a student of prestigious schools such as Greenwich Country Day, Phillips Academy, and Yale University.  Still, there was an earthy, fun-loving, mischievous side to the 41st President — one that didn’t vanish when he became the most powerful man in the world.  We know that Bush went skydiving several times as a former President (another measure of his toughness) — he last jumped out of an airplane at the age of 85 in 2009 — but he also might be the only President in history to break out the bunny ears during a gathering of former Presidents and former First Ladies:

In Bob Greene’s Fraternity: A Journey In Search of Five Presidents (BOOK•KINDLE), Greene seeks out five former Presidents (Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush 41) and gets a chance to spend time with all except the ailing Reagan.  In Greene’s wonderful book, the most surprising revelation is that Bush — the wealthy son of a Senator who had a famous family name when entered politics and didn’t have to overcome the poverty and obstacles that Nixon, Ford, and Carter faced — was the most down-to-Earth, easy-going of the four Presidents interviewed.  The two photos above give us a glimpse of that personality.

The bunny ears photo is obviously a clear example of Bush 41 not taking himself too seriously, the skydiving shows an adventurous spirit, but the photo at the beginning of the post is simply evidence that Presidents can have fun — even while they are in office and having every move watched by the public.

On August 19, 1989, George Herbert Walker Bush had been President for almost exactly eight months, and, along with his family, had traveled to his beloved home on Walker’s Point in Kennebunkport, Maine for a two-week-long vacation.  In order to promote boating safety, Coast Guard members videotaped an inspection of President Bush’s 28-foot speedboat, Fidelity, and Bush recorded a short public service announcement about the importance of carrying life jackets while boating.  Once the Coast Guard’s cameras turned off, the 65-year-old President received an old-fashioned family challenge.

Among those out on the water with Bush was his oldest child, 43-year-old George W. Bush, and his twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara.  The future President — still several years from entering the political arena on his own — dared his father to take a dive into the chilly Atlantic Ocean.  Egged on by his son, his granddaughters, and others who were out on the water with them, Bush 41 had no intention backing down.  Stripping down to his trousers, Bush prepared to take the bet.  Although he had just taped the message about life jackets, the President said he didn’t need one when a Coast Guard member suggested Bush wear one if he were going to the take the dive.  After all, Bush was once rescued by a submarine after treading water in the Pacific Ocean for over three hours during World War II, and he was quite confident in his swimming skills.

Before taking the dare, Bush decided to make some money off of it.  George W. didn’t think that the President would make the plunge, especially with other boats full of reporters swarming around Fidelity.  Bush 41 put Jenna and Barbara in charge of collecting bets, and joked to reporters, “You can’t report it unless you put something in the pot.”  After his granddaughters made their rounds and collected the bets, the President of the United States, bare-chested and barefoot, but wearing black trousers, followed through on George W.’s dare.  Diving into the 60-degree Atlantic Ocean waters off the coast of Maine, the President swam for about two minutes before climbing back into Fidelity.

Like the bunny ears photo, it was one of those wonderful, unguarded, fun moments where a President allowed himself to be humanized.  It’s rare that we see that side of our Presidents because now — only a bit more than 20 years later — everything is so choreographed and lacking in spontaneity that we often miss the human side of our Presidents and political leaders.

By the way, for winning the bet and taking the dare of the man who would later become the 43rd President, Bush 41’s twin granddaughters handed the President a grand total of $11.

“I would kiss George W. Bush on the mouth for what he did on PEPFAR…Three seconds.  No tongue.” — Matt Damon, in The Atlantic, on President’s Bush’s President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief. 

If you say that you’re against everything George W. Bush stood for, don’t forget that he did more to fight AIDS, particularly in Africa, than any other President.

Anonymous asked: Would George W. Bush be flipping burgers if he didn’t have a wealthy background? (Meaning, do you think he could have had success on his own merits [Not neccesarily become president, just general success?] rather than have everything handed to him on a silver platter like in real life?) Same goes for JFK and both Roosevelts.

I think all of our Presidents have been ambitious men.  While some of them have had advantages and opportunities that certainly helped their cause, I don’t think anyone has had the Presidency handed to them on a silver platter.

I’m no fan of George W. Bush, but the man worked hard to get where he was.  He truly was the black sheep of his family, and his decision to run for Governor of Texas in 1994 while his brother, Jeb, was running for Governor of Florida was not a popular decision within his family.  They thought that Jeb was the best bet and better prepared, but W. ran anyway.  George W. Bush won and Jeb lost.  I’m one of those people who will always be haunted by what happened in the 2000 election, but the election was as close as it was because George W. Bush was a better campaigner than Al Gore.  Bush worked hard for what he accomplished, and after watching George W. Bush for almost two decades now, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to get in the way of something he’s determined to achieve.

JFK had money, but growing up in the Kennedy family wasn’t an easy thing to do.  All JFK wanted to do in life was write some books and maybe become a journalist.  He had no interest in being a politician, but the dreams that Joe Sr. had for the oldest Kennedy son, Joe Jr., were transferred on to JFK when Joe Jr. was killed.  JFK worked to become a good politician.  It wasn’t natural for him.  His early speeches and and initial campaign was brutal, but he trained himself to be better.  Running for President as a Catholic was difficult and Kennedy fought through terrible, chronic pain every single day of his life.  JFK had a bad back BEFORE he fought in World War II.  The Army rejected him because of his back and he was able to talk his father into using his connections to get him into the Navy.  Then his PT boat was rammed by a Japanese ship and Kennedy swam for several hours while pulling a wounded member of his crew by his life jacket with his teeth.  Nobody handed JFK a Purple Heart and war hero status; he earned it.

Theodore Roosevelt?  Sure, he had money.  But his dad died when he was 19 and his mother and wife died in the same house on the same day in 1884.  TR was elected to the New York State Assembly at 23 years old.  After the tragedy with his wife and mother, he moved to the Dakota Territory to clear his head.  He looked ridiculous with his fancy New Yorker clothes and odd mannerisms, but he kicked the shit out of anyone who gave him trouble.  He was a cattle rancher and a Sheriff in what was truly the wild west.  TR ran for Mayor of New York City before he turned 30.  Two Presidents from different parties (Harrison and Cleveland) appointed him to the U.S. Civil Service Commission from ages 31-37.  By the time he turned 40, he had added president of the New York City Police Board, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, war hero in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, and Governor of New York to his resume.  At 42, he was elected Vice President.  Before he turned 43 he was President.  On top of all that, he wrote dozens of books with expert ability on a multitude of subjects.  Again, nothing was given to him that he didn’t earn.

FDR?  Yes, he had money.  He was also a New York State Senator before he turned 30.  Like his distant cousin, he became Assistant Secretary of the Navy, but he earned that position nearly 10 years earlier than TR did and served 7 years in the position (including World War I).  At the age of 37, FDR was the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate.  A year later, he was paralyzed by polio, and he literally willed himself back into the public eye despite everyone telling him his career was finished.  He was never fully able to walk again, but he worked so hard at trying to that he fooled millions of people.  Before he turned 51 he had served a term as Governor of New York and been inaugurated as President.  Through 12 of the most difficult years in the world’s history, FDR was President and kept fighting for what he felt was right even as it was clear that the job was killing him.

I think these men would have been successful at whatever they attempted to do if they focused their ambition and passion into whatever that goal might be.

Tomorrow is the 17th anniversary of Eric “Eazy-E” Wright’s death.  The rapper died on March 26, 1995, about a month after checking himself into Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and finding out that he was suffering from AIDS, not asthma as he had suspected.  Eazy-E became a hip-hop legend after bursting out of Compton as a part of the revolutionary group, N.W.A., along with Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, DJ Yella, and MC Ren.  The controversy stemming from N.W.A.’s gangsta rap classics such as “Fuck Tha Police”, “Gangsta Gangsta”, and “Straight Outta Compton” led to the FBI actually sending a letter to Ruthless Records in 1989 condemning the content of N.W.A.’s music because they felt it encouraged violence against law enforcement.

So, what’s that have to do with Presidents?

After a $2,490 donation to the Republican Party, GOP heavyweights Bob Dole and Phil Gramm invited Eazy-E to the National Republican Senatorial Committee Inner Circle’s “Salute To The Commander-in-Chief” luncheon on March 18, 1991 in Washington, D.C.  Senate Minority Leader Dole sent the gangsta rapper and former drug-dealer the invitation himself on February 8th, writing, “Elizabeth and I are looking forward to seeing you in Washington on March 18.”

Rocking a black leather suit topped off by his trademark Los Angeles Raiders hat, Eazy-E enjoyed lunch with some of the GOP’s top brass — people like Dole, Gramm, Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Schultz, and Sam Walton — and a speech by President George H.W. Bush.  While the voice behind “Boyz-N-The-Hood” didn’t get a chance to actually meet President Bush, Eazy-E made it clear that he was a fan and was even disappointed that Bush didn’t speak for longer.  While he famously rapped “Don’t quote me, boy, cuz I ain’t said shit” in “Boyz-N-The-Hood”, Eazy-E’s spokesperson said that the rapper “Loves the President.  He thinks he’s a great humanitarian and that he did a great job with Desert Storm.”

That might seem like something that would take away Eazy-E’s street cred.  Ice Cube certainly thought so, as he made clear after leaving N.W.A with his diss song “No Vaseline” when he repeated, “I never had dinner with the President!” and accused N.W.A. of ditching Compton.  But maybe Eazy-E and George H.W. Bush had far more in common than most people would imagine.

See, Eazy-E and Ice Cube and Dr. Dre and DJ Yella and MC Ren aren’t the only people to come “Straight Outta Compton”.  In 1949, George Herbert Walker Bush and his family (including another future President, George W. Bush) lived in the Santa Fe Gardens in, yes, that’s right, Compton, California.  The second child of George and Barbara Bush, Robin, who tragically died at the age of 4 of leukemia, was born in Compton.  So, while Compton was a different place in that era, two Presidents of the United States represented the “CPT” — at least for a short time.  And, as the photo at the end of this post demonstrates, young George W. was even strapped — more cowboy than gangsta, not surprisingly — as many young people have long been on the South side of Compton.

Anonymous asked: how can you not think george w. bush is racist? you just lost credibility.

Don’t you see how dangerous labels can be?  If you’re going to label someone as a “racist”, you better damn well understand the gravity and impact of such a word.  You should fully understand the definition of that word and recognize what it means to tag someone with it.  If you’re going to call someone a “racist”, you better be accurate.

Why don’t I think George W. Bush is racist?  There are mountains of reasons, but let’s just keep it really simple: Would a racist appoint not one, but TWO, black Secretaries of State?  Condoleezza Rice was arguably President Bush’s closest aide throughout his Administration, first as National Security Adviser and then as Secretary of State.  If George W. Bush was a racist, he wouldn’t have relied on Rice, he wouldn’t have respected Rice, he wouldn’t have been close to Rice, and he certainly wouldn’t have appointed her to one of the most powerful positions in the world.

Again, words are dangerous and powerful.  Understand the consequences of what you are saying before you say it.  If this was a bigger stage or you had a louder voice and better platform, you would have just wrongly accused someone of something that could be seriously damaging to their life, career, and legacy.  That’s one of the major problems in the media today — people make inaccurate statements or damaging accusations and, even if they aren’t true, that person can’t “un-say” them.  The audience can’t “un-listen” to the baseless claim, and that’s how bullshit stains people.

Disagreeing with somebody’s politics doesn’t require you to destroy that person.  I vehemently disagreed with almost everything that President Bush attempted, but I didn’t see any reason to hate the man.  I don’t know him personally, but I didn’t want to see him destroyed.  I never think, “Oh, if only we could get rid of all the Republicans in this country.”  That’s not how our system is supposed to work.  People from different backgrounds and belief systems are supposed to work together and find a way to do things that help as many Americans as possible.  The American political system was not designed to be a winner-takes-all competition; it’s supposed to be a cooperative project meant to benefit everyone.  We do not have to destroy each other.

Plus, what does it say about us if we rail against our President and label him as a racist or a criminal or say that he is unintelligent?  If that’s the message we send, we’re also saying that the American people aren’t capable of electing someone honest or smart.  No matter what you think or how confusing the Electoral College might be, the truth is that we truly do possess the power to elect our leaders.  So, if we elect Presidents who are labeled with all of these nasty accusations, who is the problem?  If people keep whining or protesting that we can’t elect good Presidents, who is the common denominator?  The candidates?  No, it’s the electorate.

We never forget about Lincoln and Garfield and McKinley and Kennedy, the quartet of American Presidents who fell victim to assassination.  Even the most casual observers of Presidential history can probably name the four Presidents who were killed by assassins.

There are also famous assassination attempts, where Presidents barely escaped with their lives, that many Americans are quite familiar with: 

•Richard Lawrence’s miraculously unlucky double misfiring in 1835 which saved Andrew Jackson’s life and resulted in the insane Lawrence taking quite a beating from Old Hickory’s cane
•The shooting of Theodore Roosevelt in Milwaukee during the 1912 Presidential campaign which resulted with TR bleeding throughout his speech from a bullet in the chest before he checked into a hospital for treatment
•The ill-fated 1950 attempt by Puerto Rican nationalists to storm Blair House and kill Harry Truman as he napped upstairs
•Gerald Ford’s troubles with two California women who separately tried to kill him in Sacramento and then San Francisco just two weeks apart in September 1975
•The vivid, daring shooting of Ronald Reagan as he exited the Washington Hilton in March 1981 which very nearly killed the 70-year-old Reagan just two months into his Presidency

What is amazing is that, in this age of instant information and the constant regurgitation of media coverage, very few Americans know that there is a man sitting in prison in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia for attempting to assassinate George W. Bush.  What even less Americans realize is how close Vladimir Arutyunian actually came to accomplishing his task.

On May 10, 2005, President Bush spoke to a large crowd in Tbilisi, Georgia.  In the photo at the top of the post is Bush at the podium in Tbilisi.  The other photo is of Arutyunian holding a plaid handkerchief.  Wrapped in the handkerchief was a live hand grenade.

As President Bush spoke, nearby sat his wife, Laura, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, and the Dutch-born First Lady of Georgia, Sandra Roelofs.  They had no idea that, during the speech, Arutyunian tossed his handkerchief-wrapped grenade towards the stage.  The grenade landed just 61 feet away from President Bush, well within range of causing serious injury, if not death.

Of course, the grenade didn’t explode.  At first, it was thought to be a dud, but upon inspection, it was found that the only reason the grenade didn’t detonate was because Arutyunian’s handkerchief, used to hide the explosive in the crowd, was wrapped too tightly around the grenade, preventing the firing pin from deploying.  A Georgian security official noticed the grenade, grabbed it quickly and disposed of it as Arutyunian disappeared into the massive crowd and President Bush continued speaking.

Georgian police worked closely with the United States Secret Service, the FBI, and the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the attempted assassination and find the would-be assassin who seemingly melted into Tbilisi after his brazen, albeit unsuccessful attempt.  Using DNA evidence and tips from informants, the Georgian police tracked down Arutyunian .  When they went to arrest Arutyunian, a gunfight broke out and Arutyunian killed Zurab Kvlividze, a top counterterrrorism official with Georgia’s Interior Ministry.  Arutyunian was wounded before finally being captured with the assistance of Georgian Special Forces.

The Georgians tried Arutyunian on the murder of the police officer, as well as the attempted assassinations of President Bush and President Saakshvili.  Arutyunian was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.  A federal grand jury in the United States indicted Arutyunian on the federal charge of the attempted assassination of the President of the United States, which is a felony.  The U.S., however, has not attempted nor has any potential plans to extradite the failed assassin from Georgia, and Arutyunian will likely spend the rest of his life in a Georgian prison