A few blind spots amid 'a thousand points of light'
Like the man himself, PBS' "American Experience" profile of George H.W. Bush is good and decent, but with some astounding blind spots.
Airing at 9 p.m. Monday and Tuesday on WTTW Channel 11, the two-part, 3½-hour documentary makes a strong case for the first President Bush -- number 41 to the current 43 -- as a pivotal figure between Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. It also places him in context as a member of what Tom Brokaw has called "the greatest generation" and someone devoted to the notion of public service.
Yet, it barely even mentions Dan Quayle or Peggy Noonan, two key Bush figures, and in that writer-director Austin Hoyt's biography seems incomplete.
That's unfortunate, because otherwise "American Experience" is well-rounded and eminently fair in adding the first Bush to its pantheon of presidential profiles. Viewers are apt to develop a newfound respect for Bush, even as he's depicted as a pragmatist with strong moral principles who proved nonetheless too willing to sell out his political principles.
Bush was raised an Eastern elite, but he nevertheless rejected his father's advice and decided to forgo college to enlist in the Navy on his 18th birthday. After a decorated career as the youngest Navy pilot in World War II, he returned home to attend Yale, then struck out on his own again to enter the oil business as a wildcatter in Texas. Having made his fortune, he followed his father into public service and politics.
That's the thing about Bush the elder. He constantly seems to sway back and forth between dichotomies. He did have strong moral positions, but politics was just politics, and not a place for absolutes.
He entered politics in the early '60s to keep the John Birch Society from dominating the Republican Party in Texas, then welcomed the Birchers' support once elected. Then he threatened to alienate them as a U.S. representative when he sided with President Lyndon Johnson to support civil-rights housing legislation.
After that, he established himself as a good party soldier. President Nixon wanted him to run for the Senate in 1970 and he did -- and lost -- and was rewarded with being named U.N. ambassador. Yet, when Nixon needed a loyalist to be the face of the party during Watergate, Bush agreed to head the GOP -- and was basically used as a stooge by Nixon. Having lost to Reagan in the 1980 primaries, he served under him as vice president before running again himself in 1988.
At the same time he was drawing on Noonan's words to speak of a "kinder, gentler" nation of "a thousand points of light," he was unleashing Lee Atwater to run a negative campaign. And although he promised, "Read my lips, no new taxes," he was soon giving in to the horrific budget deficits and the savings-and-loan crisis he inherited from Reagan and raising taxes.
"In a rather craven way, Bush did what his political advisers said was necessary to win," says historian Richard Norton Smith, "but, once he had won, he in effect put his presidency at risk by doing what his conscience and his economic calculations told him was necessary."
The irony behind this Faustian bargain is that Bush took the hit both to preserve the Reagan legacy and trigger the Clinton prosperity.
His steady hand at foreign affairs, however, led to the true end of the Cold War without U.S. gloating that might have triggered a hard-line Soviet backlash (that would have to wait for Vladimir Putin), and a glorious triumph in the first Gulf War, which drove Saddam Hussein and Iraq back from Kuwait -- but not beyond the borders -- at a cost of 300 U.S. dead and not 500 wounded. It was over in 100 hours.
Compare that with the current debacle. "Some people said, 'Why didn't you guys take care of Saddam when you had a chance? Why didn't you go to Baghdad?'" recalls James Baker. "Nobody asks me that question anymore."
Bush served nobly in World War II, and that experience shaped his view of the world. He wrote back to his future wife, Barbara, saying, "I hope my own children never have to fight a war -- friends disappearing, lives being extinguished, it's just not right."
Yet, while he would make sure his children did not have to engage in battle -- getting his son George W. Bush into the National Guard during the Vietnam War, something that also is overlooked -- that meant Bush the younger would not have the experience to share his reluctance to engage in war, which made his foray into Iraq quite a bit different from his father's.
"American Experience" sets out Bush's life and allows the viewer to draw such conclusions, but it does leave one question unasked and unanswered: Just why did Bush pick Quayle as his running mate, anyway? I guess that will simply have to wait for "American Experience" to get around to profiling all the vice presidents.