Man of integrity called us to be our best

My most special insight into the spirit of George H.W. Bush came in the early 1980s in an interview arranged aboard a plane he was taking between D.C. and Charlotte. He was still vice president then, but would soon be running for president.

At one point, I asked him about the message he would want to send during the coming campaign. I remember to this day how he paused, looked thoughtful and then seemed perplexed.

"I really don't know, Georgie Anne," he finally said. "I know I need a 'bumper sticker' to explain my campaign, but I don't have it." He looked hopefully at ME! "Can you think of a bumper sticker?" he asked.

At the time, I thought this unusual exchange between a young correspondent and one of the most experienced leaders in the nation to be both cute and absolutely amazing. But not a single bumper sticker danced into my head.

Now, with the weeklong commemoration of this remarkable man, I realize that a great part of the reason the nation is - belatedly - appreciating his abundant abilities and accomplishments is simply that he never thought of politics, or life or anything else, in terms of bumper stickers.

Not for Mrs. Bush's son, those dumb, probably vulgar, insipid words that would ride around on the rumps of dirty cars. Not for him, the world that was too soon to come: that of nothing-barred talk radio, of the mesmerizing propaganda of cable news, or of the everyday lowering of the standards and principles that truly made this country great.

No. George Herbert Walker did it HIS way. He seemed instinctively to understand the complexities of the world and the leaders he was dealing with. In many ways, he was a direct son of the Founding Fathers - from his beautiful manners in letting the Soviet Union quietly implode without interfering in it, to his common sense about the limits of interventionism overseas (as with the Gulf War), to his view of the world as a place of joy, exploration and humor.

After he had become president (and without the bumper sticker, I should add), I was invited with three other journalists to the Oval Office for lunch. At one point, the Los Angeles Times correspondent said to Bush, "You know, Mr. President, when you were vice president, I used to come to see you and you were always so nice - but you didn't ever say anything!"

The president smiled devilishly. "Yes, Jack," he answered, grinning broadly, "I did that for eight years - and HERE I AM!"

It seems to have slipped people's minds this week that President Bush was widely criticized, made fun of and even reviled during his four years as president. He was too preppy, too patrician, too patriarchal, too prudent, too privileged, particularly in the plebeian age that was just then itching to be born. He was, after all, the last president of the Eastern Establishment, of old and experienced families whose aura had influenced the nation for so many decades. And he was also, by the way, the last American president to actually win a war.

But for us, it has been downhill from there. Bush handed the end of the Cold War to Bill Clinton, who thanked him by going into the cupboard with Monica Lewinsky. An angry part of the country gave the nation to Donald J. Trump to "get even," and he has repaid it with his mobster's manners, which may well be changing our historical standards of ethical values.

The man we buried last week called us to our best; now, we are called to our worst.

And this is curious, because we had thought that the new meritocracy - those who rise on merit and university educations - would improve the nation. But these new "elites" think of themselves instead of institutions, worship diversity as a goal instead of individual excellence and tend to be people, as New York Times columnist David Brooks puts it, who have existentially lost "the self as the seat of the soul."

Can any of this be changed back? Can we somehow re-create a new variant of those old cultural manners, reinfect them into society? Is there room for a new leadership class that prizes manners and values again? Do enough of us really want that?

Writing in The Washington Post of the man who had become a close friend, Bill Clinton commented that it would be "easy to sigh and say George H.W. Bush belonged to an era that is gone," but "I know what he would say: 'Nonsense. It's your duty to get that America back.'"

Perhaps during this week of mourning, this fine man will start us on that crucial journey back to those old duties.

Email Georgie Anne Geyer at gigi_geyer@juno.com.

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