{"id":18148,"date":"2024-07-27T08:00:32","date_gmt":"2024-07-27T12:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=18148"},"modified":"2024-10-16T15:33:17","modified_gmt":"2024-10-16T19:33:17","slug":"43-bush-george-w","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=18148","title":{"rendered":"#43. Bush, George Walker"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Linda Lou Burton posting from Little Rock, Arkansas – <\/em>George Walker Bush (b 1946) was the 43rd<\/sup> President of the United States from 2001-2009. #43 George and #6 John Quincy Adams share a unique place in the history books \u2013 both had a father who served as president. And having \u201cDad\u201d precede you in such a position of glory must have been a heck of a thing to live up to. But there\u2019s another way of looking at it \u2013 from Dad\u2019s point of view \u2013 how did their offspring carry on the banner entrusted to them? #41 George H W Bush lived through the eight years of his son\u2019s presidency and beyond, as expectations and analysis continue; remember his comment about the \u201ctrials and tribulations of my sons\u201d? And one of those tribulations began before #43 George was even declared president; and in a strange way involved two Bush sons.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A new phrase entered the lingo of the American public and it had to do with a voter\u2019s vote getting properly counted. Or not. Hanging Chads<\/em> became a physics lesson. Technology had evolved into the \u201chole punch ballot\u201d so votes could be machine counted. Punch a hole in a ballot and let the machine count the holes. \"\"<\/a>But, alas, if the “chad\u201d \u2013 that is the excess tissue that had to be removed in order to have a hole to count — wasn\u2019t fully removed, well, you had a \u201changing chad\u201d and the machine didn\u2019t know what to do. And those \u201changing chad ballots\u201d happened in the state of Florida, and the Governor of Florida was Jeb Bush, the son of #41 George and the brother of candidate George.<\/p>\n

The US Supreme Court was involved before George finally got into the White House. Opponent Al Gore, who had served as Vice President for eight years, racked up 48.4% of the popular vote; George Bush received 47.9%. But the \u201celectoral college\u201d system we use gave Bush 271 electoral votes and Gore 266 (you must have 270 to win). And Florida\u2019s 25 electoral votes were the \u201changing chad recount\u201d<\/em> issue. Do the math. The tally in Florida was so close \u2013 a difference of 537 individual votes out of six million cast in Florida \u2013 that a recount was called for; then a second one as \u201cchads\u201d continued under scrutiny. The US Supreme Court ruled on December 9 to reverse a Florida Supreme Court decision for a third count<\/em>. On December 13, 2000, Al Gore conceded the election. He strongly disagreed with the Court’s decision, but in his concession speech stated that, “for the sake of our unity as a people and \"\"<\/a>the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.” On the morning of January 6, 2001, carrying out the duty of the outgoing vice president, Al Gore presided over the joint session of the US Congress where the electoral votes from every state are officially counted, and declared George W Bush duly elected with 271 electoral votes to his own 266. On January 20 George Walker Bush was sworn in as our 43rd<\/sup> president.<\/p>\n

Back to 1946<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>George Walker Bush was born July 6, 1946 at Grace Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut, the first of the six children of George Herbert Walker and Barbara Pierce Bush \u2013 George, Robin, Jeb, Neil, Marvin, Dorothy. Starting life as a \u201cConnecticut Yankee\u201d since Dad was a student at Yale at the time, George was two years old when the family moved to Odessa, Texas and Dad became a \u201cTexas oil man.\u201d So George grew up a Texan \u2013 Texas heat and Texas oil wells; the family moved about; the siblings arrived. George lived with change; his sister Robin\u2019s bout with leukemia and death; his mother\u2019s depression; his father\u2019s expanding business. He went to Sam Houston \"\"<\/a>Elementary and San Jacinto Junior High in Midland; by 1959 the family was in Houston and George was sent to Kinkaid, a college prep school there. For grades 10-12 he was sent cross country to Phillips Academy Andover in Massachusetts, and then Yale, as Dad had done; sports and fraternities too, but with an east coast difference from his familiars. He graduated Yale with a BA in history in 1968, a C student he said, but \u201cgood at rugby.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Context of Vietnam<\/strong><\/p>\n

US military troops were sent to Vietnam beginning in 1965; by 1969 more than 500,000 were stationed there. The last units left Vietnam March 29, 1973. The priority of call for the draft was based on the birthdates of registrants born between 1944-1950; those exempt were in university education or medically unfit. Thousands of young men evaded the draft by moving to Canada; thousands joined the ROTC or National Guard in order to avoid being sent to the controversial ground war in the jungles of Vietnam. <\/em><\/p>\n

The Military and Harvard<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Unmarried, out of college, and physically fit, George faced the same choices as his predecessor Bill Clinton faced in 1968 when he graduated from Georgetown \u2013 choices framed by the war in Vietnam. George joined the Texas Air National Guard with a commitment to serve until 1974. After two years of training, he was assigned to Houston, flying Convair F-102s with the 147th Reconnaissance Wing out of the Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base. His application to the U of Texas law school in 1970 was rejected; in December 1972 the last draft call was issued. George moved to Montgomery, Alabama to work on the US Senate campaign of Republican Winton Blount and was suspended from flying for failure to take a scheduled physical exam, but drilled with the Alabama Air National Guard. In 1973 he was accepted in a graduate program at Harvard. Honorably discharged from the Air Force Reserve in 1974, the next year he received his Harvard MBA.<\/p>\n

Enter Laura<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>George was 31 in 1977 when he established a small oil exploration company; and that was the year he met, and married, a girl named Laura. Laura Welch was the only child of Harold and Jenna Welch, born November 4, 1946, in Midland, Texas. By the time she and George met she was already a school teacher there; with a BS in education from SMU (1968) and a master\u2019s degree in library science from the U of Texas (1973). A pretty good match, it seems; the story goes that when George proposed to Laura, she accepted based on one thing: \u201cthat I\u2019ll never have to give a campaign speech.\u201d We know how that worked out; but as of this writing their marriage is in its 47th<\/sup> year and George continues to give Laura credit for \u201csmoothing his rough edges.\u201d And he gives her credit for helping him overcome his problem with alcohol. \u201cI woke up with a hangover the morning after my 40th<\/sup> birthday celebration,\u201d he said, \u201cand decided it was time to quit.\u201d He avers he hasn\u2019t had a drink since 1986. Stories abound of his 20 years of alcohol abuse, of his bar-hopping and mediocre performance in the military and in school. And theories of how such abuse affects future decision making are out there; in particular the decisions he made during his eight years as president. But that\u2019s getting ahead of the story; let\u2019s follow what he did, and what was happening around him, in those 24 years between 1977-2001.<\/p>\n

The Businesses, The Kids, And Stuff<\/strong><\/p>\n