The Last Republican President
Channel: hasnaa misr
Date: 2019-08-17

Yesterday I went to pay my respects to former president George Herbert Walker Bush as he lay in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. The crowds were considerably thinner than what I remember from when I went to see former president Ronald Reagan lying in state in the same place in 2004, when the lines of people who wanted to see his casket snaked all the way around the Mall. Fourteen years ago, I waited all night to get into the Capitol by daybreak, and there was a palpable feeling of being present at the passing of one of the greats of our time. Bush’s memorial was a solemn and respectful occasion, but it was not charged with anything like the same world-historic electricity as Reagan’s.

The contrast would not have surprised Bush, who in his later years held no illusions about his legacy. “I feel like an asterisk,” the one-term president told his biographer John Meacham. “I am lost between the glory of Reagan — monuments everywhere, trumpets, the great hero — and the trials and tribulations of my sons.” However, Bush may be of more interest to history as the last president of his kind.

Bush was the last president to have been shaped by the distinctive culture of the New England WASP upper class and the gentlemanly values inculcated at prewar prep schools like his alma mater, Andover. He exemplified many of the best characteristics of that culture, including a basic personal decency, an even temperament, an inclination toward self-deprecation, and an obligation toward public service — not to mention his endearing habit of producing uncounted thousands of handwritten, personal notes.

But he also reflected that culture’s starchy discomfort with open displays of emotion as well as its difficulty in comprehending the experiences and perspectives of the less fortunate.