So far, no songs lauding Bush 43 have made it to the airwaves, but he seems to have overcome Oliver Stone’s scathing portrayal of him in the 2008 film “W.,” along with comedian Will Ferrell’s more good-natured impersonation, which added a faux Bush malaprop, “strategery,” to American political lexicography. Yet Harry Truman’s reputation rebounded in the early 1970s amidst Richard Nixon’s Watergate-infused presidency and the publication of an endearing oral history of the plain-speaking “ Man from Independence.” The band Chicago even recorded a 1975 paean to the 33rd president, singing, “America needs you, Harry Truman. He seemed destined to inhabit the failed presidency category of FDR’s successor, whose opponents branded him with the snarky aphorism, “To err is Truman.” When Bush turned the Oval Office keys over to Barack Obama in 2009, however, with “endless wars” still raging in Afghanistan and Iraq, Osama bin Laden very much alive, and a financial crisis threatening another Great Depression, his approval score had plummeted to 34 percent. His support would soar over 90 percent after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as Americans demonstrated their propensity to “rally ’round the flag” and commanders in chief during wartime. Although he lost the popular vote in 2000 by a half-million ballots but achieved an Electoral College victory over Vice President Al Gore by the barest of margins (after a Supreme Court decision in Bush’s favor), his initial approval rating was 57 percent, 10 points above the percentage of votes he garnered from the electorate. He passed away in 2018.Americans typically support newly elected presidents and those who have left office. President Bush's popularity rating in America soared during and immediately after the apparent success of the military operations, but later fell due to an economic recession.īush's re-election bid of 1992 failed as he lost to Democrat Bill Clinton, the Governor of Arkansas. The broad coalition sought to remove Iraqi forces from Kuwait and ensure that Iraq did not invade Saudi Arabia. In 1990, led by Saddam Hussein, Iraq invaded its oil-rich neighbor to the south, Kuwait. As President of the United States, George Bush is perhaps best known for leading the United Nations coalition in the 1990-1991 Gulf War. Reagan selected Bush as his Vice President.įollowing Reagan's second term, Bush ran for President. In 1980, Bush ran for President, losing in the Republican Party primaries to Ronald Reagan, the former Governor of California. Throughout the 70s, under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, Bush served in a number of positions, including Chairman of the Republican National Committee, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, US Envoy to communist China, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and board member of the Committee on the Present Danger. He lost in his second attempt at a Senate seat in 1970 to Democrat Lloyd Bentsen. Bush lost in the 1964 Democratic landslide.īush was later elected in 19 to the House of Representatives from the 7th District of Texas. He called Yarborough an "extremist" and a "left wing demagogue" while Yarborough said Bush was a "carpetbagger" trying to buy a Senate seat "just as they would buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange". In 1964, Bush ventured into conventional politics by running against Democratic Senator Ralph Yarborough. It is believed he joined the CIA as an agent in 1959, and was involved in the Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba in 1961. He married Barbara Pierce on January 6, 1945, and they would have six children. While serving in the Pacific Theater as a torpedo bomber pilot, he was shot down by Japanese antiaircraft fire and was rescued from the water by the submarine USS Finback.Īfter the War he attended Yale University. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal. He was a naval aviator during World War II, the youngest ever at that time. After graduating in June of 1942 he joined the U.S. George Bush attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts from 1936 to 1942. His father was a Senator from Connecticut and a partner in the prominent investment banking firm Brown Brothers Harriman. Bush was born to Prescott Bush and Dorothy Walker.
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