Even as the former Florida governor sought this week to relaunch his flagging bid to become the third member of his family to capture the White House, his father, George HW Bush, ended years of self-restraint to publicly chastise Jeb’s brother, George W Bush.
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Former President George H.W. Bush “knew exactly what he was saying” when he criticized his son’s Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and his Vice President Dick Cheney, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of a controversial new biography about the elder statesman said Friday.
The assessments are contained in Meacham’s 800-plus page “Destiny and Power”, the fullest account yet of Bush, the only modern ex-president not to write a full-length memoir.
“Cheney referred to it as fascinating”, he said, “and then said it was simply obviously two different views of how the vice-presidency should be conducted, that he had executed his office in the way that Bush 41 wanted him to conduct it”.
The question the book raises is whether everything about George H.W. Bush is outdated or whether he is a model the party and its president should return to-a noble kind of restraint in foreign policy based on diplomacy and a prudence in domestic affairs.
In separate interviews this week, Cheney denied his family influenced his politics but said he wore the “iron-ass” label as a ‘mark of pride’.
In the book, written by Jon Meacham, Bush Senior labels former Vice President Dick Cheney as an “iron ass” for his reaction to the 9/11 attacks, and attributes this attitude to Cheney’s wife Lynne, notes CNN.
But Jeb quickly added that his brother would own all the Iraq war decisions, saying: “I was commander in chief; I was the leader, and I accept personal responsibility for what happened – both the good and the bad”.
The former president also commented that Rumsfeld was an “arrogant fellow” who didn’t leave room for other comrades and opponents’ ideas and strategies. “I guess you could say I have mellowed”.
“Hot rhetoric is pretty easy to get headlines, but it doesn’t necessarily solve the diplomatic problem”, Bush, Sr. said. Don rumsfeld ageably led the Pentagon and was an effective secretary of defense. Bush’s sons, George W. And Jeb revere their father but both are forced to respond to his criticism of Cheney and rumsfeld and by extension of George W. Bush himself.
President George H.W. Bush lost his bid for reelection in 1992.
“Dick Cheney did a superb job as vice president, and I was fortunate to have him by my side throughout my presidency”, he said.
The elder Bush is 91 years old.
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Still, Jeb Bush’s campaign has not been doing well.
