Deborah Daniels: George H.W. Bush exemplified true leadership traits

I recently read “Character Matters … and Other Life Lessons from George H.W. Bush,” with reflections on the 41st president of the United States compiled by his post-presidency chief of staff, Jean Becker.

President Bush was, by all accounts, a man of supreme integrity and character. I thought it would be instructive—amid the animus, venom, vindictiveness and obscenity currently permeating our politics—to focus on what true leadership used to mean.

During his presidency, Bush was often castigated for being a little prissy and not terribly articulate. Dana Carvey did a hysterical impersonation of him in a recurring bit on “Saturday Night Live” (“Can’t do it. Wouldn’t be prudent.”).

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Bush was criticized for not crowing that this stark symbol of autocracy had been demolished. Famously, after saying in the 1988 presidential campaign, “Read my lips: no new taxes,” he was pilloried for agreeing to a tax increase in a 1990 budget compromise with Democrats in Congress.

Reading the book reminded me why these and other Bush traits were strengths, not weaknesses.

In 1974, Bush was chair of the Republican National Committee. When the truth about President Nixon’s part in the Watergate scandal emerged, he advised the president to resign. Contemporaneously, he wrote a letter to his children, explaining his decision and its implications for their lives and future careers.

While recognizing Nixon’s significant achievements, he said, “Your own idealism might be diminished if you felt your Dad condoned the excesses of men you knew to have been his friends or associates.” He further provided them with telling life lessons: “[P]ower accompanied by arrogance is very dangerous. It’s particularly dangerous when men with no real experience have it—for they can abuse our great institutions. … Don’t assign away your judgment to achieve power.”

Bush was polite almost to a fault. During the 1992 election campaign, he once referred to then-candidate Bill Clinton as a “bozo”—yes, that was as negative as it got for Bush. More important, he immediately apologized, recognizing that by using a pejorative term toward his opponent he was diminishing the dignity of his office.

He appreciated the role of the media, which often criticized him. After snapping at reporter Ann Compton in response to a challenging question, he wrote her an apologetic note: “You did a great job yesterday. I hope my response … was not offensive. I wasn’t too happy with my reply.” He reprimanded a staffer for slighting Newsweek’s Margaret Warner (who had written that he was a “wimp”), saying, “We are not vindictive. … That is not how we roll.” He humorously wrote to highly critical New York Times reporter Maureen Dowd: “I like you. Don’t tell anyone.” When her mother died, he wrote her a kind and sympathetic note. And he invited Dana Carvey to entertain at the White House.

The Berlin Wall episode? Well-attuned to the delicacy of international relations, he was giving then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev the grace to avoid a coup by hard-line communists, almost certain to occur if he were to brag about the West “winning” over communism.

The 1990 budget deal? He was big enough to change his mind on taxes when he recognized that a tax increase was necessary to rescue the nation’s struggling economy. That set the stage for the economic boom of the 1990s. He knew he wouldn’t get the credit. And he fully understood that it might cost him his presidency.

Bush was the embodiment of competence, civility, integrity, courage, humility, selflessness and service to his country, not to his own interests. I miss that.•

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Daniels is a retired partner of Krieg DeVault LLP, a former U.S. Attorney and assistant U.S. attorney general and former president of the Sagamore Institute. Send comments to [email protected].

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