Well, he’s dead at 94. He lived a long time, appears to have chosen his wife badly, and had kids of whom he may have been proud.
He was the best of the Republican Presidents from Reagan on, but still, overall, not very good.
His decision not to go to Baghdad was incorrect, and it allowed lot of Saddam’s enemies to get crushed after he encouraged them to rise. It would have been simple enough, even, to use American air-power to keep the Republican Guard down, and the rebellion would have succeeded. That would have avoided that big mess under his son, Bush, Jr., who appears to have wanted to get Saddam to avenge his father.
The Gulf War was questionable on its face, as Kuwait was created, basically, to keep oil from Iraq, and under the control of a small, very corrupt elite. The execution of the Iraq war included a lot of destruction of civilian infrastructure, including sewage systems. It was a war crime and led to a lot of death and suffering.
Meanwhile, Bush, Sr. was involved in the Iran-Contra scandal: clearly illegal. He won the ’88 election on the back of the Willie Horton ad, a clearly racially incendiary strategy.
He did do a decent job of shepherding the end of the USSR (the aftermath of which was fucked up beyond belief by Clinton, which has lead directly to the current US/Russia problems).
The best of a bad bunch, I suppose. Better than Reagan, his own son, or Trump, that’s for sure.
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