George Herbert Walker Bush (1924-2018)

Navy fighter pilot in World War II.  Congressman.  United Nations ambassador.  Republican National Committee chair.  CIA director.  Ronald Reagan's vice-president.  President for one term.  Sons who became state governors, one of whom became a two-term president.  Impressive resume, no?

For George Herbert Walker Bush, service was his life and legacy.  His story ended with his death on Friday at age 94, months after wife Barbara passed.

As President from 1989-93, Bush not only benefited from the continued popularity of Reagan and an ugly campaign that was the template for others to come (Willie Horton, anyone?), but for also being present as history turned a corner.  The Berlin Wall came down.  Germany reunited.  The Soviet Union collapsed.

Bush also waged war on Iraq when Saddam Hussein's army invaded Kuwait.  U.S. and coalition forces drove them out, then stopped just short of Baghdad before the first gulf war ended.  Soldiers returned to ticker tape parades, though as it turned out they were premature, as ten years and another Bush presidency were needed to finish the job.

Now, with a sky-high approval rating for winning the war, George Herbert Walker Bush could have waltzed into a second term with a landslide victory.  But that was 1991.  In 1992, as the economy went south and "read my lips, no new taxes" was just a campaign promise, Bush was defeated for a second term by Democrat Bill Clinton, with an assist from independent H. Ross Perot.

George Herbert Walker Bush is being remembered as the last of the nice guys in government, going up through the ranks to earn his just reward.  These days, with a President whose main accomplishments were being insanely rich enough to fund his own campaign, hosting his own reality TV show and pissing people off wherever he goes, that's not good enough.  Nice guys finish last, and for that he'll be missed.