The November 16 issue of Time carried a book excerpt from former Newsweek editor Jon Meacham’s new book lauding former president George H.W. Bush – especially in contrast to "divisive" and unreasonable right-wingers like Newt Gingrich.
The headline was “The fractious GOP tormenting Jeb Bush took shape during the presidency of his father.” Uh, “tormenting”? Can’t there just be a debate? Or would Time suggest Bernie Sanders is “tormenting” Hillary Clinton from the left right now?
As Meacham tells it, Bush 41 was “bedeviled” by the conservatives even back then as he met with congressmen Newt Gingrich and Vin Weber, and Gingrich asked the president what his biggest fear about them was. “I’m worried that sometimes your idealism will get in the way of what I think is sound governance,” he reportedly said. Meacham added:
He’d used the term idealism but could as easily have used ideology or purity. [Italics his.] Republicans like Gingrich were different from Republicans like Bush. The former believed that politics was total war; the latter, the art of the possible. And the roots of today’s fractious Republican Party – a party that’s bedeviling Jeb Bush – can in many ways be traced to the rise (and ultimate revolt) of the GOP’s right wing during the presidency of his father.
Gingrich’s rise in 1989 signaled a significant shift: a divisive kind of politics that put ideological purity above centrist compromise.
Earth to Meacham: What did Ted Kennedy represent in 1989? Centrist compromise? What Meacham and Time are saying is that liberals liked their Republicans to be like Bush and Gerry Ford: go-along, get-along, always looking for half a loaf and ending up with crumbs.
After discussing Bush making a budget deal in 1990 that shattered his campaign promise “Read my lips, no new taxes,” Meacham repeated himself:
The lesson of Gingrich’s rise was that headlines, votes, and the dollars of devoted donors were to be won on the extremes. And so it has remained. The GOP revolution of 1990 pre-saged the Tea Party rebellion and the anti-Establishment mood that drives the Republican campaign of 2016. It may cost Jeb his chance at the White House.
Meacham makes no attempt to tell the reader what happened when Gingrich walked and Bush raised taxes: the deficit went through the roof, and then Bill Clinton blamed that on Bush and defeated him. Likewise, his chat about “extremes” never mentions the fiscal extremes of President Obama’s deficits that drove the Tea Party “rebellion.” There are no left-wing extremes.
Meacham’s little excerpt also avoids the corrupt Democrat House Speaker Jim Wright, whose resignation in 1989 was spawned by “divisive” arguments against corruption by Gingrich.
By the way, it probably goes without saying that Time was completely under the spell of liberal Democrats in 1989 was not shy about being “divisive” about Bush. From our Best Notable Quotables of 1989, the winners of the “No Agenda Here Award”:
"[Bush strategist Lee] Atwater's fouling the civic atmosphere with vicious misinformation is bad enough; compounding that with the White House hypocrisy is too much. If Bush really wants to prove himself a political environmentalist in search of a kinder, gentler America, he should sack Atwater." -- Time's Laurence Barrett in sidebar to a June 19, 1989 article on the [Speaker Thomas] "Foley memo."
"At the same time, Atwater -- who cut his political teeth as a protege of South Carolina's once segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond -- downplayed his role in devising the crypto-racist Willie Horton ads that helped Bush win the White House. 'That's in the past,' he insisted." -- Time reporters Jacob V. Lamar and Alessandra Stanley in the March 20, 1989 issue.
But Time was in love with Jimmy Carter, and our "Real Jimmy Carter Award":
"Perhaps the Democrat who best personifies this republic of virtue is former President Jimmy Carter. His reputation burnished by the elevated tone of his retirement, Carter would actually bring to the task energy, integrity and his legendary distaste for congressional business as usual. He could even boast a made-to-order campaign slogan: 'After the Wright stuff, why not the best?'" -- Time Senior Writer and former Carter Administration official Margaret Carlson recommending a new House Speaker, June 5, 1989 issue.
"While Reagan peddles his time and talents to the highest bidder and Gerald Ford perfects his putt and Richard Nixon struggles to gain a toehold in history, Carter, like some jazzed superhero, circles the globe at 30,000 ft., seeking opportunities to Do Good." -- Stanley Cloud, Time Washington Bureau Chief, September 11, 1989 issue.
PS: Meacham closed with a note from Bush 41 caving on gay marriage: “Personally, I still believe in traditional marriage. But people should be able to do what they want to do, without discrimination. People have a right to be happy. I guess you could say that I have mellowed.”
I guess you could say that he never met a conservative principle he wouldn’t abandon in pursuit of praise from liberals. Even his courtship of liberal Meacham as his house historian proves it.
