In Memoriam, G.H.W.B.

"This talk of sincerity, I confess, fatigues me. If the fellow was sincere, then so was P. T. Barnum."
H.L. Mencken, 1925

Let the record show, that if my youth was ruined by Ronald Reagan, then my adulthood was brought low by his successor, George Herbert Walker Bush, who died last night at the age of ninety four.
I have a curious flaw, like many of my tribe, I cannot forget a grudge, and if there was a politician against whom I've held a grudge for a long time, it is the First President Bush.
In that respect, he made a good target, patrician-seeming, incoherent on his best days, prone to bouts of indecision, given to hiring men who deserved solitary confinement to run his campaigns, he was indeed a mixture of irritating and unpleasant contradictions.
I will say this though, politics in the USA is sodden with lackeys, fawning obsequious persons who truckle on the mighty that they might trample on all below them (expl: Jared Kushner), the irony is, they rarely achieve power.  Bush Senior, blithely defied this conventional wisdom, blowing past the accumulated corruptions of the Reagan admin (including the vast impeachable offense that was, Iran-Contra), crushing Mike Dukakis in the general election and winning the White House in 1988.
No small achievement given the Republic's ongoing skepticism about Vice Presidents.
Bush must've felt wonderful when he first sat down in the Oval Office, entitled in extremis after years of political jobbery, ass kissing and borderline criminal acts on behalf of Richard Nixon, Jerry Ford and Ronald Reagan.
Indeed if Bush was "A Giant of a Man" its only by comparison to our current roster of pathetic wowsers.
Am I the only one who remember all those scare stories that eructated from the CIA when Bush was Director back in the mid seventies to the effect that the Soviets were running out of oil and were on the brink of blitzkrieging the Middle East?
His career in public service is littered with similar malign zaniness.
The man knew the ineffable zen of running distasteful errands for his bosses sans any questions whatsoever. If you were ever wondering how the hell a brainless jobber like Dan Quayle could become VP, just look to that value structure.
To read the lavish obituary in the Globe today, a veritable Moderate Republican Solon had passed from the scene, but let me ask you, from Clarence Thomas to his broken promises about taxes, exactly what did George Bush ever moderate??
"Win Ugly, Govern Ugly" was a dictum that I put forth back in 2000 when his son seized power, I can credit Junior with far more sincerity on this point. His father thought he could "win ugly" and do as he pleased even posing as a "kinder gentler" conservative (a formulation ever bit as big a joke as Dukakis' infamous tank ride...).
And then of course it all fell apart didn't it? The economy blew up in his face, the electorate forgot about Willy Horton and shoved Bill Clinton into the White House with an audible disaffected grunt.
But...peace to his ashes.
I do feel for his family, they must endure what passes for humane condolences from Donald Trump, no one great or obscure should suffer like that....