The Education President

Dear Former President George H.W. Bush,

Hello. How are you doing? It’s been a long time since we talked, but I figured that it might be nice to get reacquainted. A lot of stuff has happened since the last time you and I spoke.

Well, maybe “spoke” is the wrong word. I should probably rephrase that. You spoke a lot. I mostly listened. I guess you could say that what we shared wasn’t exactly a dialogue, so much as a speech. That being said, I don’t think I’m to blame. After all, I was only 14 at the time and if I had tried to engage you in civilized discourse, your Secret Service probably would have had me removed the premises. Oh, did I mention that when we met, it was a campaign speech and that I was in the audience? That probably goes a long way to explaining why you might not remember me. Don’t feel bad. I wasn’t particularly noticeable, except for the fact that I was carrying a trumpet at the time.

You see, I was in the school band that played for your arrival during the 1992 presidential campaign, so I suppose that even that trumpet in my hands probably didn’t distinguish me too much from the twenty-some odd other kids who had a trumpet just like mine. And that’s to say nothing about the drummers. It was a fairly inauspicious beginning for me, at least politically speaking. But I promise you that I had already gone a long way to mastering my musical talents at that time and played “Anchors Away” and “Hail to the Chief” along with the best of them that day.

Anyway, getting back to the point, a lot has happened in the world since that fall day in 1992. I’ve been through a lot, and while you’ve mostly stayed out of the major world news, with the exception of that sky-diving escapade on your 80^th birthday, I have a feeling that life is a lot different for you now too. I graduated high school, went to college, worked, went to grad school, worked, went back to grad school, voted for the first time, traveled around the world some, and just generally languished about a lot. You’ve seen the construction of your presidential library in College Station, Texas, had an aircraft carrier and an airport named after you, co-authored a couple of books, hit the lecture circuit, worked for the multi-national conglomerate The Carlyle Group, and of course watched your son become President of the United States. All in all, I’d say it’s been a pretty eventful 12 years or so for the both of us.

Now, Mr. President, I’m going to let you in on something that isn’t exactly a secret, but I don’t think its anything that you and I have ever talked about before. The thing is I’m a Democrat. I’m going to be honest with you right now and say that in 1992, my vote would have gone to Mr. Clinton if I had been old enough to actually cast a ballot. In fact, when he ran for reelection in 1996, the year I turned 18, I did vote for him. That being said, I really want to tell you how sincerely sorry I am that you lost that election. Seriously. There’s no liberal propaganda trickery in that statement. I really felt for you when it was announced that the no-name governor from Arkansas had somehow managed to beat a sitting President, especially one who had such high approval ratings during the Gulf War. I remember sitting in civics class and wondering what you were going to do with the two months that you had left in the White House. It seemed like such a loss to be given that time but not really have anything to do. Sad, really. I know that seems strange that I would feel that way, given that I just told you I would have been one of the people voting you out if I’d had the chance, but that’s the duality of life I suppose. And you’re an intelligent man. I’m sure you understand that people can behave in one way but feel contrary to their actions.

But let’s be honest with each other, we both kinda knew it was coming. I mean, there was the whole recession thing. Although, to be fair, you had very little to do with that and your predecessor is really the one who should have stepped up to the plate to address that issue. Again, I’m sorry that the candidate that I liked used that against you. As if that wasn’t enough, my guy was willing to go on MTV and talk about issues of faux intimacy. (Though, I have to admit that it was weirdly prophetic hearing the man-who-would-be-president admit to preferring boxers over briefs considering that it certainly wasn’t going to be the last we would hear about his…ahem…personal business.) And for every time you got to call yourself the “Education President”, he got to say “It’s the economy, stupid!” And really, which one of those is the better rallying cry?

Speaking of quotations from which there is no return, let’s talk about that “read my lips” thing. I’ve got to say, I’m on your side on this one all the way. Yeah, it was a mistake to say that in public. No one likes to hear a president going back on a comment made about taxes. You really should have just kept your mouth shut and maybe things would have been better, but Mr. President you had no choice. Quite frankly, I’m getting a little sick of the heat you’re taking for making that comment. You had a hard choice to make. You were stuck between a rock and Congress when it came to coming up with a budget for the country and after a long battle you had to admit that your most memorable campaign slogan was about to become as irrelevant as your vice president.

So yes, you went back on your word. But here’s my thing: So what? Being president is about making hard choices. And unfortunately, it sometimes means that the promises that are made in one year are no longer valid later on. It is foolish to assume that the world should change while campaign promises remain the same. And while my party rejoiced when you did that and your party groaned and tried to hide behind their Wall Street Journals, I’d just like to say that I respect you for doing what you understood was right. Yes, people criticized and a whole lot of pundits fell back on that fateful phrase when the fledgling all-news-all-the-time networks began to proselytize how your downfall began. But I like to think that in a moment of honesty, you did what you had to do, despite what people would think

I understand that I’ve got some contrition to do for this too. I admit, I laughed at Dana Carvey and his Saturday Night Live impressions of you. What can I say? I was a young teenager and a funny voice coupled with a strange, squinty-eyed look was all the biting political commentary that I could fathom at the time. I’d like to say I’ve moved beyond that phase of my life completely, but in the spirit of a frank and open discussion I’ll admit that to this day I still find myself muttering that that fake nasal, west-Texas accent “Not gonna do it, wouldn’t be prudent” at strange moments.

My point, Mr. President, is that hard choices need to be made. It takes a certain kind to have the strength to run the country and the political graveyard is full of wishy-washy wannabes that made some strong and not-so-strong (are you listening, Senator Lieberman?) arguments about why they should be that person. What isn’t widely understood in our post-modern political discourse is that strength doesn’t just mean having strong convictions. The strongest people waver, not because they’re weak but because they have an inherent need to understand the world. And let’s face it; the world is a confusing place. The more we learn about it, the more we realize that fast and dirty dualism just doesn’t cut it in a world of more than two people. The truly strong are the ones who can go against what they’ve said earlier, not because they’re caught making promises they can’t keep, but because the world around them is not what it was before.

So, why am I bringing this to your doorstep? Why am I asking you to answer this call to arms that I’ve issued? Yes, it is partially because you used to be the president, but that’s not the whole reason. It’s because I think that when push comes to shove you are a better man than you were an elected official. Some may disagree with me. They’ll point to the scandals that you and your family members have been involved in as illustrations of your failings as a parent. But I’m not going to get into the issues about the choices that your children have made with their lives, without saying that I do believe that if you had truly shown them the world rather than just handed it to them, maybe a lot of people would be better off now, but that’s not what strength is about. Make mistakes. It’s okay. We all make them. But learn from them and teach those lessons to others. You called yourself the “Education President.” If you seize this opportunity, you may finally be able to live up to that claim. It could finally be the rallying cry you hoped it was 12 years ago.

Good luck with it, Mr. President. I look forward to seeing what happens.

Sincerely,

Clovis