Through his presidency, George W. Bush has worked hard to avoid repeating the
mistakes of his father. He has done almost everything differently, yet now finds
himself in the same hole despite trumping his dad by winning a second term.
President Bush, right,
and his father, former President George H.W. Bush, wave as they leave St.
John's Church in Washington in this May 6, 2006, file photo. Through his
presidency, President Bush has worked hard to avoid repeating the mistakes
of his father. But having done almost everything differently, he now finds
himself dug into the same hole - even though he did trump his father by
winning a second term. [AP] |
He is roughly at the same place in the polls where the elder Bush was at the
low point of his presidency, with only about three of every 10 Americans
registering approval. Like his father before him, this president faces a
rebellion among conservatives, an uncertain economic outlook and the prospect of
Republican losses in November.
The first President Bush liked to quote Yogi Berra, his favorite pop
philosopher, and his curious take on a baseball loss: "We made too many wrong
mistakes."
What were the biggest mistakes of George W. Bush's presidency? When asked
that at an April 2004 news conference, he said he could not think of any. A far
more subdued Bush now acknowledges some major ones and not the ones his father
made.
They include "kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal to
people," Bush said at a Thursday news conference with British Prime Minister
Tony Blair. He said the inhumane treatment of Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu
Ghraib prison was one of the darkest marks on his watch.
"Now I think he wishes he had not taken a blanket view that everything his
father did was wrong," said Bruce Buchanan, a University of Texas professor who
has closely studied the Bush family. "Staying out of Baghdad looks like a
brilliant move at this point." During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the first
President Bush did not send U.S. troops into Baghdad to oust President Saddam
Hussein after the U.S.-led coalition ousted the Iraqi arm from Kuwait.
The current president says the 2003 invasion that drove Saddam from power was
right.
A recent AP-Ipsos poll put Bush's approval rating at 33 percent Other polls
have put him even lower. Bush the elder sunk to 29 percent in a Gallup poll in
early August 1992 soon after Democrats nominated Bill Clinton.
The differences are most pronounced on Iraq. They also extend to the Bushes'
attitudes on international institutions, government spending and taxes and
fealty to conservatives.
"If you didn't know them, if you came from Mars and became a student of both
presidencies, you wouldn't know they were father and son," said Republican
strategist Ed Rogers, an official in the first Bush White House.
Still, Rogers said, the president "is definitely moving
toward his father in terms of having a better sense of history and a better
understanding of the U.S. and its place in the world." His acknowledgment of
errors in Iraq "was a long way from the president who couldn't think of a single
mistake," Rogers said.
