I love George W. Bush. I think we were blessed to have him as president.
Well, he’s still younger than the United States.
I’d be disappointed if I found out that former President George W. Bush, hasn’t been making that joke for a few days, at least, leading up to his 80th birthday today.
If we were a little more justice obsessed and less ideologically/politically obsessed, I still contend the man should have received the Nobel Peace Prize for the AIDs in Africa program, PEPFAR. It saved lives. It changed culture. It made for extraordinary odd coalition partners — and that’s a wonderful thing.
(And, yes, DOGE ran roughshod over the program. I always assumed unintentionally; and yet it was a bull in a china shop — except this china shop involved vulnerable human lives. Nicholas Kristof has a bizarre way of celebrating America 250 — this weekend, he had a more Nordic vibe — and when he’s wrong, he can be recklessly so, but he’s not wrong to remind people there was harm done there.)
Bush is a good man, by so many testimonies — and my own, albeit limited, interactions with him. The most important thing to know about him is his faith in God — and we sure saw that on display in the days after 9/11. And he — never mind we — will never know the impact his public discussion of faith in God has impacted people.
David Gregory’s gratitude has been the most moving to me. For years, I confess, I used to use an exchange he had with Republican Representative Michele Bachmann — she was running for president at the time — as an example of the secularization of our culture, especially but not exclusively in politics. He grilled her on her use of faith on the campaign trail. In his questioning, he described the point of religion as being a safe harbor in a storm — not something you exactly organize your life around.
Well, then one day in 2008, the president of the United States asked Gregory: “How’s your faith?” Suffice it to say, Gregory was on a journey with God that wasn’t keeping Him relegated to crisis or a house of worship.
Google reminded me that I wrote this about W. when Gregory’s book, How’s Your Faith?: An Unlikely Spiritual Journey came out (a decade ago):
Reading of Gregory’s experience reminded me of one of my own interactions with the president, not long after he was out of office. He had written his memoir Decision Points, and his own faith rose to the surface as he reflected on how he approached his responsibilities and decisions. You don’t have to agree with all his decisions to see that his faith was more than a “sense of comfort” and “safe harbor,” as Gregory had once described it in a question to a Republican presidential-primary candidate several cycles ago. It was, as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas once described to me his own faith, “his North Star.” It guided and inspired and humbled Bush, giving him more strength and power than any elected office or esteemed position in the world.
In Decision Points, Bush recalls that a conversation with Billy Graham in the summer of 1985 “had planted a seed,” making “the soul less firm and the brambles less thick” at a time in his life when he had decided to quit drinking. He started reading the Bible and matured in his understanding of what a life of faith meant. “Surrender to an Almighty is a challenge to the ego,” he writes. “But I came to realize that struggles and doubts are natural parts of faith. If you haven’t doubted, you probably haven’t thought very hard about what you believe.” He goes on to say: “That realization freed me to recognize signs of God’s presence. . . . Prayer was the nourishment that sustained me.” He also points out that “self-improvement isn’t really the point of the Bible,” although he knows that God works on him to make him a better man. “The center of Christianity is not the self. It is Christ.”
I am terrible about predictions — just ask me what I was saying during the last papal conclave, for one. And I sure would never have guessed one of his daughters would become a Today Show sensation. But she seems very good at that second-hour thing and news — the latter may have been helped by having a father and grandfather who were both POTUS.
In his 2010 Book, W. also wrote about the blessing of his girls — and their human lives and all human life:
When I saw Barbara and Jenna on the sonogram for the first time, there was no doubt in my mind that they were distinct and alive. The fact that they could not speak for themselves only enhanced society’s duty to defend them.
Many decent and thoughtful people disagreed, including members of my family. I understood their reasons and respected their views. As president, I had no desire to condemn millions as sinners or dump new fuel on raging cultural fires. I did feel a responsibility to voice my pro-life convictions and lead the country toward what Pope John Paul II called a culture of life. I was convinced that most Americans agreed we would be better off with few abortions. (112)
Bob Casey, the late Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, said it best: “When we look at the unborn child, the real issue is not when life begins, but when love begins.”
And he was courageous and wise on embryonic-stem-cell research, and his position stands the test of time — what was the hot new thing to try was not as fruitful as the enthusiasts hoped. He wrote:
The more I learned, the more questions I had. . . . In the years to come, our nation will face more dilemmas about bioethics, from cloning to genetic engineering. History will judge the character of our country in large part by the way we answer these challenges to human dignity. I have faith, as I did when I announced my stem-cell decision in 2001, that science and ethics can coexist. With thoughtful policy, we can usher in the new cures that Nancy Reagan hoped for, without moving toward the world foreseen by Aldous Huxley.
Anyway, happy 80th birthday, George W. Bush. You’re 170 years younger than our beloved country.
Speaking of: I love George W. Bush. I think we were blessed to have him as president. It was always my sense that he prayed, that he was humble, that he encountered the office as a noble one, a job that required a reverence for history, human life, and the future.
And, on his 80th, as we continue to celebrate 250 years of this country, it wouldn’t hurt to reread what he said at the National Cathedral on Sept. 14, after the attacks on our nation — on freedom and goodness themselves:
Grief and tragedy and hatred are only for a time. Goodness, remembrance, and love have no end. And the Lord of life holds all who die, and all who mourn.
It is said that adversity introduces us to ourselves. This is true of a nation as well. In this trial, we have been reminded, and the world has seen, that our fellow Americans are generous and kind, resourceful and brave. We see our national character in rescuers working past exhaustion; in long lines of blood donors; in thousands of citizens who have asked to work and serve in any way possible.
And we have seen our national character in eloquent acts of sacrifice. Inside the World Trade Center, one man who could have saved himself stayed until the end at the side of his quadriplegic friend. A beloved priest died giving the last rites to a firefighter. Two office workers, finding a disabled stranger, carried her down sixty-eight floors to safety. A group of men drove through the night from Dallas to Washington to bring skin grafts for burn victims.
In these acts, and in many others, Americans showed a deep commitment to one another, and an abiding love for our country. Today, we feel what Franklin Roosevelt called the warm courage of national unity. This is a unity of every faith, and every background.
It has joined together political parties in both houses of Congress. It is evident in services of prayer and candlelight vigils, and American flags, which are displayed in pride, and wave in defiance.
Our unity is a kinship of grief, and a steadfast resolve to prevail against our enemies. And this unity against terror is now extending across the world.
America is a nation full of good fortune, with so much to be grateful for. But we are not spared from suffering. In every generation, the world has produced enemies of human freedom. They have attacked America, because we are freedom’s home and defender. And the commitment of our fathers is now the calling of our time.
God bless George W. Bush!
And please, Lord, grant us more good men — and women — to serve. Nourish and protect them.