Sins of the Father

PRESIDENT BUSH has gone to great lengths to make it clear that his is not his father’s administration. For two years before he launched his presidential campaign, his aides were spreading the word among conservatives that he was to the right of his old man. Key decisions in 2000 seemed to be motivated in part by a desire to avoid repeating the elder Bush’s perceived mistakes. Dan Quayle was ridiculed as a lightweight. Dick Cheney, whatever else might be said of him, was immune to that attack. The 1992 Republican convention in Houston was depicted by the press as a right-wing festival of hate. So Bush made sure that the 2000 convention would be all sweetness ’n’ light. Philadelphia wasn’t Houston. (Houston wasn’t Houston either, but that’s another story.)

Fear of following in Bush I’s footsteps is also the reason for an otherwise puzzling feature of the administration: its apparent gloominess. Bush and his colleagues have suggested that the country is in deeper trouble than many people believe—Cheney said in December that the economy was possibly “on the front edge of a recession,” and more recently Team Bush has spoken direly of an “energy crisis.” One might expect a sitting administration to accentuate the positive. But George W. surely remembers how much it hurt his father to be seen as oblivious to America’s problems.

About the Author

Ramesh Ponnuru

Ramesh Ponnuru is the editor of National Review, a columnist for the Washington Post, and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Featured Tags

PRESIDENT BUSH has gone to great lengths to make it clear that his is not his father’s administration. For two years before he launched his presidential campaign, his aides were spreading the word among conservatives that he was to the right of his old man. Key decisions in 2000 seemed to be motivated in part by a desire to avoid repeating the elder Bush’s perceived mistakes. Dan Quayle was ridiculed as a lightweight. Dick Cheney, whatever else might be said of him, was immune to that attack. The 1992 Republican convention in Houston was depicted by the press as a right-wing festival of hate. So Bush made sure that the 2000 convention would be all sweetness ’n’ light. Philadelphia wasn’t Houston. (Houston wasn’t Houston either, but that’s another story.)

Fear of following in Bush I’s footsteps is also the reason for an otherwise puzzling feature of the administration: its apparent gloominess. Bush and his colleagues have suggested that the country is in deeper trouble than many people believe—Cheney said in December that the economy was possibly “on the front edge of a recession,” and more recently Team Bush has spoken direly of an “energy crisis.” One might expect a sitting administration to accentuate the positive. But George W. surely remembers how much it hurt his father to be seen as oblivious to America’s problems.