Golis: Bush father and son back-to-back

COLLEGE STATION, Texas

A capacity crowd is jammed into Yankee Stadium. It’s the New York team’s first home game of the 2001 World Series, six weeks after the terror attacks on the World Trade Center.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” intones the stadium announcer, “the president of the United States.”

Cheering fans chant, “U.S.A., U.S.A. …” as George W. Bush emerges from the dugout and strides to the mound. He turns, gives a thumbs up to the crowd and fires a strike.

At the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas, the video is shown because it testifies to the 43rd president’s leadership in the days after 9/11. The moment is electric.

But a visitor can’t help thinking about what might have been - about the good will later squandered in the rush to invade Iraq.

At that moment, the country and the world were united behind the new American president. “We are all Americans,” declared the French newspaper Le Monde on the day after 9/11.

But then came the invasion of Iraq and the ensuing violence and political chaos in the Middle East, the slow response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, the financial markets’ meltdown. It seems a long time ago that George W. Bush threw out the first pitch at the World Series.

We thought of Iraq again a day later, while visiting the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, 180 miles south of Dallas..

The 41st president - Bush 43’s father - led the coalition that won the Gulf War and then decided not to invade Iraq. He understood what we understand even better now - the history of the Middle East is often told in stories of sectarian violence and unintended consequences.

Persuaded by questionable intelligence and promises of an easy victory, Bush 43 made a different choice.

If you visit any presidential library with the expectation of witnessing history complete and unvarnished, you will be disappointed. Presentations guided by the wishes of the former president and bankrolled by his closest friends are bound to put a shine on the former president’s image and otherwise tilt toward a happier interpretation of events.

Speaking at the dedication of the Bush 43 library in 2013, former President Bill Clinton joked that it was the “latest, grandest example of former presidents to rewrite history.”

Even so, the designers of the Bush 43 library, which is on the campus of Southern Methodist University, must have faced special challenges.

His own brother now says the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. “Knowing what we know now,” he said, “… I would not have gone into Iraq.” Jeb Bush, of course, wants to become the 45th president of the United States, following his father, Bush 41, and his brother, Bush 43, into the Oval Office.

Rather than focus on Iraq, the Bush 43 library features broad themes - “Fighting the War on Terror” and “Defend the Homeland” and “The Freedom Agenda” and “Liberty is the Right and Hope of All Humanity.”

A moving remembrance of 9/11 includes twisted shards of steel from the Twin Towers, videos of the burning buildings and a wall bearing the names of all who died - and we are reminded of the shock, sadness, fear and anger of that terrible morning.

An interactive display invites visitors to make their own judgments about decisive moments in Bush’s eight years in office. Other displays emphasize family, faith and Texas, No Child Left Behind and AIDS relief for Africa.

Some will be surprised that the Bush 43 library promotes the president’s success in supporting the environment, immigration, Social Security and Medicare. The environmental protection display, in fact, is larger than the displays dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina or the financial meltdown in 2008.

The library also houses a special exhibition on presidents and baseball.

Vice President Dick Cheney? Blink and you could miss him.

In College Station, the George Bush Library and Museum, opened in 1997 on the campus of Texas A&M University, faced an easier task. More than any other presidential library we’ve seen, it focuses on the totality of the president’s life. The exhibit even includes the 1947 Studebaker he was given when he graduated from college, the car he drove to Texas to start a new life.

Given the older Bush’s remarkable life, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. Born to an influential Connecticut family - his father was a United States senator - Bush 41 was a Naval aviator at age 18, shot down over the Pacific at age 19, a Texas oil man, congressman, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, chairman of the Republican National Committee, U.S. envoy to China, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, vice president and president.

The Bush 41 library tell these stories through hundreds - maybe thousands - of photos of the president and his family.

The Cold War ended during Bush’s short presidency, Germany was re-unified, and the Gulf War was waged and won. After the bitterness of Vietnam, Bush would say, these events were “wonderfully unifying for the country.”

The Bush 41 library also commemorates the 25th anniversary of the president’s signing of the Americans With Disabilities Act. The idea that government would regulate public facilities doesn’t seem very much part of the Republican credo these days, but then, the Republicans of today don’t have much in common with the Republicans of 25 years ago.

In some ways - on immigration, for example - the party seems to have grown more conservative since Bush 43 left office, and that was only 6½ years ago.

The two libraries remind us that they were different, father and son. The younger Bush, raised in Texas, projected a certain swagger.

His father seemed an old-fashioned guy, a Connecticut Yankee trying to make his way in his adopted state. When he lost his bid for a second term, he claimed not be embittered. “See,” he explained, “we never felt any entitlement.”

Pete Golis is a columnist for The Press Democrat. Email him at golispd@gmail.com.