His Other Son Makes Me Cry

From the AP news wire:

Former President George H.W. Bush broke down in tears as he cited his son, Gov. Jeb Bush, as an example of leadership.

Bush was addressing lawmakers, his son's top administrators, and state workers gathered in the House chamber Monday for the last of the governor's leadership forums.

He said he was proud of how his son handled losing the 1994 governor's race to popular incumbent Democrat Lawton Chiles, and vaguely referred to dirty tricks in the campaign.

Now, as a simple laborer I'm certainly no psychoanalyst or psychiatrist, but do you think, just maybe, that some of those tears had to do with the fact that Jeb was the one who was supposed to be president, that he was and is the cream of the crop in this family, and that his loss in the governor's race is what killed his presidential hopes? And that maybe, just maybe, the former president knows what a complete mess his other son has created?

Just thinking out loud here.

Here's some more data for you amateur psychologists/sleuths to consider as well. In an interview a few years ago in which Bob Woodward was promoting his book Plan of Attack, there's a very revealing segment. It describes W's reaction about whether he sought advice from his father, Bush the Greater, before making the critical decision about going to war in Iraq. Here's the description from a CBS News story:

Did Mr. Bush ask his father for any advice? “I asked the president about this. And President Bush said, ‘Well, no,’ and then he got defensive about it,” says Woodward. “Then he said something that really struck me. He said of his father, ‘He is the wrong father to appeal to for advice. The wrong father to go to, to appeal to in terms of strength.’ And then he said, ‘There's a higher Father that I appeal to.’"

So Bush the Lesser didn't ask his dad, a man who was president for four years and vice president for eight years and who used to be in charge of the CIA, and who had orchestrated the first Persian gulf war during the early 1990s, for any sort of advice before he decided to go to war in Iraq?

Doesn't it just make you want to cry?

LINKS: The full story on Bush I crying here and, from a few years ago,
a story with info about the prodigal son who didn't ask for dad's advice.