WASHINGTON — The son watched his father, vowing not to repeat his mistakes.
The weekend before George W. Bush defeated incumbent Ann Richards in the 1994 Texas gubernatorial race, he stood in the backyard of his Dallas home hitting tennis balls into the swimming pool for his dog to fetch and ruminated about the future with his media strategist, Don Sipple.
“At one point, Bush talked about his father, and he said, ‘Sip, my man, don’t underestimate what you can learn from a failed presidency,’ ” recalled Wayne Slater, a political reporter for The Dallas Morning News and one of Bush’s earliest biographers.
With that harsh assessment long before he took office as the 43rd president of the United States, Bush had decided he would do things differently from his father. As he prepares to leave office after eight years, though, there are many similarities he might have wished to avoid as part of the second father-son presidential duo in history.
Both Bushes saw extreme highs in public opinion. George H.W. Bush won accolades for his handling of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and forcing Iraq out of Kuwait. His son calmed a frightened nation in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Both saw their presidencies swamped by public dismay.
George H.W. Bush was castigated for being out of touch as the economy foundered and he seemingly could not relate. His son was pilloried for poor handling of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Later he was criticized for an ideological rigidity that delayed early, forceful intervention as the economy careened into a ditch far deeper than during his father’s tenure.
As George W. Bush prepares to return to Texas, historians will judge his legacy and judge him in the context of his father’s single term as president.
“The likelihood is that the father will be looked upon as a steadier hand and better prepared for the job,” said Bruce Buchanan, professor of government at the University of Texas who specializes in the presidency.
Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, calls the senior Bush “dramatically more accomplished” on both foreign and domestic policy than his son. Still, he said, “They are in fact going to be doing chin-ups on the bottom tier of presidents in modern history.”
George W. Bush set out to be a far different president from his father. He wanted his time in office to be of consequence. He wanted to spend political capital on matters that would endure, something he thought his father did not do after the Gulf War.
“It was an aspect of his personality, and this clearly stated intent that if he was to go to the White House, he wanted to do something,” Slater said. “He was not going to be someone who would just be seen as a placeholder.”
Despite the younger Bush’s cold-eyed assessment of his father’s presidency, both have said in recent interviews that it was more painful to see the other criticized.
But despite his love and affection for his father, George W. Bush also thought there were problems with his dad’s administration.
“He felt like his father relied on a lot of the Washington establishment and people who did not necessarily have his interest at heart,” said Charles Black Jr., a longtime Republican strategist.
Bush took office in 2001 with a coterie of Texas loyalists mistrustful of Washington players. His plan was to run a tighter ship. He wanted better message control in the White House and members of his Cabinet kept on a shorter leash.
Still, his time in the White House didn’t turn out as he had planned, thanks in part to events outside his control, such as the Sept. 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina.
“I remember sitting in his office in Austin in the summer of 1998 and he said, ‘If I run, here’s the six things I’m going to do,’ ” Black recalled. “And they were the six things he ran on in the whole 2000 campaign. He got some of them done, but none of them ended up having the priority of fighting the war on terror and homeland security.”
