Bush Family Ties Link the Presidential, Paternal

Beginning his presidency, George W. Bush muses briefly about what he would like said of him at the end of it: that he got things done and that “he was steady under fire.” Briefly, because he said it is not his nature to spend a lot of time worrying about legacies.

He already has one as the 43rd president and the son of the 41st.

That has happened only once before, in 1825, when John Quincy Adams, son of the second president, became the sixth. Quincy, the elder Bush sometimes jokingly calls his son.

Adams served only one term, as his father, John Adams, had. That also was the fate of the only three presidents who, like George W. Bush, won in the electoral college without leading the national popular vote. “These historical factoids are meant to be broken,” Bush said.

Not since 1961, when Joseph P. Kennedy saw John F. Kennedy take office, had the father of a president lived to see his son inaugurated.

Bush said his father will be an advisor and sounding board, as the younger Bush sometimes was during the first Bush administration.

“I’m going to bounce things off of him sometimes,” Bush said in an interview in the sparely furnished conference room of the airport at Midland, Texas, his hometown and last stop on the way to Washington and the inauguration. He said father and son would talk at least every two weeks.

The former Texas governor had spoken of his father in his Midland farewell Wednesday. Standing in an icy wind, he told a crowd that swelled across a downtown block that he had never been a cynic about politics. “I’ve seen at close range the positive impact a leader can have. My dad taught me,” Bush said.

The emotion of this political pinnacle for the Bush family--”two presidents and a governor of Florida,” brother Jeb--was told as he talked of the inauguration and term ahead.

Along with the advice of a former president, Bush said, there will be “nothing like having your dad say, ‘Son, I love you,’ ” and tell him he’s doing fine even when he may not be.

In interviews 12 years apart, George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush talked of their presidencies just before entering them, and for a reporter to listen to the one was to remember, and sometimes hear echoes of, the other.

The first President Bush was elected while vice president, which had not happened since Martin Van Buren in 1836. The second narrowly defeated a vice president, Al Gore.

“I want to give it my best shot,” George H.W. Bush said in the interview in 1989. “The presidency is still the place from which to lead and from which to effect change, hopefully for the better.”

Twelve years later, the younger Bush on his hopes for his presidency:

“I hope people will be able to say he was steady under fire, he was wise enough to listen to counsel and decisive enough to make a decision that made a positive difference. And I hope a further legacy is that they actually got something done.”

Bush in 1989: “If it weren’t for this deficit looming over everything else, leave all the rest of the problems in there, I’d feel like a spring colt.”

Bush in 2001: “There are some issues that must be solved, but the biggest crisis that looms is the attitude in Washington . . . the attitude among some that it’s best to tear each other down rather than get something done . . . to practice the art of zero-sum politics as opposed to practicing the art of the possible.”

The first President Bush on dealing with a Democratic Congress: “I’m going to try it my way. . . . They aren’t going to like it all . . . and then we’re going to have to knock heads and sit down and go through a difficult period. But I’m determined to try to do it using--Lyndon Johnson’s words, maybe different methods--let’s reason together.”

The second, on working with a split Senate where the tiebreaking vote is Dick Cheney’s as vice president, and with a barely Republican House: “The expectations are that the close election means that there’s going to be continued bitterness. And I think there’s enough folks up there that really want to say, ‘Why don’t we show America we can rise above it, we can rise above the expectations.’ . . . I’m hopeful.”

The father talked of cooperation but faced congressional gridlock. The son promises to share credit for achievements even with critics, so that they can further their own ambitions by pointing to government success, not failures.

“And that’s one of my jobs, to see how persuasive I can be,” he said.

Finally, the President Bush of 1989 on the critics who had called him a wimp and a lap dog in Ronald Reagan’s White House: “I used to get much more concerned about this. . . . You get a little historical perspective, wait a minute, what’s so new? . . . It was tough before the election. It’s not tough anymore. . . . I’ve been tested by fire. And sometimes I was graceful and sometimes I wasn’t. And I’m going to do better.”

And the President Bush of 2001 on the opponents who said he did not have the experience or depth for the job, that he was not smart enough for the White House: “Yeah, I’ve heard all that. It doesn’t bother me in the least.

“I am comfortable with who I am, and therefore I can smile when people say, ‘He’s not smart enough to be the president,’ and I guess my attitude is, I’m just going to have to show them.”

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Walter R. Mears is retiring this month after nearly 45 years with the Associated Press. He has written AP columns for the last 12 years. His first Sunday column was based on an interview with the first President Bush. This will be his final Sunday column.