Congressional Record, Volume 164 Issue 191 (Tuesday, December 4, 2018)

[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 191 (Tuesday, December 4, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7266-S7273]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

REMEMBERING GEORGE H.W. BUSH

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I am honored to join my colleagues here to
talk about President Bush. The outpouring of appreciation from the
country has been significant.
His son, the 43rd President, said that it takes a long time for the
determinations of history to come in. I think the 41st President had
almost 25 years for people to begin to put his Presidency in the right
kind of historical reference, the right context of looking back and
seeing not only what happened then but what has happened since then
because of what happened then. I am pleased that he and Barbara were
able to live long enough after that significant Presidency to see what
happened.
Certainly in Missouri, we claim part of the Bush family. His mother
grew up in Missouri. The Walkers were from Missouri. He treated
Missouri like it was one of the States that he was connected to by
relationship. His grandfather and later his Uncle Herbert and the rest
of the family would go in the summer to Walker's Point, named after
that Missouri part of his family, just like the Walker Cup is named
after that part of his family.
The impact of his mother is pretty great. I heard the President
talking the other day, in an interview with Jenna Bush, about whom he
would look for when he got to Heaven. That was a couple of years ago, I
think. He said: Well, if Barbara has gone there first, I think the
right answer would be that I am going to look for her first. But then
he said: I think my mom and my dad, and he said their daughter Robin,
whom they lost when she was 3 years old.
So his mother was an important part of his life. You could tell that
when talking to him or to his children, when they remembered their
grandmother, and you could see a lot of what she taught him in him,
including that competitive nature. They don't name sporting cups after
your family unless your family begins in competition. There was that
competitive nature, but that was also based on never bragging about
yourself. To be a real competitor like the President was and not brag
about yourself is not always an easy thing, but, certainly, maybe to
his political detriment, it was part of his upbringing.
Another part of his upbringing included, in many ways, the best
values of that World War II generation: Stand up straight, take
responsibility, share credit, and take blame. Those were all part of
who George Herbert Walker Bush had become--that idea that you should do
what you are supposed to do and that idea of the importance of service
to others. If you are going to be part of the team, if you are
President Bush--I heard Jon Meacham, his biographer, say that he tried
to kind of get into the depth of that: What about this commitment to
service, and aren't there lots of ways to do that, and can't you have
service without recognition? But President Bush, understanding the
conflict, actually, in what he believed and the profession he had
pursued said: Well, there is nothing wrong if you are going to be on
the team to want to be captain of the team, whether it is captain of
the Yale baseball team, which he was, or the President of the United
States.
The Yale baseball team leads me to another thing that the Presiding
Officer and I know when we think about him; that is, the willingness as
a young man to serve--and to serve immediately. In fact, at 17, still
in high school, after Pearl Harbor, he talked about going to Canada to
join the Canadian Air Corps because you could do that at 17, but in our
country you couldn't join the Air Corps until 18. There was no Air
Force yet. It was the Army Air Corps or the Navy Air Corps. He was
persuaded by, I assume, his mom and dad, and others, by saying: Well,
let's finish high school first, and then when you are 18, you can join
the U.S. Air Corps. He did that, I believe, on his 18th birthday, or
really close to his 18th birthday, to become then the youngest aviator
in the war at the time when he got his flying credentials and serving
in that way. That was part of that generation.
Then, the war was over, and he and Barbara get married right before
the war ended. Then he goes to college. That young man with a wife and
a baby goes to college and becomes the captain of the baseball team. He
was a man with really always great athletic ability and great grace in
so many ways. He had grace under pressure and grace with others, but
grace in sports, as well, and the ability to do that.
Now, when you are the captain of the Yale baseball team, you can talk
a lot about the team instead of yourself. When you decide to enter
politics, there is an almost total contradiction between pursuing
political office and not talking about yourself. It just doesn't quite
work that way. You have to be willing to do that. We could always see
in President Bush that reluctance to cross the line his mother had
taught him and talk about himself and talk about his accomplishments.
Even at his best, he was held back, in many ways, by that reluctance--
what he would see as bragging on himself.
His public service was significant and broad-based. I believe you
could make the case that perhaps no one had ever been better prepared
to be President than George Herbert Walker Bush, but in that effort to
become President, you have to run first. I remember in 1980 hearing
Barbara Bush talking about this. I remember this because it was so
unusual. I don't remember anybody else saying anything like this when
they decided to run for President in 1980. When he ran for President, I
heard Barbara Bush say this when asked: This guy has run for Congress
once; it is the only elected office he has ever had, the House of
Representatives and reelected. And she said: Yes, but George has a big
family and thousands of friends.

Now we see, at the end of his life, how that network of friends
continued to be an important part of who he was, but I don't recall a
single other person ever successfully running for President on the
basis that he had a big family and lots of friends. But that was his
unique way to associate with people, which included the thousands of
letters he wrote. As the Vice President said yesterday, he wrote to
friends over the years, and as it turned out, in retirement. He wrote
letters to almost anybody who would write him. He would respond as,
again, his mother probably taught him to do: If somebody takes the time
to write you, you take the time to write them back. He was a man of
appreciation and thank-you notes and sympathy notes. So that network of
friends and family eventually became very important.
Now, where I live in Missouri, we were the ultimate bellwether State
for about 100 years. My friend from Ohio would come close to being able
to take that crown for a while. Ohio has usually been a winner in
Presidential elections. But for 100 years, from 1904 to 2004, we voted
for the winner every time but one. So that last part of that--that last
20 years of that time period--very much is the time period where
President Bush 41 and Bush 43, for that matter, were part of national
politics.
Missouri would have been a significant place for him anyway. His
brother lived there--his younger brother Bucky, who passed away in the
last few years--and Ambassador Burt Walker was there. So there are lots
of interrelated and connected family members.
So we saw Candidate Bush and then Vice President Bush and then
President Bush in our State a lot. I was the elected secretary of State
when he was Vice President, and I was the secretary of State when he
was President. So I had the chance to benefit from knowing him.
I had a chance to go to Walker's Point a few times and to go to
church with the Bushes. If you were with the Bushes on a Sunday, either
you were

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going to be left by yourself or you were going to go to church, because
that was as much a part of who President Bush was as anything else--
maybe a bigger part than anything else.
He said that in his faith--the Episcopal faith. Maybe he wasn't about
sharing publicly his faith, but he was absolutely committed to his
faith. In fact, he raised the money to build a chapel at Camp David
during his Presidency. There had not been a chapel there before. A
number of Presidents, starting with Franklin Roosevelt, had used Camp
David, but it was President Bush who decided: Well, church services on
Sunday in the cafeteria could be in a better place; let's do what we
can.
So he raised the money privately to build the chapel that is there
today.
The Missouri connection goes a little bit further. Not only did
Missouri vote for President Bush in 1988--and if my story is going to
have any truth to it, I would have to point out that Missouri voted for
Bill Clinton in 1992, because we were still voting for the winner by
pretty much the margin of whatever the national average was in the last
50 years of that 100-year saga.
After Desert Storm, President Bush looked around to find a place to
do the first Fourth of July parade, and he came to Marshfield, MO, in
the county where I was born--Webster County. I was going to be grand
marshal of the parade that year, as I recall, but when it became
apparent that the President wanted to come to be in that parade, I was
more than willing to concede that he should be the grand marshal of
that parade, and I walked not too far behind him.
Then, in 1992, after the convention--I believe it was the first
kickoff--the first campaign kickoff was at Branson, MO, and I had the
chance to be there with him. We went to a country music show at the Moe
Bandy Theater. Loretta Lynn was sitting with the President and Mrs.
Bush, and their good friend from Texas, Moe Bandy, was performing. That
was a part of America and a part of our music that the President loved.
I think the kickoff rally itself was outside in the parking lot, at
Silver Dollar City, and the Herschend family was there. JoDee Herschend
just this week died, as well, after a long fight with cancer.
All of those connections go back to the big family and thousands of
friends. There was nowhere in that matrix that I just talked about
where President Bush didn't leave with more friends than he had when he
came--friends whom many times he figured out how to develop a lifelong
connection to.
All of us could use more of that skill. There is social media and the
quick response, but the letter writing and the phone calling and the
thinking about when you need to reach out to people in a way they can
transparently feel it continues to be important. The other things are
not unimportant, either, but his connectedness took a little more
effort than some of ours do.
Let me just say, in terms of preparation and how it paid off, he was
CIA Director, a Member of Congress, one of the very first Envoys to
China, before we had official relationships, Envoy to the United
Nations, Vice President of the United States, and his making
connections and contacts and friendships.
There was Desert Storm. Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait, and the
President says: ``This will not stand.'' He assembled what may have
been the greatest coalition of nations at any time. The nations that
weren't willing to fight were often willing to help others to pay for
the fight. I don't know if anybody else could have put that coalition
together the way President Bush did, but he put that coalition together
with maximum force and to guarantee minimum loss and suddenly freed
Kuwait and showed that the United States was still going to stand up
for people who couldn't stand up for themselves.
Then, there was the collapse of the Soviet Union. We have just enough
time now to look back. I have heard many others over the last few days
talk about how that could have gone so badly wrong for all of the other
countries that were trying to emerge from the domination of Russia and
the Soviet Union. But George Herbert Walker Bush was on the phone,
reaching out, talking to leaders, saying the things that actually had
just been predicted by the West Germans themselves to be impossible--
that, somehow, East Germany could become part of West Germany. That is
exactly what happened. The President encouraged, stood beside, and went
out of the way to be sure that Helmut Kohl, the leader of West Germany,
had the kind of support that he and his government needed. He reached
out to bring this country, which had been isolated for 40 years, back
as part of their country and into the country. So all of these East
European countries that were emerging from Soviet domination had a
chance to move from domination to democracy. That would not have
happened the way it happened if somebody less prepared and less capable
had been there. Character paid off then, and character is being
recognized today for the value it has. As thousands have walked by the
casket in the Rotunda of the Capitol of the United States of America,
millions of others have thought about what a life of character means,
about what the willingness to take responsibility means, and about how
important it is to share credit, to take blame, to be prepared, and to
believe there is great value and virtue in serving others. That is what
George Herbert Walker Bush did.

As we think back at the impact he and Mrs. Bush and their family have
had on the country, there is a great lesson to be learned. I hope we
are all taking time to learn it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, the Presiding Officer knows I spent a
little time in the Navy. So did my father. My father enlisted in the
Navy right before World War II broke out. He was not 18.
George Herbert Walker Bush, I think on his 18th birthday, just out of
high school, enlisted in the Navy as a seaman second class. About a
year later, he was off to Corpus Christi Naval Air Station, where I
earned my wings as a naval flight officer a long time ago. He became an
ensign, I think at the age of 19, and became, maybe, the youngest Navy
pilot around that time that they had in the Navy, if you can believe
that. A year or so later, I think in September of 1943, he was on the
USS San Jacinto in the Pacific and flew avenger bombers with the 3rd
Fleet and 6th Fleet. When you think about it, at that point in time he
must have been about 20 years old, flying avenger bombers. That is
pretty amazing.
When I was 20 years, I was a sophomore or junior at Ohio State. The
idea of flying missions, as we did stuff in the summers with Navy ROTC
in Corpus Christi, flying airplanes and so forth--to be flying missions
in the Pacific theater in the middle of World War II is pretty
astounding.
In 1944, he would have been maybe 20 years old, not quite 21. He was
a lieutenant JG. I think I made lieutenant JG when I was 22 or so. But
later that year, in 1944, when he was still about 20 years old, he was
shot down off the coast of Chichijima by a Japanese anti-aircraft flier
while flying a mission to bomb an enemy radio site located on the Bonin
Islands about 600 miles south of Japan. In some of my missions during
the Vietnam war, we flew by there. He was rescued by the U.S. submarine
Finback after he had floated around the ocean for a while in an
inflated raft. God bless the folks on the Finback. They somehow found
out he was out there and found him. It was like finding a needle in a
haystack. I have done a fair number of search and rescue missions out
of a P-3 airplane. To find somebody on a little dingy from an airplane
is hard enough, but to find them from a submarine is even more
difficult. It is miraculous to me that on September 2, 1944, they found
him and saved him.
In November of 1944, he returned to his ship, the USS San Jacinto,
and participated in operations in the Philippines until his squadron
was sent home. I have some fond memories of operating missions in the
South China Sea out of the Philippines and off the coast of Southeast
Asia. But his career took him there. I think at that time he was about
21, an old guy, in the Navy.
A year or so later, in September of 1945, he was discharged from the
Navy. He had served 58 combat missions during World War II, for which
he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. You don't get much
better than a Distinguished Flying Cross. So there were three air
medals--I had one, and this guy had three--and the Presidential Unit
Citation awarded to his

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ship, of which he was a member for a number of years. That is one heck
of a record for a guy who signed up as a seaman second class at the age
of 18 and 3 years later finished up after flying all those missions
when he was 21. I am still thinking about what I was doing when I was
21. I wasn't doing this. I was looking forward to going into the Navy
on Active Duty and ended up in Southeast Asia with John McCain, from
Arizona, one of our colleagues and the Presiding Officer's wingman in
the Senate for a number of years.
I had never met George Bush when he was on Active Duty or in the
Navy. I was not yet born. My dad served about the same time, never at
the same time at the same duty station, although they both spent a fair
amount of time in airplanes. My dad was a chief petty officer.
My guess is that George Bush got pretty good leadership training from
his parents, but, starting from the age of 18, the Navy took over and
provided him with exceptional leadership training. I would like to
think some others--including John McCain, hopefully yours truly, and
some others with whom we served, not just in World War II but in
subsequent wars, including Vietnam and even today--received great
leadership training in the military. George Herbert Walker Bush was
trained, as was I and as were many of our peers, that leaders are
humble, not haughty. Think about that: Leaders are humble, not haughty.
Speeches were given last week as we gathered in the Capitol, and
thousands of people have walked by his casket since. If there was ever
a leader I have met who was humble, not haughty, it was George Herbert
Walker Bush.

He was trained that leaders lead by their example. It is not do as I
say, but do as I do. That is what he was like. He had the heart of a
servant throughout his life. I can't remember all of the different
roles in which he served. Maybe our Presiding Officer can help me;
maybe the Senator from Tennessee who has joined me can fill in the
blanks. But it was a pretty amazing career, which includes jobs I
wasn't even mindful of. A lot of us remember he was head of the CIA.
Everybody knows he was President and Vice President. But there were so
many other jobs--Ambassador to China and a host of other challenging
positions--that he fulfilled every step of his life.
He was a Congressman and served in the House for 4 years. This is
really instructive; if Senator Alexander would correct me if I am
wrong, my recollection is that he ran for the U.S. Senate not once but
twice and was not successful either time. Sometimes we learn more when
we are unsuccessful than when we are successful.
He was the kind of leader who thought that part of being a leader is
staying out of step when everybody else is marching to the wrong tune.
He was the kind of leader who felt that a leader should be aspirational
and appeal to people's better angels. He was the kind of leader who
surrounded himself with really good people. I have known a bunch of
them, and so have some of you. He surrounded himself with exceptional
people.
He was the sort of leader who, when the team did well, he would give
credit to the team, and when the team fell short, he would take the
blame. He was one of those leaders who actually sought to unite people,
not divide people. We hear a lot these days about building bridges and
building walls. He was a bridge builder, never much for building walls.
One of my favorite quotes about politics is that our friends come and
go, but our enemies accumulate. All of those years, the people he ran
against--Bill Clinton certainly comes to mind, but others, as well--had
great affection for him and loved him. There is some secret there that
the rest of us could probably learn from.
The other thing I am especially mindful of him as a leader is that he
was interested in doing what was right--not what was easy or expedient,
but what was right. He treated other people the way he wanted to be
treated--the Golden Rule. He was interested in doing things well, and
he wanted people around him to do things well--sort of like, if it
isn't perfect, make it better. He was not one to give up.
For those reasons, and others, I would like to say that he was the
kind of leader we need more of in both parties--here, in the executive
branch, and in other branches of our government. We could use more like
him, men and women. But those of us who were lucky enough to be around
him, to learn from him, and to see him in action, whether he was
successful or not--it was a great opportunity for us.
I have the opportunity now to serve as the senior Democrat on the
Environment and Public Works Committee; our chair is John Barrasso. The
chairman of the HELP Committee is here on the floor today, Senator
Alexander. He and I, in earlier days--when he was a member of the
Public Works Committee--worked on the Clear Skies legislation.
President George W. Bush, the son of President George Herbert Walker
Bush, proposed something called Clear Skies legislation--sulfur
dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and mercury. As I recall, Senator Alexander
and I, maybe along with Senator Voinovich of Ohio, worked on something.
I call it ``Really Clear Skies'' because sulfur dioxide, nitrogen
oxide, and mercury make CO2, carbon dioxide.
Much has been made of late of the environmental record of Richard
Nixon. I never thought I would be extolling the virtues of Richard
Nixon as our President, but I have quite a bit in the last several
years as the senior Democrat on the Environment and Public Works
Committee. I am the only Democrat I know who quotes President Nixon.
Richard Nixon said, among other things, that the only people who don't
make mistakes are people who don't do anything. Isn't that good? The
only people who don't make mistakes are people who don't do anything.
We all make mistakes. I probably learn more from my mistakes than from
the things I have done right.
People talk about the environmental legacy of Richard Nixon. He
signed legislation creating the EPA; he signed legislation creating the
Clean Air Act; he signed legislation creating the Clean Water Act. He
did some amazing stuff, for a Republican President, with respect to the
environment.
Not as much has been made of George Herbert Walker Bush's
environmental record, but I have some notes that I am going to refer to
here to help refresh my memory and maybe expand a little on what others
know.
In the House of Representatives, when we were working on the 1990
amendments of the Clean Air Act, I had the opportunity to coauthor a
couple of little pieces of that legislation, which he actually signed,
so I feel a sense of ownership. He, as President, signed into law the
Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990.
On the Friday after Thanksgiving, a couple of weeks ago, here in our
Nation's Capital, 13 Federal agencies released a major report laying
out the alarming impact that climate change is having on the
environment, our public health, our economic growth, and our weather. I
never thought I would see the day when we are measuring rainfall by the
foot instead of by the inches. I never thought I would be seeing
wildfires in California, Montana, Washington State, and Oregon that are
bigger than my State of Delaware. I never thought I would see this many
category 5 hurricanes. I never thought I would see two 500-year floods
in Ellicott City, MD, just a short way up the road here. They didn't
come every 500 years; they came one year after the other. I never
thought I would see that kind of weather.
These Federal agencies put out a report a couple of weeks ago, laying
out some of the alarming impacts that climate change is having on our
environment, public health, economic growth, and our weather. That
report is known as the ``National Climate Assessment.'' It is put out
every 4 years as a result of an act signed in 1990 called the Global
Change Research Act of 1990. Who signed it? Why, it was President
George Herbert Walker Bush who signed it into law all those years ago.
The 41st President raised the alarm decades ago about a threat that
he referred to as the ``ozone hole.'' That is what he called it, the
ozone hole. The Clean Air Act of 1990, which he signed into law, hoped
to implement the Montreal Protocol, a landmark international treaty to
deal with the problem. The protocol is highly widely regarded as a
success. The treaty is widely regarded as a success. A couple of years
after that, he helped form the United Nations framework. If I am not

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mistaken, I think he was maybe our Ambassador to the United Nations as
well.
In 1992, he helped form the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change, which has now been embraced by every nation on Earth
and is taking place this very week in Poland. Countries from throughout
the world are there.
I mentioned earlier the 1990 amendments of the Clean Air Act, which
turned out to be some of the most important environmental laws that we
have on our books in this country, and that law enabled the government
to control the nearly 200 toxic substances that are present in our air
and pose threats to human health. That same law paved the way for
cleaner running cars and clean fuels that have dramatically reduced
pollution from smog.
I can remember when I was in the Navy, spending part of the summer at
the Long Beach Naval Station on a big jumbo tanker. I like to run, and
I remember running close to L.A. in the summer--late sixties. I
remember on some days that I ran, I felt I was doing more damage to my
lungs than I was doing good for my body, running and breathing that
kind of air. The air in California was awful. It is not perfect today,
but it is a whole lot better, except when there are all these fires
they have to put up with.
According to the EPA, the 1990 amendments of the Clean Air Act, over
the first 20 years of enactment, have also prevented 160,000 premature
deaths, reduced illnesses and diseases related to air pollution, and
spurred $2 trillion in overall economic benefits.
I will end with this. In February of 1990, President Bush said this
about our changing climates. I want to quote him. He said:

We all know that human activities are changing the
atmosphere in unexpected and in unprecedented ways. Much
remains to be done. Many questions remain to be answered.
Together, we have a responsibility to ourselves and the
generations to come to fulfill our stewardship obligations.

Those are his words. Those words and the positions he took and the
work his administration did on this front show real leadership and,
maybe, the courage to stay out of step when everyone else is marching
to the wrong tune and a willingness to step up and address that
unprecedented challenge that is before us.
He lived to be 94. He was active and vibrant almost to the end. I
think a number of us have had the opportunity to serve as Governor with
both of his sons and to know them as friends and leaders of our
country. The legacy of their dad lives on through the children he and
Barbara helped raise.
We miss his personality. We miss his warmth and his good humor. We
miss his affection, and we miss his leadership. I hope our colleagues
and, certainly, I can learn from his example and learn again over and
over again from the example he set to do the right thing, even when it
is not easy.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am delighted to hear the Senator from
Delaware discuss some aspects of President Bush's time that aren't as
well remembered, including his amendments to the Clean Air Act, on
which the Senator from Delaware and I have worked.
In June of 1992, President George Herbert Walker Bush and his wife
Barbara were walking across the South Lawn on a hot, sunny day to make
a major announcement about school choice. Barbara turned to the
President and said: George, you have on the wrong pants.
The President of the United States turned around, walked back in the
White House, changed into the proper suit, came back out and made the
announcement, one of the biggest of his time as President--to ask the
Congress to provide one-half billion dollars to States and cities like
Milwaukee and Wisconsin, which wanted to give low-income families
choices of better schools for their children.
Before that, I can recall a 3 p.m. or so meeting on January 17, 1991.
The meeting was about educational assessment--a very dull subject. The
President had called it in the Cabinet Room. Governor Carper will
remember educational assessment from his days as Governor. The meeting
went on and on. The President got up and left and came back after about
10 minutes. The rest of us thought very little about it. It turned out
that, later, we found out he was calling Gorbachev in the Soviet Union
to let him know in advance that the United States was about to start
bombing Baghdad at about 5:30 that afternoon U.S. time. He had
constructed and put on the public schedule that meeting on educational
assessment so that the world wouldn't know what was about to happen.
A few weeks later, we were having lunch, and he was mulling over the
prospect of putting 1 million American military men and women on the
ground in the Middle East in the first Gulf war. He had a special
feeling about that because of his background as a combat pilot in World
War II. He knew what it meant to risk even one American life in that
exercise.
All of us have memories and stories we could tell about the
President, but I want to talk about three aspects of his service very
briefly: No. 1, gentleman; No. 2, well prepared; No. 3, pioneer--a
pioneer especially in education.
I have suggested to Jon Meacham, the extraordinary biographer of
President George H.W. Bush, that a better title for his book might be
``The Last Gentleman.'' Saying that to an author is like saying: You
ought to rename your baby something else. That is not a very prudent
thing to say.
I hope it is not true that he is the last gentleman, but his
temperament and conduct when he won and when he lost in war and in
peace, with adversaries and friends, remind us that you can be tough,
you can win the Presidency, you can be a combat pilot in a world war,
and you can still treat others with respect, which he unfailingly did.
I was thinking last night as we stood outside on the steps and
watched the casket being brought up--a beautiful evening, the sunset
looking out over the Library of Congress, looking out over the Supreme
Court--that with all the rancor we sometimes have here, as we work out
difficult problems, we are pretty lucky to live in this country. We are
pretty lucky to have the form of government that we have. We are
extraordinarily fortunate that we can produce men and women, like
George H.W. Bush, who bring out the best of us, which leads me to my
second point: What I think of when I think of our former President, and
those are the words ``well prepared.''
We have had lots of different kinds of Presidents of the United
States with varying backgrounds, and many have been successful. It is
hard to say exactly what will make a President successful. I actually
think temperament has more to do with it than anything else. What we
had in President George H.W. Bush may have been the best prepared
President in our history: Congressman, candidate for the Senate, head
of his national political party, the first Ambassador to China, head of
the United Nations, Vice President of the United States, head of the
Central Intelligence Agency.
If you are going to put somebody through a training course, a boot
camp in order to be President of the United States, that is what you
would do. You would take someone of extraordinary intellect, someone
who may have graduated, in 3 years, Phi Beta Kappa from Yale, with
extraordinary courage, and someone who could fly combat--the youngest
aviator in World War II. You put them through that boot camp and say:
Now you are the President of the United States.
How fortunate we were that he happened to be the one who came along
then because the things he accomplished in his 4 years, the things he
presided over, the things he led us to do as a country weren't that
easy.
Take the disintegration of the Soviet Union. It is a very dangerous
situation. They have a lot of nuclear weapons in the Soviet Union and a
history of antagonism toward much of Europe and the United States. But
President Bush, because of his temperament and his skill and the
extraordinary team he had around him, presided over that in a way that
allowed Mr. Gorbachev and the Soviet Union to come apart. It could have
easily gone in another direction.
There was the reunification of Germany. You can be sure that France
was skeptical about the reunification of Germany. Wouldn't you be, as
well, if you had been involved in two World Wars in that century with
Germany?

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Margaret Thatcher was quietly opposed to the unification of Germany,
according to Vice President Quayle, who should know about such things.
Mr. Kohl, from Germany, was for it. Our President had to know those
individuals well enough and be adept enough to preside over the
reunification of Germany and the disintegration of the Soviet Union at
the same time.
Balancing the budget wasn't popular within the Republican Party. When
you look at the portraits of the Presidents in the White House, you
often think, what did that President do that went beyond his base--that
his original supporters might not have agreed with but that put the
country first? When you look at Nixon, you think China. When you look
at Reagan, you think the Berlin Wall.
When you look at George Bush, you think a number of things, but one
of the things he did was balance the budget in a way that most
Republicans didn't like. He paid a price for it when he ran for
reelection, but the country and President Clinton, during the 1990s,
benefited greatly from that fact.
Then, as Senator Carper pointed out, he led the amendments of the
Clean Air Act. I was in East Tennessee these last few weeks. We like
the fact that you can see the Great Smoky Mountains, and they are not
the ``great smoggy mountains'' anymore. That is true because of the
Clean Air Act, which, more than anything else, has required coal plants
when they operate to put pollution control equipment on them. They can
still operate. There is nothing to keep a coal plant from operating in
this country as long as you put pollution control equipment for
mercury, nitrogen, and sulfur on it. Then they can be perfectly clean.
That doesn't include carbon, but carbon you can't see. We like to see
the mountains.
There were the decisions that were made that had to do with exhausts
from trucks and cars. America is healthier, cleaner, and we can attract
businesses to our State now that our air is clean. Before that, it was
a problem.
The Americans with Disabilities Act was a difficult law to pass and a
difficult law for many parts of our country to accept and, frankly, pay
for. Think of the lives it has changed. No one who wasn't well-prepared
for the Presidency could have passed that.
As I think of President Bush, I think first of a gentleman; second,
well prepared; finally, a pioneer in education. Most of the time, when
we think of President Bush, we think of his skills in foreign policy
because they were considerable, and the challenges were great. For
example, I didn't mention the Gulf War a moment ago--well, I did in a
couple of cases, but I didn't mention putting 1 million troops on the
ground, getting the rest of the world to pay for most of the war, and
then deciding not to go into Baghdad and get mired down there. Those
were decisions that a skilled, well-prepared man would do.
He was also a pioneer in education, and that is what I would like to
talk about. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush assembled all the
Nation's Governors in Charlottesville to talk about education. Terry
Branstad, the current Ambassador to China, was then the Chairman of the
Governors. Out of that summit came national education goals that every
child by the year 2000 would learn math, science, history, and
geography in a proficient way.

President Bush then came up with America 2000 in the last 2 years of
his term. I was Education Secretary when he launched America 2000. That
was to help States and communities reach those national education goals
State by State, community by community. So we had Nebraska 2000 and
Nashville 2000 as Democrats and Republicans sought to do that. The
importance of it was that President George H.W. Bush understood that to
have lasting reform in education, it has to be owned by the States. It
has to be owned by the community.
We saw that in the recent exercise in common core standards. Common
core was developed by the Governors. It was moving through the country
State by State by State. Then, when the Federal Government mandated it,
in effect, there was a great rebellion because there wasn't buy-in.
It was the same situation with teacher evaluation. I led a fight to
evaluate Tennessee teachers, and it was the hardest thing I was ever
involved in. There was a big fight with the National Education
Association, but we did it, and 10,000 teachers went up the career
ladder. They bought into it. When it is ordered from Washington, they
don't buy into it, and President Bush understood that. So his national
education goals, his voluntary national standards, and his voluntary
national tests were all voluntary. They were not imposed from
Washington, DC. He created an environment, through America 2000, where
States, cities, and communities could adopt them, and they were
lasting.
Most of the steps that States, including my State of Tennessee, have
taken to make schools better in the last 30 years were either started
by or encouraged by George H.W. Bush since the National Governors
Summit in 1989. That includes charter schools. In 1991 and 1992,
President Bush encouraged every community to create start-from-scratch
schools, as he called it, and many did. He created New American Schools
Development Corporation with the help of Deputy Education Secretary
David Kearns and raised about $70 million and gave grants to that.
My last act as Education Secretary for President Bush was to write
every school superintendent and say: Why don't you try one of these new
charter schools that the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party has
created. There were only 10 at the time in 1992. Those start-from-
scratch schools suggested by President George H.W. Bush are now 5,000
charter schools in the country or about 5 percent of all the public
schools in America.
Then came school choice. I began with the story of his walking across
the south lawn to announce the GI bill for kids, to give money to
States and districts to encourage school choice. The Democratic
Congress, at the time, didn't appropriate the dollars he asked for, for
start-from-scratch schools, and they didn't appropriate the money for
school choice, but his persistent advocacy using the bully pulpit gave
us national goals, national standards, national tests, accountability
systems, school choice, charter schools--all of that--and the
difference was, he insisted we not have a national school board in the
process.
His successors all tended to have Washington edicts--President
Clinton, President George W. Bush, and President Obama. I can
understand why they felt that way. They were eager to see results, and
so they said let Washington order Texas, Tennessee, and Wisconsin to do
it, but, unfortunately, that backfires. That backfired on common core
and backfired on teacher evaluation. As soon as we stepped back and
used advocacy instead of edicts, as President Bush understood, we got
more lasting results.
He was well prepared, a gentleman, and a pioneer of education. Some
people are suggesting he might have been the most effective one-term
President in the history of the Presidency. He could very well be, when
you add it all up, with the Gulf war handled like it was, the
reunification of Germany, the successful disintegration of the Soviet
Union, the clean air laws, the Americans with Disabilities Act,
pioneering in education with America 2000, balancing the budget. That
is a lot to do in 4 years. Maybe James K. Polk is the only one I can
think of who might give him a good run for his money in terms of that
accolade.
I remember when the Gulf War was over and President Bush came to
speak to the Congress. I will close with this. It was the first time I
had a chance to sit and listen to a Presidential address as a Member of
the Cabinet. I remember thinking after that wonderful victory that was
so well done--with a million men and women on the ground and very few
casualties; the rest of the world paid for most of the war; we avoided
going into Baghdad. It was a very successful operation. The President's
approval rating was at 91 percent. I remember thinking, I wish he would
say: Now that we have won the war, let's turn our attention to home and
apply the same sort of energy to America 2000, and then make America
2000 his entire domestic program. Perhaps it would have been difficult
for Bill Clinton to defeat him that year if that would have been his
domestic agenda. No one will ever know.
What we do know is, he was a gentleman; he was as well prepared as
any

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President in history for the job; he served at a time when we needed
that preparation because the challenges were immense; he was a pioneer
in education; and he may have been the most successful one-term
President in American history--a man who put the country first and whom
we all admired. George H.W. Bush.
Thank you.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Johnson). The Senator from Texas.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I join my friend, the Senator from
Tennessee, in saying a few words about the service of George Herbert
Walker Bush. I would note the difference between him and me, though, is
he, having served as Education Secretary and worked here under Howard
Baker and having had a chance to work with and watch and listen to
George Herbert Walker Bush firsthand, has the advantage over me.
I certainly know the Bush family and President Bush ``41'' from my
experience in Texas. They were the dominant family and influence in
politics in Texas--certainly during the time I grew up in politics.
I appreciate the comments the Senator from Tennessee has made. He and
I had a conversation about what our side of the aisle needs, which is
to do more in the area of supporting public education and which is, I
think, probably at the top of the list of most people's concerns.

Certainly, when you look at what happened in the midterm elections--
particularly in the suburbs--and you talk to people about what
motivated them one way or the other, education had to be way up high on
that list. We simply need to find a way of working together and coming
up together with creative ways to demonstrate our support for public
education, and I think our constituents will respond very well to that.
Certainly, the Senator from Tennessee, as chairman of the Health,
Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, who is responsible for a lot
of the healthcare-oriented legislation that emanates from this body--
and that is another area where, frankly, we didn't do as good a job as
we could or should have done, explaining what we were for and what we
could do actually to help bring premiums down and make healthcare more
accessible. So I appreciate the contributions of the Senator from
Tennessee to this body and his comments particularly about this great
man. I think it is important to say he was not just a great man but a
good man, George Herbert Walker Bush.
We know, to his family, he was a loving and caring father,
grandfather, and great-grandfather. To his country, he was a devoted
public servant who fought to defend our freedoms and led the Nation at
the end of the Cold War and at the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Every time I think about the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, I think
about my dad who was a B-17 pilot in World War II. He was shot down on
his 26th bombing mission over Nazi Germany. He was stationed in
Molesworth, England. He and his fellow crew in the 303rd Bomb Group in
the Eighth Air Force would fly their bombing missions from England--in
this case, Molesworth Air Force Base across the English Channel and
drop their bombs in Germany in an effort to bring an end to that
terrible, terrible war.
Unfortunately, my dad died before the Berlin Wall came down. That is
one of my regrets; that he was unable to see what ultimately happened
as a result of that terrible war in World War II. One expert--I read
one of his books recently--calculated that 31 million people died in
World War II. It is a shocking number. We need to be reminded of what
the horrible wages of war can be--20 million people died in the Soviet
Union alone. I know that staggers our imagination. We need to remember
our history or, in the words of a wise man, we will be condemned to
relive it. Certainly, George Herbert Walker Bush's contribution to
ending the Cold War and bringing down the Berlin Wall are one of his
most notable achievements.
He served first as a war hero. He actually enlisted in the Navy after
the attack at Pearl Harbor. He, like a lot of other young men, decided
this was the time to come to the aid of their country. After nearly
losing his life after being shot down but being saved by rescuing
forces, he came back home and, like so many of the ``greatest
generation,'' he went to work and raised a family.
In my dad's case, he, too, was part of the ``greatest generation.''
Fortunately, he got out of the prisoner of war camp and met my mother
and married and had a family. He continued his education and, like so
many of the ``greatest generation,'' made enormous contributions to
this country in the post-World War II era that we are benefiting from
even today.
We also know George Herbert Walker Bush represented his fellow
Americans starting as a Congressman in Houston, TX. Then he moved on to
be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He was Vice President.
He was President.
It has been said that George Herbert Walker Bush was the best
prepared person ever to have served as President by virtue of his
experience and his resume. I think there is a lot of truth to that.
Alluding to the time in the Navy, you can say he was an anchor for
our country during tumultuous times--steady and strong.
While he was a fierce defender of his principles and ideals, he was
sometimes seen as a quiet soldier. Some people even commented that he
was too nice a person to be President. I think that is a misconception.
He was, it is true, both a good man and a great leader, but I think he
showed us you could be both. Not all great leaders are good men. We are
all flawed, of course, but he showed that you could be both a good man
and a great leader.
President Bush carried the lessons he learned in the Navy with him.
Specifically, we heard from the Vice President yesterday at the
ceremony in the Rotunda talking about a concept known to Navy pilots as
the acronym CAVU, which stands for ``ceiling and visibility
unlimited.'' I only mention this again after the Vice President talked
about it yesterday because President Bush mentioned it on his 80th
birthday. He said it summed up his attitude about his life perfectly.
He said:

But, you see, that is where my life is now. Thanks to my
family and my friends, my life is CAVU.

Through all he did, his compassion, his love of country, his basic
humanity, and strong optimism shone through, which made him such an
attractive political figure. One reason for his tremendous success was
because people liked him, and they believed in him. They believed he
was doing what he did for the right reasons.
After a long and tough campaign for his second term as President--a
campaign which he lost--he left a letter to newly elected President
Bill Clinton. There has been some social media circulating this letter,
but I think it is worth noting because it is a snapshot into his
character and the type of man he was.
He wrote to President Clinton:

Your success now is our country's success. I am rooting
hard for you.

It takes a big man to say that to your competitor after a tough,
losing campaign, but, again, this is a window into the character of a
good and great man. Just like everything else he did, it was gracious
and sincere. This letter conveyed the same sense of ``it is not about
me, it is about the country.'' In a word, it is about patriotism--a
word that embodies President Bush so well. He was the type of man who
makes us look at our own lives and ask, what more can I do for my
country and for my country men and women we all love?

After graduating from college, he went to Midland, TX. It was kind of
an improbable place to go in those days, but he wanted to get involved
in the oil business. Later, after his successes in Midland, TX, in the
Permian Basin, which continues to be one of the greatest reserves of
oil and gas in the United States, he went on to Houston and grew his
business and ultimately, as I said earlier, ran for Congress.
Even though Texas was an adopted home for him, Texans loved and
embraced him, as we did the entire Bush family. We were privileged to
have President Bush as one of our own. He once said: ``I am a Texan and
an American . . . what more could a man ask?'' I don't think anyone
could have said it better. Throughout his time in public service and
even afterward, he could have moved anywhere in the world, but he chose
to live his life in Texas and in

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the warm embrace of the State and the people he loved.
President Bush felt a kindred spirit in Texas A&M University,
choosing it first to bear his legacy through his Presidential library
and a graduate school of government and public service and then later
to be his and Barbara Bush's final resting place. I think President
Bush identified with the university's unique culture, including its
inculcation of patriotic values and the emphasis it places on hard work
and public service.
President Bush taught us all that there is nothing more powerful in
life than the power of a good example. He challenged all of us, and he
still does by the standards he set for himself.
Joined today by my colleague from Texas, Senator Cruz, we introduced
a resolution recognizing the nearly 30 years of public service
President Bush devoted to our State and our Nation.
President Bush is in the Nation's Capital one last time, where many
have and will continue to have the opportunity to pay their respects
and give their thanks for his extraordinary life.
President Bush once wrote in a letter to his mother: ``Tell the
truth. Don't blame people. Be strong. Do your best. Try hard. Forgive.
Stay the course.'' President Bush never chose the easy road to
sacrifice doing what he thought was just and right. In the words of
Scripture, he fought the good fight, he finished the race, and he kept
the faith.
In his book ``All the Best,'' he writes that he wanted a plain
gravestone like the ones in Arlington Cemetery, with his Navy number on
the back. He also requested that a quotation be placed there as well:
``He loved Barbara very much.'' This is the man he was. I know he has
gone on to join the love of his life, Barbara, and their daughter
Robin. A truly honorable and gracious man has gone home to God.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I am honored to follow the Senator from
Texas and to have shared time with President Bush, as he has, and
appreciate very much his service to this Senate and this country.
You know, the hardest thing they ever ask you to do in public office
is eulogize someone you don't even know. But because you are a Senator
and they think you have a name that everybody back home knows, they
think that would be a good idea. It is the hardest thing for a Senator
to do.
The easiest thing to do is to be asked to eulogize somebody you know
and love. You don't have to look up things and read things and do a
biography. But that, too, is also very hard. It is hard to hold back
the tears when you talk about the experiences you had with someone who
has gone on to a better place. That is the role I am in today.
George Herbert Walker Bush did so many things for me in my lifetime
that I can't begin to count them or recount them all for you, but I am
going to tell a few of the stories. You have all heard about how he was
in the CIA, how many planes he shot down, and how many times he did
whatever he did. We all know he has a resume that is equal to none. I
mean, nobody has one equal to his. We also know, those of us who knew
him--and I know Senator Cornyn of Texas did--as a public servant, he
was a passionate, compassionate, get-the-job-done, commonsense,
conservative leader who wanted to see not just the promises made but
the promises kept.
How did I meet George Herbert Walker Bush? I will tell you how I met
him. He was Vice President of the United States of America. He was on
Air Force One. He was Vice President under Reagan, who controlled Air
Force One. We were riding from St. Augustine, FL, to Atlanta, GA, to do
a fundraiser for me when I was running for Governor of Georgia. I knew
him by reputation and by name and obviously by being in my party, but I
didn't know him as a person.

He said: Why don't you fly down to St. Augustine and meet me there,
and we will fly to Atlanta for a fundraiser that night? Bring your
family. Let's have some fun and get you elected Governor of Georgia.
We had a ball. That was not hard. Winning the governorship was a
little bit more difficult, but it was a lot easier to try when the Vice
President of the United States came out and put his name on the line
for me. I really didn't understand how he could risk his career doing
that until I realized nobody cared who I was anyway, but he cared who I
was because I was a potential candidate for Governor, I was a
Republican, I was somebody he liked and admired, and I was somebody he
wanted to help and work with.
So my family and I piled onto Air Force One, flew into Atlanta,
Dobbins Air Force Base, and went to the Waverly Hotel. We raised three-
quarters of a million dollars at that fundraiser. It was over in the
flash of an eye, but I can still smell the room, indelibly remember the
lights that were on, the banners we had, and the speeches made that
night because he was an overpoweringly impressive guy. When he stood
there and made a speech and Lee Greenwood followed him with how great
it was to be an American, you knew you were among royalty--a special
person.
He wanted me to work for him in his Presidential campaign. I said:
Mr. Vice President, I would be more than happy to do that. And I did. I
didn't run it. I was not the top dog by any stretch. Paul Coverdell,
former U.S. Senator, was his campaign manager. Fred Cooper, his
financier, was the one who raised the money. They did a lot to help him
get elected, but we did help him in Georgia get elected when he won
that race.
In 1989, when he was sworn in, he started out on a journey as
President of the United States, after he had already been CIA Director,
after he had already been Vice President of the United States, after he
had already every other thing you could be--from Congressman, to head
of the U.N. delegation, to everything in between. Now he was taking on
the prize job of them all--the Presidency of the United States of
America.
I polled well as I was running for Governor. In fact, halfway through
his first term, halfway through it, when they did a poll, I was doing
pretty good. I wasn't winning, but I was doing pretty good, and
everybody attributed it not to me but to the fact that the President
came down and helped me. And he was doing really well too. In fact, if
you will remember, George Herbert Walker Bush in 1991 had an 89-percent
favorable rating. When he lost 2 years later, he was down in the high
thirties. What happened? How could this guy who is so great and so
gracious, so wonderful, who did everything, fall so fast? I have
answered that question many times because I wanted to rationalize it
myself.
I watched that fall. I watched George H.W. Bush do what he thought
was right even though what he did might be wrong for him. I want to
explain that.
The speech he made in New Orleans to get the nomination in 1988--he
used a simple little line. He talked about shining cities on the hill.
He talked about a foundation. He talked about the Points of Light
foundation he started. He talked about helping others who didn't have
as much as they should and he wanted them to have. He talked about
giving a little back to your country. He gave the speech equivalency to
John Kennedy's Peace Corps speech or great speeches made by other
American Presidents. He was a caring man.
He also gave a speech in which he said: ``Read my lips: No new
taxes.'' I have never seen or heard anybody who took credit for giving
him that statement, because that statement probably led to his most
difficult time in his reelection campaign. But at the time he made it--
he made it because George Bush knew he might have to do that. He wasn't
going to continue to run for President without saying: Look, I don't
want to raise your taxes, but it is something we think might happen.
And it did happen, and it cost him the election. He did what was right
for the country, although it might not have been right for George H.W.
Bush. He was that kind of guy. He put the test on what is best for the
people, what is best for the country.
If you listen to or read many of the stories of the Iraq war when we
first sent troops in, George Bush was the first one to do that. I
remember riding home in my car from my office in Atlanta when the news
broke. The President was about to do a press conference. When I turned
the radio on, he was making the announcement about sending troops into
Iraq from Kuwait and going after Saddam Hussein to give up his weapons
of mass destruction.

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We still have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan today. We are fighting
the ultimate war between good and evil, of terrorism versus the
American way of peace and prosperity. That is a war that was engaged by
George Bush not because he liked war but because he loved peace; not
because he wanted to fight but because he wanted to demonstrate through
strength that we can negotiate a settlement through diplomacy far
easier and with less damage.
George Herbert Walker Bush did everything he thought was the right
thing to do for the right reasons. Even if his final decision was not
good for him politically, he still did it if it was right for the
American people. You can ask no more of a politician. You can ask
anything you want to, but you can't ask anything more of them than to
do what is right regardless of the consequences. I love Mark Twain's
quote: When you are confronted with a difficult decision, do what is
right--you will surprise a few, but you will amaze the rest.
George Herbert Walker Bush was an amazing man, someone whose life
will indelibly be in my heart and my memory, for all the things he did
for me, my children, and my grandchildren, and all of the things he has
done for you and all of us as Americans.
To his son, 43--he is a great chip off the old block. He is probably
as good as his dad, but nobody will ever be nicer than his dad.
George Herbert Walker Bush, George W. Bush, the entire Bush family,
Barbara Bush--I send my sympathy and my support for you in this time of
trial. I thank you for the sacrifice you have made for our country and
for your family.
I pledge to you that I will try to always be as close as I can--I
will never make it, but I will do as much as I can to be as good or try
to be as good as George H.W. Bush was.
I hope that when I die and the papers report on that--if there is
any--they will be as kind to me as they have been to George Bush. What
they have done with George Bush is told the truth--not talk about any
failures, where there might have been a few; they talked about his
victories, his passions, and they talked about his love. Most of all,
they talked about a great country, the United States of America. It is
great today and will always be because of men like George Herbert
Walker Bush.
May God bless his soul. I thank him for the service he brought to our
great country.
I yield back.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rubio). Without objection, it is so
ordered.

____________________