re: #175 HappyWarrior

The thing about Bush is I wish he had been more intellectually curious. This isn’t just a quality I seek in my leaders but in my friends as well. I also sometimes found Bush arrogant. Like in the way he bragged about being a mediocre student. I am not going to say that it was his family name alone that got him in to the Ivy League but let’s be reasonable here, Bush had more room for mediocrity and future success then those of us who did not come from an as prestigious family and that bothered me. Now looking back on the man, I have really started to realize that he was aside from gay rights quite tolerant on minorities. You don’t appoint a black man at Sec of State and later a black woman at the same and then a Hispanic at AG if you’re a bigot. Plus, the man seems to unlike many in his party in power today realize how hard working many of our immigrants are. While I admit, I belittled his attempts at Spanish, even though my own is much worse, in hindsight I think it was sincere and something that is lacking in today’s Republican Party. I would not vote for Bush over Gore or Kerry but I like the man much more than I did in the past that is for sure.

Bush was very good about race. He didn’t have resentment, or ‘issues’, he had a Texas understanding of what a multiracial society looks like.

I think he had real trouble understanding people who were different from him in other ways.