Reading the press accolades for the late President George H.W. Bush, it was difficult to reconcile today’s “revered statesman” with the “wimp” label the media pinned on him in office.
As vice president and then president in the 1980s and early 1990s, Bush was portrayed by the press as an out-of-touch bumbler, a national joke on late-night TV and in newsrooms. White House correspondents delighted in catching Bush in gaffes and in pointing out what, in their liberal view, were his wrong-headed policy positions, which was just about all of them.