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    THE INDEPENDENT

George Bush Sr launches scathing criticism of son's senior aides and says Dubya's tone was 'hostile'

While George HW Bush praises his son, he says he overly empowered senior aides

• Andrew Buncombe New York  
• @AndrewBuncombe 

    Mr Bush kept his silence for     years -EPA

It was always clear that while President George HW Bush loved his eldest son, he was not always entirely impressed with the people he surrounded himself with. 

And while the Mr Bush the father adopted a more traditional brand of Republicanism and a foreign policy centred on pragmatism, his son listened to the neocon voices around him and led an invasion of Iraq.

Now, the 41st US president has voiced his exasperation and frustration, issuing a scathing criticism of Defence Secretary Dick Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Former US Vice-President Dick Cheney has been highly critical of Pope Francis.

In interviews for a new biography of the now 91-year-old said that Mr Cheney had built “his own empire” and asserted too much “hard-line” influence. He said Mr Rumsfeld was an “arrogant fellow” who could not see how others thought and “served the president badly.”

In his comments to John Meacham, for a book to be published next week by Random House and detailed in the New York Times, Mr Bush also expresses some criticism of his son, saying that he allowed himself to empower the two others, and that he at times adopted a tone that was hostile and aggressive.

“I do worry about some of the rhetoric that was out there - some of it his, maybe, and some of it the people around him,” Mr Bush told Mr Meacham. 

Donald Rumsfeld was made aware of the CIA interrogation programme prior to recertification of the covert action for the first time in a 25-minute briefing on 16 September, 2003. It was Condoleezza Rice who ordered his briefing.

“Hot rhetoric is pretty easy to get headlines, but it doesn’t necessarily solve the diplomatic problem.”

Mr Bush’s comments in Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush, also give voice to sentiments that many long suspected he had harbored - and which were sometimes leaked by those close to him during his son’s presidency- but until now kept largely private.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/george-bush-sr-launches-scathing-criticism-of-sons-senior-aides-and-says-dubyas-tone-was-hostile-a6722706.html

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Doug Miller, KHOU 11 News

POLITICS

Bush 41 criticizes Bush 43 in new biography.

KHOU

“He had his own empire and marched to his own drummer,” Bush reportedly said of Cheney. “It just showed me that you cannot do it that way.”

Houston’s resident president has broken his long silence about top aides in his son’s White House, sharply criticizing former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

File

“Destiny and Power,” the first major biography of the nation’s 43rd president, goes on sale Nov. 10.

Former President George H.W. Bush’s unprecedented critique of his son’s administration comes in a long-awaited biography scheduled for publication next week. Quotes from “Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush” published by national news outlets reveal the elder Bush considered Rumsfeld “arrogant” and believes his son ceded too much power to Cheney.

“He had his own empire and marched to his own drummer,” Bush reportedly said of Cheney. “It just showed me that you cannot do it that way.”

Although the former president called Cheney “a good man,” the blunt assessment of his son’s vice president is especially noteworthy because he also served as Bush 41’s defense secretary.

“I don’t know, he just became very hardline and very different from the Dick Cheney I knew and worked with,” Bush said, according to CNN.

The patriarch of the Bush political dynasty also criticized his some of his son’s bellicose speeches, according to The New York Times.

“I do worry about some of the rhetoric that was out there – some of it his, maybe, and some of it the people around him,” he reportedly said. “Hot rhetoric is pretty easy to get headlines, but it doesn’t necessarily solve the diplomatic problems.”

The former president reportedly cited his son’s “axis of evil” speech, which he said “might be historically proved to be not benefiting anything.”

But his toughest criticism targeted Rumsfeld, whom Bush 41 said “served the president badly.”

“I don’t like what he did and I think it hurt the president, having his iron-ass view of everything,” Bush reportedly said. “There’s a lack of humility, a lack of seeing what the other guy thinks. He’s more kick ass and take names, take numbers. I think he paid a price for that.”

Biographer Jon Meacham, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who wrote best-selling biographies of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, befriended the Bush family and based much of his new work on previously unpublished diaries as well as extensive interviews with the former president.

The new book also reveals the former president suffered from a post-war funk after the Persian Gulf conflict and briefly fantasized about calling a news conference to announce he wouldn’t seek re-election.

“Maybe it’s the letdown after the day-to-day” calls “to the Situation Room; conferences every single day with Defense and State; moving things, nudging things, worrying about things, phone calls to foreign leaders, trying to keep things moving forward, managing a massive project,” the Times reported he said in an audio diary. “Now it’s different -- sniping, carping, bitching, predictable editorial complaints.”

The book also features some eyebrow-raising revelations and observations about political figures of Bush’s era. The former president reportedly described Michael Dukakis, his 1988 Democratic opponent, as a “midget nerd,” called Ross Perot “crazy” and claimed Donald Trump wanted to become his vice-presidential running mate.

“Destiny and Power,” the first major biography of the nation’s 43rd president, goes on sale Nov. 10