Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Bush Sr.: 'It hurts...to hear my boy criticized'

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Tuesday, April 4, 2000

Bush Sr.: 'It hurts...to hear my boy criticized'
Talk at A&M-Kingsville includes discussions about women in the military and life in the CIA
By Jonathan Osborne
Caller-Times

George Gongora/Caller-Times

Marc Cisneros, (left) and former President George Bush greet Texas A&M-Kingsville students as Bush arrived at the school to speak to students.

KINGSVILLE - Former President George Bush spent an hour Monday evening in South Texas fielding questions on topics ranging from his view on the future role of women in the military to his tenure with the CIA, to the role of a president once he's left the White House.
   Bush, in dialogue with students from Texas A&M University-Kingsville, also spoke of his challenges as a politician and touted the reunification of Germany as one of the most important events to occur during his presidency.
   And he kept the audience of about 350 laughing, recounting anecdotes about his wife, former first lady Barbara Bush, to one about an odd speaking engagement at Tulane University, during which students tossed paper airplanes at him as a Vietnam War protest.
   But of all his experiences, Bush said the toughest challenge he has faced, day-in and day-out, was as a family man.
   "It hurts far more to hear my boy criticized than it does when I'm criticized," Bush said of his son, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who is running for president.
   "That's the toughest."
   During the program, students asked questions and Bush answered candidly, despite joking in his opening remarks that if he didn't like a question, now that he's not president, he didn't have to answer it.
   Rebecca MannShogren, a junior plant and soil major and ROTC student, asked Bush about the future of women in the military.
   "It's a fantastic future," Bush said. "It's good for our country. It's good for the individual. I got my wings here in Corpus Christi. Those three years in the Navy did more to make a man out of me than anything else I did."
   MannShogren, who plans to join the military when she graduates, said his response was encouraging.
   "It was very heartening," she said. "It sort of reaffirmed the reasons why I'm going into the military."
   Bush served in the Navy as a combat pilot in World War II and was rescued by a submarine when his plane was shot down in the Pacific.
   He returned to the United States to graduate from Yale and then moved to Texas in 1948. He has served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and acted as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
   Role of former president

George Gongora/Caller-Times

George Bush talked with A&M-Kingsville students on Monday about life as a president and life as a former president.

   In 1980, he was picked to be Ronald Reagan's vice president. He won the presidency in 1988, served one term and then lost to Bill Clinton in 1992.
   "It's important for a president to remain active in society," said Casey Swakon, a sophomore political science major, who asked Bush what he thought a president's role should be once he's out of office.
   Individual decisions
   Bush agreed that former presidents should remain active, but said that how each president goes about it is an individual decision.
   "I don't think there ought to be a formalized role," Bush said. "I've decided to kind of stay out of the political limelight."
   But, he said, he still is involved with local and national charities. Others, like Jimmy Carter, are remaining more active, he said.
   "Each president's got to find his own way," he said.
   Comments on Saddam
   Bush also answered questions about Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, calling him an unredeemable and evil man. He stressed the future importance of keeping a working relationship with China and said one of the most informative experiences of his career was as director of the CIA.
   "The CIA is so different than you guys think it is," Bush said, denouncing the agency's glamorous spy image. "You know what you've got in the CIA? You've got more Ph.Ds than most middle-size universities."
   The moment that drew the most laughter from the crowd was when Bush told a story about the former first lady, who Bush said keeps him grounded.
   Upon trading in the grandiose of the White House for a modest house in Houston to share with their two dogs, Bush, who was knighted by the Queen of England, asked the first lady what it felt like to be married to a genuine knight.
   Her answer:
   "Make the coffee, Sir George."



Staff writer Jonathan Osborne can be reached at 886-3716 or by e-mail at osbornej@caller.com

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