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The Assassins: George W. Bush and the Legacy of War
This is the fifth in a weekly series, detailing almost fifty incidents in which one or more persons gravely endangered, or attempted to assassinate, a current or former American president. Twenty-one presidents were targeted, with some surviving multiple attempts. Four, however, were killed —and one of those, James Garfield, was in office only 170 days before an assassin’s bullet ended his administration. We began this series with Donald Trump, who survived two attempts on his life this past summer. We will work backwards over the next several months until we reach the year 1835 … and President Andrew Jackson.
The United States has had two presidents named Bush, a father (George Herbert Walker Bush) was our 41st president, and his son (George Walker Bush) was our 43rd. The elder Bush had a career in diplomacy and was a director of the Central Intelligence Agency prior to being elected vice-president, and then inheritng the Oval Office from Ronald Reagan. His son was the owner of a major league baseball team before seeking office as the governor of Texas, a position he held for five years.
In an odd parallel, each Bush presided over a war against Iraq, generally known as the Persian Gulf Wars. The latter country was under the domination of the Ba’ath Party from 1968 until 2003. The party promoted both socialism and Arab…
