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My Other Mom and Pop
At the event, I gave a reading from my new book, which is about the death of my parents. I recounted getting a call from Mr. Bush the day after my mother died. I wasn’t able to take the call, because I didn’t trust my emotions. (It’s embarrassing, breaking down in phone calls with presidents.)
I knew he would understand, because George H.W. Bush is a world-class weeper. He may be a World War II hero and New England Yankee blue blood, but he has the tear ducts of a Sicilian grandmother. The man cannot make it through the playing of The Star Spangled Banner on Opening Day.
I introduced my reading with the book’s epigraph, taken from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.
Lady Bracknell: Are your parents living?
Jack: I have lost both my parents.
Lady Bracknell: Both? To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
Following that I said, “I’ve been careless. So, President Bush, Mrs. Bush, you’ll have to be my parents now.” It just came out.
I can say this, now that my own beloved and irreplaceable parents are gone: George and Barbara Bush are parents anyone would kill to have. To see them, surrounded by their children and grandchildren, as we did last Thursday night in Houston—14 grandchildren flew in as a surprise, all on their own dimes, to celebrate their “Ganny”’s 20th year of fundraising—is to be present at a kind of Platonic family ideal: love abundant, unconditional, joyous.
I looked over at Mrs. Bush when the grandchildren emerged from the wings. That brought tears to her eyes—an unusual sight. Her daughter Doro told me, laughingly, that at her own birth, “Dad sobbed.” (The Bushes lost a treasured first daughter, Robin, to leukemia at age six.)
“What about your mom?” I asked.
Doro laughed again, “Oh, no.”
But she was crying Thursday night. Unobtrusively, of course. For all her 60-odd years of being a transplanted Texan, Mrs. Bush is still a New England Yankee.
When I snuck a second peek at her, the tears were still streaming down her cheeks. But then she checked her watch. Mrs. Bush has a Mussolini side when it comes to Things Running On Time.
I have been on the receiving end of many blessings in my life, few as great as having known George and Barbara Bush. Or as I shall now be calling them, Pop and Mom.
Christopher Buckley’s books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor at large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir.
See Christopher Buckley in conversation with Tina Brown at the 92nd Street Y on Thursday, May 7 at 8 p.m.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Amateur Hour at the White House
Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009), a book that shows how to think about and use power in the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Going Rogue: The Index
Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
Going Rogue: The Index
Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
Lessons from Another War
Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
It's Time for Us to Go
Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
Mr. Buckley, you are an amazing writer and your ability to convey your emotions with words is absolutely superb. I never thought I would EVER say this but it seems like W.(and other Bushes) was a lucky man, to have grown up with such wonderful and loving parents, and now so are you because as we all know, mortality is cruel, heartwrenching and finite.
Hic! What? Am I still dead?
There is always a lot to be 'Proud of' when Friends and Family rally during times of Crisis and Celebration; as there is equally, though I suspect exponentially, the opposite reaction in the reverse circumstance. Thank You for this single insight into what is really most important about People, i.e. their peopleness, not their Politics.
I finished reading 'Losing Mum and Pup' last night. It was a beautiful and thoughtful look at these two amazing people and your wrenching year losing them. I too am a 'mid-life orphan' and recommend your book to everyone who is now orphaned or will be. Glad you found a other 'Mum and Pup'. . .makes the keeping on a lot less lonely.
Dead..On..Nailed..It..You..Did
Thank you, Mr. Buckley, for reminding us of our commonality during such partisan times. (How much more we could accomplish as people and as a country if every politician remembered the crucial maxim of being agreeable even when we disagree?)
I never voted for George H.W. Bush, but I never doubted his character, his courage, his patriotism,or his love of family and country. Most certainly, I never doubted his outstanding decency and dignity. (Memory fades, but I'm positive that I didn't disagree with him on everything, I just preferred the "other guy's" messages at poll time.) Thanks to you, Mr. Buckley, I now admire both him and Barbara Bush so much more now.
How lucky for you to have such wonderful "adoptive" parents. We should all be so fortunate to have such older adults in our lives.
I hope you'll consider writing a book about parenting and influential role models someday.
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Thanks...My friend!
I don't think CB is qualified to write about parenting role models. In addition to the son and daughter he has with wife, Lucy Gregg Buckley, he has a young illegitimate son in Miami, called Jonathan, whose mother, Irina Woelfle, worked for Random House when it published CB's book Thank You for Not Smoking.A DNA test, CB voluntarily took, established paternity. His response was to agree to send them $3,000.00 per month, but he has refused to see his son or have any further contact with him. William Buckley, the devout Roman Catholic, addressed the issue of this grandchild by leaving explicit instructions in his will that Jonathan be treated as if he had pre-deceased his grandfather. So much for assuming responsibility for an innocent child that one (and one's son) has sired.
CB and Lucy are now estranged and he spends his time with his girlfriend, Jolie Hunt, who is in her late 20's.
It seems that CB is as complicated, emotionally remote, and capable of the same kind of indecency he accuses his parents of. Perhaps one day Jonathan will write his own memoir about growing up fatherless because the man who sired him chose to have nothing to do with him
George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara may be wonderful surrogate parents, but how in the world can you explain their idiot progeny, George W. Bush?
Are you an idiot?...Doesn't feel good does it?
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Some people never have a nice thing to say.What kind of parents brought you up? Remember the Golden Rule... If you can't say anything nice ..don't say anything at all.
Golden Rule? Then remind all those vicious tea-bagging right-wing conservatives who do nothing but insult our president and those who elected him. Send your Golden Rule thoughts to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the other nasties who spew their venom daily.
Being nice means NEVER ignoring the facts or lying about them. Tact is simply stating it in such a way as to get ones point across without resorting to ugly language. The Bushes are wonderful parents even though those skills that embrace continuity of family appear to be lacking in George W Bush and isn't it a shame that the steel that is apparent in Barbara Bush seemed to not find it's way into GWB? 4000 families will go to bed tonight never getting to experience what Barbara Bush did the other night in Houston. Heaven and accountibility awaits the younger GWB and having had wonderful parents wont be a get out of jail free card.
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I hope you are not a parent. Your children would be embaressed by your immature remarks.
What sentimental slop.
1) There is no excuse for George W. Bush. What kind of parents produce such an ignorant, insensitive, entitled, egomaniacal lout?
2) The New York Times excerpt today about Mum and Pup expose a mother who's clearly an alcoholic harridan and a father who was an narcissistic bully. No wonder this younger Buckley is looking for substitute parents.
3) Mr. Buckley has an illegitimate son. Will we hear what kind of "Pup" he is for this child? It's hoped that he won't mirror his father's arrogance and ignorance.
Christopher Buckley keeps riding on his father's coat tails. Enough. Either he has something to say without the last name, or he'll to be a child for the rest of his life.
OMG...Have You No Heart...You don't even know these people...and whether you like it or not, he was your president...a little respect, please
This is actually pretty funny. The writer of "Primary Colors" wasn't particularly Anonymous to me since he lived right down the block and his daughter played in the backyard with my daughter. I suspect Mr. Chris could do likewise and you'd barely notice, But 'Thank You For Smoking'... God knows it must be good sh*t, huh?
Stop making stuff up. No one cares about where you live or who played what with your daughter. Let it go.
Ummm, Joe Klein, the Author of "Primary Colors", lived on Loring Avenue in Pelham Heights, NY, about halfway down the block, you know, before the bend in the road which leads to the Metro North Train Station. You seem unaware, but Pelham was founded by former R.I. Senator Claiborne Pell's family, you know, the ones who landed in Pelham Lagoon on a Wooden Boat from England. Nice Anchorage actually. I believe Washington slept there at their Stone Mansion; you know, it's the only one there right at the end of the Lagoon.
What again was it that I'm making up?
williamboot: what do anything you've mentioned about the Mr and Mrs Bush, their son or Mr Buckley have to do with the article? Instead of criticizing the article, you've attacked the people (for smart people that's called Ad hominem). That in a nutshell is what's wrong with liberals like yourself. You're trying to subvert the discussion into your hatred of these people. Grow up, dude.
Not one to let bygones be bygones, are ya'? And, of course, why not attack the father because you don't like the son -- whether the father is George Bush I or Chris Buckley. Attack the mother, too. Attack the sons. Why not? And then, lacking any evidence, why not take a shot at the illegitimate father? It's all good. You're anonymous. And more important, you've been such a good son, husband, father yourself. So, who would be in a better position to cast aspersions?
Oh, they are knowable. What I cannot begin to fathom is the illegitimate child that would otherwise remain hidden if it were not for his celebrity; and how this is always in line with a pro-life stance. They really just do not get it.
I love how people always speak in generalities for a whole group. It's so ignorant and simplistic.
Sorry, but my former husband's family ignored and hid an illegitimate child for fifty years, They very much were representative of the conservative upper crust that will go to any length to protect their reputations (just part of their status), I am not ignorant or simple minded; nor to I address that which I have had no experience with. See I have been there.
Great article Mr Buckley. Unfortunately it provoked the obama slime to crawl out from under thier rocks to spew thier hate and discontent. Something they lack the courage to do to your face. Ironically, they demonstrate the human waste of parental abandonment. Perhaps they should "adopt" real parents.
I hate to tell you,,,this has nothing to do with Pres Obama..Respect G.H.W. Bush.
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Slime should be attached to ideas. Why don't you try that?
Oh, I just had an idea. Your use of the term "obama slime" displays ignorance.
LOL Slime? at least the Obama voters did not have hang their heads in shame that 4000 families will never experience what Barbara Bush did the other night in Houston.
Just wait until the Taliban in Pakistan move into Afghanistan and start shooting at the troops that Obama are sending there.
After reading your Sunday Mag article, the question comes to mind, why did such intelligent people spend so much time on their knees? And next time you refer to my brother Michael, go easy, he is suffering for other people's sins. RWS
The Sk---ls spent so much time on their knees as they were so drunk they couldn't stand up. Hell, it's even hard to connect a golf club with someone's head when you are that bombed. Ditto for the Buckleys it seems.
George and Barbara Bush are New England aristocrats. We won't see their kind again. I don't wonder that Christopher Buckley is taken with them. As for his own mother and father they too were aristocrats, social and intellectual, respectively and I can't wait to read his whole new book about them. I devoured the excerpt in the New York Times this weekend. I guess that's because I have always vicariously wondered what it would be like to have parents like Pat and Bill Buckley. I discovered with great surprise that Christopher and I share the same unhappy college memory - of our parents walking out on our college graduation (his at Yale, mine at Brooklyn College) and then a lonely and fruitless on campus search for them afterward. Somehow it lessensthe pain of that memory for me now, to know that Bill Buckley did the same thing to his son that my Dad did to me. I guess there's an element of schadenfreude. The important thing is that finally there was forgiveness.
I think oaklynn and williamboot demonstrate (and put the "demon" in demonstrate) conclusively what cheap, heartless, petulant and rude jerks some people can be.
If you'd like to know, "(w)hat kind of parents produce such an ignorant, insensitive, entitled, egomaniacal lout," call home.
I feel sorry that you have no compassion...
rowland-
my friend, you have a way with words - I salute you!
Yet I bet you would proudly defend all those racist, homophoebic, right-wing cretins who attack our president and heap insult on Americans who support him. Spare me your sanctimonious hyprocritical bs. It is a reasonable question to ask how such nice people (and I never say they weren't) happened to produce the arguabley worst president in US history. I admire Christopher Buckley, love his writing, and understand his affection for his now surrogate parents, but they did produce a pretty pathetic excuse for a president, it should be noted.
By concluding from my comment that I would, "proudly defend....racist, homophoebic, right-wing cretins," you clearly show how much of your thinking is done for you by other people.
So... did you turn out to be a cokehead alcoholic ignoramus like the rest of their kids?
LOVE CONQUERS ALL!!!
Now, see, have read different accounts of G.H.W. and Mrs. Bush and not all that flattering all due respect , but George W. is not my idea of a decent president nor anyone that I would want as a friend let alone a brother! Time also conquers all and even though my own father was a bit of an iron fist (to say the least) we all showed up (on our own dime) to celebrate his 80th. There is nostalgia at play and remember we tend to soften the bad memories and strengthen the good.
CB - Am happy for you that you have found surrogates but don't really understand why they are 'the ones' elevated over other kindly people...
Smug rich people get together to congratulate themselves on how wonderful they are. Snore.
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Sounds like the Oscars.
Hollywood may be loaded with the rich, but they don't have the luxury of hiding their follies to protect their reputations at any cost. They are what they are.
Naturally, Christopher would feel at home with a RINO family that has a country club background like his own. And, like Dubya himself, he has benefited from nepotism and is an example of how the blood thins from generation to generation.
For those who accuse williamboot of being an Obama supporter, I'm a former Republican whose father, a very nice one, served in the House of Representatives with Geo. H.W.
No matter what the elder Bush is like -- just loving Christopher Buckley and Saudi princes to pieces -- his Presidential son was an abject failure on nearly every count (AIDS in Africa excluded), and may turn out to have been a war criminal.
Secondly, Mr. Buckley is using his family to write an autobiography to make big bucks and to bask in their reflected glory. Only, if his name were O'Shaughnessy, he wouldn't have a book deal, nor would the Bushes be calling him Sonny Boy. Nor would he be quite so smug.
Yes, connieboyd: rich people congratulating each other on how wonderful they are. It would be funny if it weren't so tasteless.
So, I take it you missed the Buckley 'market buy signal' in his previous article when referring to 'landing the Cessa at Nome Airport' in Alaska. You should have listened better in Class. I bought GE (an Airplane Engine Maker) on Buckley's tip (he is from Conn. you know, as is GE), at $5.94 and $5.93 per share, and again at $7.01. GE's currently at $12.50.
Oh, hey, thanks Buck. Noblesse Oblige ... just another knuckleball past the batter again. I did warn you about this man. He is part crossword puzzle, part chess, part yachtze, part Oxford Unabridged Dictionary. You do have to pay attention.
As for Buckley, he should be awarded the first Gold Cross for attaining the Rank of "First Satirist to 'call' the exact market turn while the Country was in a Depression Award".
And to think you missed it Williamboot, would only be testamony to your immediate circumstance. You can never make yourself taller by claiming others small.
Yes, George Bush can be a terrific, fatherly figure -- with stains of blood on his sleeves. Considering that he introduced torture as part of the interrogation process on the detainees and mishandling of the Iraq war are enough to send him to the same platform with Joseph Fritzl as the best daddy in the world.
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http://alexius-locker.blogspot.com/
"George and Barbara Bush are parents anyone would kill to have."
Kill myself, maybe. My parents are just fine, and I certainly don't need to pick any kind of "surrogate" celebrity family either.
The Bush's "my family right or wrong" ethic has not served our country well.
.
God, when will this endless book promo be over? The "Times" excerpt was howlingly bad. What American person refers to estate taxes as "death duties"? How grand! As if we are expected to believe that his parents $$$ hasn't been in trusts since the dawn of time. It would be nice if people had the balls to do a hatchet job on their parents while there was still time for the drink-addled parents to change the amount of inhertitance.
Sorry, "inheritance".
Hear Hear! and I think we should bring back his old "Mum & Pup" and water board them since he thought, last week, that it wasnt that bad!
No kidding. First is was endless boring articles leading up to the boring book debut. Now the "author" is fighting for advertorial space with Bottega Veneta.
Just as I was disheartened to see the irrational hatred of Obama, along comes many of the folks here with their irrational hatred for George Bush I.
Elitist, Rich, Upper class whites congratulating themselves, YUK. If the Bush's are so wonderful how come they created such a looser as GW?. Christopher is swapping one famous couple for another, so what?. There MUST be far better Conservative foster parents somewhere on the East Coast that would serve Mr Buckley's ego better is there not?.
Mr Buckley can write a great thread, but just because he voted for Obama that hardly makes him a "rouge" in his party. Cowering to Bush Family is cheap, I thought Mr Buckley would hold his Conservative credentials and be his "Own Man" but alas he still sucks up the power elites....
You can sneer when you raise $30 million for a cause. Jerk.
Mr. and Mrs. Bush are also not drunk and abusive all the time. Quite a contrast to some parents. No wonder everyone wants them for their own!
Someone gave my daughter an audio CD of Buckley's "Boomtown" and we tried to listen to it driving back and forth to the hospital for her chemo treatments. It was lousy and we couldn't stand it. Buckley writes about his heroine like a leering old man. The premise is young people rising up against Social Security. Funny how its the wealthy who fret about Social Security, the people who have no fears about money for themselves or their children and grand children. The rest of us know that you'd be supporting your parents if they didn't have Social Security; they'd be living in your home. Most old people were poor before Social Security. It also pumps money into the economy on a continuing regular basis, an obstacle to another great depression.
Saw the elder Bushes on Greta van Susteren the other night and Barbara talks about how Bush the Younger has to make some money to pay for the fabulous new house. He better keep a low profile; that will gall people to see George and Laura living in luxury after having done so much harm to the USA.
Lesson in humility: Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it's not good.
And just because you don't like something doesn't mean it's not true.
Socrates would argue that one with you. How is it possible to like something that is bad? Maybe you are confused and think that it is good. In that case you should only have to be shown the truth to realize your error. If you are unable to recognize the truth of what is good and what is bad, you are insane. Broad reading, particularly of history, philosophy, poetry and literature, is a fine guide in making this distinction. I wish you well.
Godspeed and good health to you daughter.
I completely agree with what you have written. Buckley, like George Jr., is the emotionally crippled son of a scoundrel.
If you say do Mr. Buckley. I personally believe the Bushes are the most evil family in American history. What, no gushy stories about Granpa Prescott?
Thank you.
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