Americans on Wednesday saw one of the political world’s most moving scenes ever. When 95-year-old Bob Dole saluted the casket of George H.W. Bush, anyone who loves America should have been fighting off tears.
Please watch this video for yourself. One old patriot, one old rival-turned-friend, one old public servant, paying homage to the life of another.
As I wrote on Monday, it is nearly miraculous that Bob Dole still lives. It was nearly miraculous that he still lived at this time 73 years (!!!!) ago. The man’s spirit is indomitable.
But back to Dole’s relationship with Bush. Dole’s salute to Bush is even more touching when one considers the long backstory. The two men, both hugely admirable, triumphed in bizarrely parallel, but oh-so-different lives. Bush was the son of privilege; Dole was a child of rough-hewn scrappiness. Both were excellent athletes in high school and college. Both obviously served in World War II, both gallantly and even heroically — but their luck, such as it was, was as different as their upbringings.
Bush famously was shot down in the Pacific, but he was largely uninjured, and once he was rescued, he was treated as almost a guest on a Navy sub and then a ship as they carried out missions until he could be ferried back stateside. He was home by Christmas 1944 and married on Twelfth Night. Dole, on the other hand, was still crawling around Italy’s mountains then, and when wounded months later, he endured years of painful rehab.
Dole has a loving daughter named Robin (and this is where Bush got, by far, the worst of it). Bush’s daughter, Robin, died of childhood leukemia.
Dole painstakingly worked his way into local political office, then to Congress, and then to the Senate. Bush, the son of a senator, began his career by running for the Senate — and, losing that, easily won a House seat, and then lost again for the Senate. Yet, he was rescued from failure by a series of political appointments.
From Dole’s standpoint, the silver-spooned Bush was never really allowed to fail. Dole strove and struggled; Bush was blessed. Then, President Richard Nixon even forced Dole out as chairman of the Republican National Committee … and, of course, replaced Dole with Bush.
Yeah, Dole beat Bush to his party’s vice-presidential nomination. But Dole, lashed to a decent but plodding Gerald Ford, lost, while Bush, pulled along by the Gipper’s magic, won.
Then, in 1988, the two squared off for the party’s nomination, where Bush won.
By any measure, they were not then friends. Not even close. Of the same party, and with many of the same principles, yes — but rivals, sometimes bitter, yoked together by fate.
But when Bush became president, and Dole was Republican Senate leader, something changed. Dole worked unceasingly to promote Bush’s agenda. No senator could possibly have been more loyal, and perhaps none so effective, in that political climate. For his part, Bush, saying Dole had “inspired” him, helped Dole pass a cause dear to the Kansan’s heart, the Americans with Disabilities Act. Fighting for common political cause, as they decades before had fought a war for freedom, the animosities retreated. Respect grew. Then, a real friendship.
Google “Bush and Dole.” You’ll see the two collaborating repeatedly in these past two decades. Dole even supported Bush’s son, Jeb, for president in 2016.
“This is a case where two political enemies became fast, fast friends,” Dole said at a 2016 commemoration of Pearl Harbor’s 75th anniversary, “and that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
Yes, it is — and bless them both for demonstrating it. Well done, good sirs, well done.
