Read my lips: no second term for you, buster.

How many guys do you know have statues in the Houston airport, huh? Via mrdavisdc's flickr.

George H.W. Bush, "Bush 41," "Bush, Sr.," that guy who threw up on the Japanese Prime Minister,* etc. The 1988 Presidential Election is the first one I remember. For some reason, in my preschool brain, Bush was represented by a giant stalk of broccoli (this image may have come from a California Raisins special) and Dukakis was a styrofoam cup. I don't know why. Anyway, GHWB. Much like his son to come after, the first President Bush was born into privilege. His father was a pro-birth control, anti-McCarthyism U.S. Senator from Connecticut. Little George went to private schools growing up, and deferred enrollment to Yale to join the Navy upon high school graduation. He went on to be come the, like, youngest naval aviator EVAR in 1942. Some crazy shit went down on aircraft carriers and in planes over the Pacific during WWII, and GHWB was kind of a badass. After the war, he enrolled at Yale, where he participated in an accelerated program to graduate in 2.5 years with a bachelor's degree in economics. That means he wanted to make money. And he did. But first he was in a fraternity, played baseball and met Babe Ruth, and joined secret/sketchy patriarchal society Skull and Bones. He married a lady named Barbara Pierce, who was the great-great-granddaughter of President Franklin Pierce's fourth cousin and moved to West Texas to make money out of the petroleum business. He and Barb had six kids, one of whom died in childhood, one of whom is the former governor of America's Smartest State™ and goes by his initials "JEB,"** and of course, one who followed in his footsteps to become the President of the United States. People don't really seem to like that one very much, despite his reelection and "get-a-beer-with-ability." ANYWAY. George, Sr. was a millionaire by age 40. Which, we've all got to admit, is pretty speedy. But so he lost his first bid for the Senate in 1964 when his opponent called him a "right-wing extremist." Bush, Sr.? Ha! But he recovered quickly and was elected to the House as Houston's first Democratic representative in 1966. Then in 1970, Nixon was all, "Hey, George, you should totes run for Senate again." But then he totes lost. Again. So, Trickly Dickly felt a little bad and made him the Ambassador to the U.N. Which I didn't know you could do without a bad attitude and an even badder mustache.

He was dreamy, even holding the little booger.

Then he tried to salvage the RNC's reputation after that whole "Watergate" thing, was the sort of-ambassador to China, was the head of the CIA for like a year, and then took some private sector jobs before gearing up for The Big Run in 1980. So he tried to run for #1 that year (so did Bob Dole!), but he made up for his failure when Reagan chose him as his #2. As Vice President, George Bush went to a lot of funerals, had lunch with Ronnie on Thursdays in the Oval Office, worked on economic deregulation, the wildly successful War on Drugs, debated Geraldine Ferraro once on TV in 1984, and claimed to be an "innocent bystander" in that whole Iran-Contra "thing." In 1988, he ran for President (again), having to fight off Dole, Kemp, and Pat Robertson (!) in the primary. He promised not to raise taxes. He did not realize that one should never promise anything having to do with taxes. But he became the first serving VP to be elected to the presidency since Dutchy McShortguy Martin Van Buren! As President, he tried to avoid raising taxes. Unfortunately the meanie Democratic Congress was like, "Hey, lets try to fight that whole gigantic Reagan Deficit thing." Bastards. He appointed Souter and Thomas to the Supreme Court (he will not be forgiven for the latter) during his tenure, but also he helped make life a little bit easier for wheelchair-Americans.*** Then there was some sort of "just cause" in Panama that required us to depose some guy, we had to fight against Saddam. However, we avoided invading Baghdad and ousting everybody's favorite mustachioed Middle Eastern dictator and being "forced to rule Iraq" (see Wikipedia, as per usual). That would've sucked, right? The Berlin Wall came down and Bush met with sexy, sexy Gorbachev and helped usher in Russia's Golden Age of Capitalist Oligarchy at the end of the Cold War. Anyway, the American people were kind of down because of some sort of economic recession. Whatever, what a bunch of whiners dressed in unfortunate early '90s fashions.**** Blahblahblah Bill Clinton won in 1992.

XPBFF!

Now George Bush, Sr. hangs out at his various family compounds, holds his own fishing tournament in Florida, became one of those British knight-thingies, got a supercarrier named after him, plays tennis with sexy Russians,***** tries to avoid being seen with his son too much, and goes golfing with Bill. Writing about people who are still living is hard because there is far too much information available. I'll try not to make that mistake again. *Dear Wikipedia-editing Bush fans, just because you delete any reference to this event in his official article does not erase the public memory of said vomiting. Nice try. **If that doesn't spell "D-O-U-C-H-E-B-A-G" to you, you're beyond help. ***I am a terrible person. ****I was never a regular fan, but I know enough to wonder who the hell the guy on the far right is. *****The Cold War is truly over, thank The Sexy Gay Jesus.