His many terrible acts are being ignored thanks to elite nostalgia and anti-Trump sentiment. By JEET HEER December 3, 2018 In the last few days, journalistic eulogies have abounded for George H. W. Bush, who died at the age of 94 on Friday night. It’s established tradition for honoring former presidents. But as Jon Allsop points out in The Columbia Journalism Review, the warm remembrances of Bush also display a distinct trend: evaluating the forty-first president specifically as a foil who highlights the perceived failings of the current commander in chief. Coverage of Bush’s life, Allsop notes, has been“dominated by favorable comparisons to President Trump. Bush’s death, much like McCain’s before him, became a metaphor for the death of civility in politics. A warm letter Bush wrote his successor, Bill Clinton, was held up as an artifact of bipartisan comity, as BuzzFeed’s Anne Helen Petersen noted in an insightful post . Many outlets highlighted Bush’s broad public popularity ... An...
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