41.George H. W. Bush

George Herbert Walker Bush (born June 12, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States (1989–93). He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President (1981–89), a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.

Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to Senator Prescott Bush and Dorothy Walker Bush. Following the attacks on Pearl Harbor in 1941, at the age of 18, Bush postponed going to college and became the youngest aviator in the US Navy at the time.^[1] He served until the end of the war, then attended Yale University. Graduating in 1948, he moved his family to West Texas and entered the oil business, becoming a millionaire by the age of 40.

He became involved in politics soon after founding his own oil company, serving as a member of the House of Representatives, among other positions. He ran unsuccessfully for president of the United States in 1980, but was chosen by party nominee Ronald Reagan to be the vice presidential nominee, and the two were subsequently elected. During his tenure, Bush headed administration task forces on deregulation and fighting drug abuse.

In 1988, Bush launched a successful campaign to succeed Reagan as president, defeating Democratic opponent Michael Dukakis. Foreign policy drove the Bush presidency; military operations were conducted in Panama and the Persian Gulf at a time of world change; the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Soviet Union dissolved two years later. Domestically, Bush reneged on a 1988 campaign promise and after a struggle with Congress, signed an increase in taxes that Congress had passed. In the wake of economic concerns, he lost the 1992 presidential election to Democrat Bill Clinton.

Bush is the father of George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, and Jeb Bush, former Governor of Florida. He is the last president to have been a World War II veteran. Until the election of his son George W. Bush to the presidency in 2000, Bush was commonly referred to simply as “George Bush”; since that time, the forms “George H. W. Bush”, “Bush 41”, “Bush the Elder”, and “George Bush, Sr.” have come into common use as a way to distinguish the father from the son.

43.George W. Bush

George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, serving from 1995 to 2000.

Bush was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He is the eldest son of Barbara Bush and 41st President George H. W. Bush, making him the only American president besides John Quincy Adams to be the son of a preceding president.^[4] He is also the brother of Jeb Bush, former Governor of Florida.

After graduating from Yale University in 1968 and Harvard Business School in 1975, Bush worked in oil businesses. He married Laura Welch in 1977 and ran unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives shortly thereafter. He later co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team before defeating Ann Richardsin the 1994 Texas gubernatorial election. In a close and controversial election, Bush was elected President in 2000 as the Republican candidate, defeating Vice President Al Gore in the Electoral College.

Early on, the Bush administration withdrew from a number of international treaty processes, notably the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.^[5] A series of terrorist attacks occurred eight months into Bush’s first term as president on September 11, 2001. In response, Bush announced a global War on Terror, which included an invasion of Afghanistan that same year and a 2003 invasion of Iraq. In addition to national security issues, Bush promoted policies on the economy, health care, education, and social security reform. He signed into law broad tax cuts, the PATRIOT Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, and Medicare prescription drug benefits for seniors. His tenure saw national debates on immigration, Social Security, electronic surveillance, and waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques“.

Bush successfully ran for re-election against Democratic Senator John Kerry in 2004, in another relatively close election. After his re-election, Bush received increasingly heated criticism from across the political spectrum.^[6][7][8] In 2005, the Bush Administration dealt with widespread criticism over its handling ofHurricane Katrina.^[9][10][11] Following this and other controversies, as well as dissatisfaction with the direction of the Iraq War, Democrats won control of Congress in the 2006 elections. As the United States entered its longest post–World War II recession in December 2007, the Bush Administration enacted multiple economic programs intended to preserve the country’s financial system. Though Bush was popular in the U.S. for much of his first term,^[12] his popularity declined sharply during his second term. He was a highly controversial figure internationally, with public protests occurring even during visits to close allies, such as the United Kingdom.^[13]

After leaving office, Bush returned to Texas and purchased a home in a suburban area of Dallas. He is currently a public speaker and has written a book about his life entitled Decision Points.^[14]