Letter to the editor: At least a gentleman

To the editor:

The passing of George H. W. Bush could not have made clearer how much the presidency has changed and how much the country has lost since 1993.

H. L. Mencken once said of William Jennings Bryan, “Imagine a gentleman, and you have imagined everything that he is not.” To voters in 1989, requiring of a presidential candidate only that he be a gentleman would have seemed a low bar to set. A gentleman, at the very least, the country got with “41.” Having been director of the CIA, he also had a high regard for facts, and if he was not sure of them or free to share them, he kept silent; he did not make up “alternative facts.” He was ridiculed once for not knowing what a UPC scanner was in a grocery store. Don’t you wish that the current POTUS had never heard of Twitter? Sure, G.H.W. Bush was born on third base, but he never claimed to have hit a triple, and he knew, when he had to, how to sacrifice bunt. Let’s honor “41” by insisting in 2020 on, at least, a gentleman … or a lady.

Dan V. Johnson,

Lawrence

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