Bush's absent father

AMERICA'S EYES have frequently found George Herbert Walker Bush this week, but not America's ears. The former president -- "41" to some in the Bush clan -- has been highly visible gesticulating amiably from the family seats at the Republican National Convention. But he is not scheduled to speak at all, and more to the point, he has hardly been spoken about.

The elder Bush's absence from the podium is described by convention organizers as his desire -- in fact, a continuation of a practice he began in 1992 of excluding convention speeches by former presidents so the Republican Party can focus better on the future. The truth is that in 1992 Ronald Reagan was already affected by the Alzheimer's disease that he would announce publicly two years later. And in any event, some in Bush's camp in 1992 were not eager to risk the president being upstaged by his predecessor, still hugely popular with the GOP faithful.

Twelve years later it is happening in New York: Ronald Reagan is upstaging the elder Bush, and with the younger Bush's blessing.

It is odd, at a minimum, to hear speaker after speaker cite Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Reagan as the Republican pantheon while no mention is made of the last GOP incumbent, who is sitting mutely in the audience.

President Bush and his aides have warned against attempts to analyze the father-son relationship. But it is clear that Bush 43 is determined to outdo/make up for Bush 41's actions in at least four major areas: finishing the job of deposing Saddam Hussein, cutting taxes and not raising them later, keeping far to the right, and winning a second term.

The president has said he does not consult his father often. Bob Woodward quoted him as saying: "You know, he is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. There is a higher father that I appeal to."

Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey has accused Democrats of hiding Michael Dukakis "under a rock," a remark that makes up in accuracy for what it lacks in subtlety. But the same thing is true of what Republicans -- including his own son -- have done to George H. W. Bush.