Elder Bush to press - Leave my Georgie alone

Daddy Bush is a bit disgruntled with the adversarial press. "I won't get too personal here -- but this antipathy got worse after the 43rd president took office," the former president said.

I'm tempted to dash off a snarky response but I understand where he's coming from and besides, I'm feeling charitable this afternoon.

Dear Mr. Bush:

As a parent I feel for you. I know how difficult it is to see your child fail. Our offspring's pain is our pain, magnified tenfold by concern for their well-being and even a sense of our own failure to protect them from their own mistakes. We desire to see them succeed and wonder if it's our own shortcomings as parents that led them to make bad choices. Unfortunately, in your case, and with due respect sir, I'm afraid it's true.

You protected your son too much. You shielded him from suffering the consequences of his own actions and fostered in him a sense of entitlement far beyond his ability to live up to it. At every turn, you led him by the hand into opportunities that he recklessly squandered without regret. Knowing Daddy will always be there to fix it, your son feels no urgency to succeed. By over-enforcing his sense of security, you allowed his sense of responsibility to wither. It's basic human nature to care more about that which we work for to obtain ourselves. All of us tend to be somewhat careless about that which is handed to us for free.

There's no nice way to put this Mr. Bush. Your son is a miserable failure as a President and will be remembered in the history books as possibly the most arrogant and dismally incompetent leader this country has ever suffered, yet he enjoyed a long grace period of positive press. Longer than most presidents, thanks to this ill-fated "war" he unilaterally declared. You can't blame the media now for pointing out what the people already can see for themselves -- your son deceived and betrayed us. His war is a farce and our foreign policy is in shambles. This time 43's negligent stewardship has created a problem too big for you to simply solve for him.

Now you can only sit by and watch white-knuckled with the rest of us, hoping as we count down the days until the end of his term, that we will be able to salvage enough out of the ruins he will leave behind to rebuild our country to its former status and glory.

For a much less polite response, read Jill's brilliant post. She offers up a comprehensive and compelling list of reasons on why 41 should just stop whining.