Without Saying ‘Trump,’ Bush and Obama Deliver Implicit Rebukes
Neither the former president nor his father, former President George Bush, voted for Mr. Trump,
and the two issued a joint statement in August denouncing white supremacists after the violence in Charlottesville, Va., which Mr. Trump blamed on “both sides.”
The younger Mr. Bush seemed to return to that on Thursday.
Asked by a reporter as he left the hall whether his message would be heard in the
White House, Mr. Bush smiled, nodded slightly and said, “I think it will.”
In his speech, the former president lamented that “bigotry seems emboldened”
and “our politics seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication.”
Pointing a finger at the nation’s leaders, he said, “We know
that when we lose sight of our ideals, it is not democracy that has failed; it the failure of those charged with preserving and protecting democracy.”
He acknowledged public discontent.