Why Is George W. Bush Not Endorsing Kamala Harris?

Democrat Kamala Harris Has Momentum

Today, there are 48 days left before the U.S. presidential election on November 5th. Politicians on the both sides of the aisle and pundits agree that Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris soundly won the debate on September 10th with Republican former president Donald Trump. And polls ever since have shown that Harris is enjoying a momentum swinging in the direction of her political campaign. Most show that since President Joe Biden pulled out of the race in July, after a disastrous performance in a debate with Trump, the Republicans have had an extraordinary climb from Biden being considerably behind Trump to Harris now enjoying a modest lead over Trump in some polls, with others showing a tie.

As a result of Harris’ excellent performance in the debate, and her now being a serious challenger to winning the presidency, several notable Republican members of Congress and other politicians have in recent days come out publicly to enthusiastically endorse Democrat Harris, perhaps mostly because they are opposed to Trump and the possible decline of America’s democracy which he threatens as a wannabe dictator who does not respect the U.S. Constitution and now has the Supreme Court stacked in his favor. IMO and that of many Americans, the situation is dire so that November 5th may be one of most important presidential elections in the history of the United States of America.

Leading Republicans Are Endorsing Harris

Who are these Republicans now endorsing Kamala Harris? Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming has been the leading Democrat strongly opposing Donald Trump’s campaign for the presidency. Now, just days ago, her father—former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney under President George W. Bush—came out publicly endorsing Harris for president. The 83-year old Cheney said, “In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again.”

Peter Baker of The New York Times has an article today entitled “111 Former G.O.P. Officials Back Harris, Calling Trump ‘Unfit to Serve.'” It tells of 111 Republicans signing a letter made public today endorsing Harris for president. They include former members of Congress, defense secretaries, C.I.A. directors, and other national security officials.

Bush’s former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made a lengthy public statement last week warning of the danger of Trump serving another term and therefore endorsed Harris for president, calling on Republicans to do likewise. He criticized Republicans in Congress for being “unwilling to check abuses of executive power” when Trump was president. He said of the Capitol riot on January 6th, 2021, that then President Trump “failed to do his duty and exercise his presidential power to protect members of Congress, law enforcement and the Capitol from the attacks.”

George W. Bush Is Not Joining Them

Despite George W. Bush’s vice president, his attorney general, and so many other Republicans now publicly endorsing Harris, George W. Bush is nowhere to be found in joining them. Thus, some Republican politicians, or former ones, are calling on George W. to endorse Harris as well. But Bush refuses to say anything about it publicly even though he has said the Capitol riot made him “sick to my stomach.” His office said two days ago that Bush will not endorse a candidate publicly and added, “President Bush retired from presidential politics years ago.”

Many Republicans are alleging that that Bush position is irresponsible, that a former U.S. president “can’t do that.” Yet, Bush had announced regarding the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections that he had not voted for either candidate; rather, he voted for a write-in—his former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. But I think there is another, prominent reason why George W. is not backing anyone in this race.

Why Not?—Iraq War

He doesn’t want to hear any more criticism about his decision and efforts that resulted in the Iraq War debacle. It is the one big thing that Americans, but even more so the rest of the world, holds against the George W. Bush presidency. And I think George W. has been psychically affected by it. The aftermath of the Iraq War has been a seeming disaster for Iraq compared to if Hussein was not taken out. Iraq’s economy has been in the shambles. Iraqis have been leaving the country. Climate change is taking a massive toll on Iraq. This story goes on and on.

At the end of the 1990s, Houston Chronicle sports writer and columnist Mickey Herskowitz was hired by the Bush family to write an autobiography of George W. while he was in the end of his term as governor of Texas. Bush was considering a run for the U.S. presidency. Russ Baker (russbaker.com) quoted Mickey on June 20, 2005, as saying of George W., “He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999. It was on his mind. He said, ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He went on, ‘If I have a chance to invade…, if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.'”

Why Did George W. Want to Invade Iraq?

Soon after George W. Bush became U.S. president, in 2001, the U.S. was attacked by Muslim terrorists Al Qaeda on 9/11, suffering nearly 3,000 deaths. Bush made a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq. He then began trying to form a UN coalition to attack Iraq because of its dictatorial president Saddam Hussein. The Bush administration alleged that Hussein had nuclear weapons, and this was its main reason proclaimed before the UN Security Council for going to war. However, it was proved after the Iraq War that Iraq did not have nuclear weapons.

But George W. Bush, now a Christian, had another reason to invade Iraq. As he was trying to gather this UN coalition with which to attack Iraq, he phoned France’s President Jacques Chirac, trying to convince France to join the coalition, which it did not do. It was afterwards reported by reliable sources, in France and the U.S., that during that phone conversation George W. Bush cited “Gog and Magog” in the Bible (Revelation 20:8; cf. Ezekiel 38—39). He claimed the world was in that period of time prophesied in the Bible, seemingly suggesting that Iraq was Gog, though this is unclear. Chirac afterwards was extremely puzzled by Bush’s assertion and aghast that a U.S. president would seem to want to go to war because of a Bible prophecy.

So, all of this is to show that George W. Bush has reasons protecting his own psyche why he hunkers down, remaining out of the limelight of U.S. politics.