It was a proud and emotional past U.S. President, George H.W. Bush, who penned a thank-you later to former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney on this date in 2000. Only two days before, Bush’s son, George W. Bush, had formally accepted the Republican party’s nomination for President. Mulroney had written Bush 41 to offer his congratulations on W. Bush’s success.
The elder Bush replied immediately to Mulroney’s note.
“Dear Brian, that letter from you after George W. was officially nominated to run for president at the GOP convention, means a great deal to Barbara and me. There is no way I can tell you the emotion we felt when we saw …. George W. up there, in front of the convention. One good thing, when George finished his acceptance speech, it was like a new day had dawned on our family. I felt that finally my political days were over. The record sealed and finished, with the historians left to decide. The baton had indeed been passed. And when Bar and I left the hall, proudest parents in the world, we felt that a wonderful chapter was closed, finished. For us, the mission is now to stay off stage and pray for our boy. When the road ahead for him is rocky, and it will be, we will be here for him, our arms held out to him, just as they were some 50 years ago, when he'd fall on the rocks right out of this window, and come in with a cut on his legs. We are his loving parents, he is our loving son. That, dear Brian, is what this is all about right now.”
George W. Bush, of course, would go on to become America’s President, like his father before him.Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.