Where will George H.W. Bush, 41st president of the United States and World War II hero, go to get his reputation back after his legacy was dissected, and dissed, by Staff Writer Colin Woodard on the front page of the Nov. 26 Maine Sunday Telegram? My guess is that it won’t be in the state of Maine.

I hesitate to make another prediction – that the Bush family will pull up stakes and put its Walker’s Point compound in Kennebunkport on the market – but I wouldn’t be surprised, even though that residence has been a Bush family gathering place for weddings, receptions and visits by foreign leaders for more than a century.

Is Jeb Bush likely to spend any time at his new home on Walker’s Point and chance hearing deprecatory comments about his father? The once-good name of the Bush clan is toast.

In any future listing of U.S. presidents, George H.W. Bush may have an asterisk beside his name for having, in Woodard’s words, “patted,” “fondled,” “groped” or “grabbed” the bottoms of 10 women, all but two of whom Woodard identifies by their full names. Woodard includes the particulars about where and when each incident is alleged to have occurred and the nature of the impropriety – similar to an attorney’s itemized list of charges and specifications prior to an indictment. Were such excruciating details essential to this story?

Bush has apologized “most sincerely” twice for his ungentlemanly behavior, the Bush family’s spokesman says. News reports indicate that women who have been subjected to Sen. Al Franken’s gropings have accepted his apologies. But nowhere in Woodard’s 30-paragraph story is there any record of his having asked any of the women who were offended by Bush’s misbehavior if they accepted his apologies.

“The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”

Walter J. Eno

Scarborough

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