A Humble Suggestion For a Lasting Legacy For Mr. Bush

Nancy Gibbs has an interesting essay in this week’s TIME.

She looks at “second acts,” or what some former Presidents have done with their lives “when ‘Hail to the Chief’ stops playing.”

Gibbs mentions the “standard pursuits” of writing books, launching foundations, making money, and lauds efforts of former Presidents to make the world a better place.

She highlights the efforts by those former President who were not very popular while in office.

In this category fall Jimmy Carter (34 percent approval when he left office) with his great humanitarian work, and Herbert Hoover (who “left office in a deeper hole than Bush”) with his outstanding work for children and to fight and relieve famine around the world.

Finally, getting back to our newest, not-so-popular-while-in-office President, Gibbs hopes that Mr. Bush will use his platform “to do great and lasting good, for a cause he cares about.”

Permit me the audacity to make a more specific suggestion to our former President.

Mr. Bush, tens of thousands of our brave soldiers (perhaps hundreds of thousands when one includes those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder) have faithfully followed your orders and sacrificed so much for you and for country in the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

They are facing a very bleak future because of horrific physical and mental injuries—too many are in dire medical, financial, and emotional straits.

What a more noble cause, what a more fitting legacy, what more lasting good than for you to devote your post-White House years, energy and talents to make the future of those who have given so much during the past eight years a little less painful, a little brighter.