Bush 41 Defends 43 in Abu Dhabi… Kinda

Bush 41 had an incredibly difficult time in Abu Dhabi.

Former President George H.W. Bush took on Arab critics of his son Tuesday during a testy exchange at a leadership conference in the capital of this U.S. ally.

“My son is an honest man,” Bush told members of the audience harshly criticized the current U.S. leader’s foreign policy.

More:

A college student told Bush his belief that U.S. wars were aimed at opening markets for American companies and said globalization was contrived for America’s benefit at the expense of the rest of the world. Bush was having none of it.

“I think that’s weird and it’s nuts,” Bush said. “To suggest that everything we do is because we’re hungry for money, I think that’s crazy. I think you need to go back to school.”

When asked what advice he gives his son George W. Bush regarding Iraq, he answered:

“I have strong opinions on a lot of these things. But the reason I can’t voice them is, if I did what you ask me to do — tell you what advice I give my son — that would then be flashed all over the world,” Bush said.

“If it happened to deviate one iota, one little inch, from what the president’s doing or thinks he ought to be doing, it would be terrible. It’d bring great anxiety not only to him but to his supporters,” he added.

It is – of course – completely true, but he also implies that he disagrees (possibly) quite strongly with Bush 43 regarding Iraq. This is just about as close to public dissent as we can expect from George H. W. His words are politically correct for “I disagree strongly with his policies”.