PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — When former Sen. Bob Dole paid his final respects to George HW Bush at the US Capitol Tuesday, he was helped to his feet and saluted the 41st President of the United States.
For Kerry Tymchuck, it was an act of respect he had previously witnessed up close. Tymchuck, currently the executive director of the Oregon Historical Society, was a longtime speech writer for both Bob Dole and his wife, Elizabeth Dole, when she was Bush’s Secretary of Labor.
Bush, he said, “treated everybody with respect and with humor. He was a gentleman, an old fashioned word that doesn’t get used often enough these days. He was a true gentleman.”
Tymchuk said Bush and Dole are the last World War 2-era Republicans. They didn’t invent compromise, he said, but unlike the politics of today they both often practiced compromise over partisanship while in office.
Especially in 1993 when it meant President Bush had to accept tax increases as part of a budget deal with Congress.
“He promised not to raise taxes and when it became apparent that he had to to get a deal which would yield some long term great gain for the budget, he agreed to a deal and the conservative fringe of the party never forgave him,” Tymchuck told KOIN 6 News.
He also remembered Bush 41’s self-deprecating humor and his gold-star quality of making everyone in a room feel special.