Bush 41: 65 Years of Sitting Down

Another from the Esquire “What I’ve Learned” series.  President George H.W. Bush on his first encounter with his future wife:

What struck me about her? Her beauty. Her sheer beauty. And her dress! She had on a green-and-red dress. Spectacularly beautiful woman. And I asked somebody, Who is that beautiful girl? That is Barbara Pierce, why? I said, Well, I’d like to meet her. And he brought her over. We said hi. Then they started playing a waltz. I said, Barbara, I don’t know how to waltz. And she said, Well, let’s sit down. So we sat down, and the rest is history. Been sitting down for sixty-five years.

Never did learn to waltz.

Really no point.*

_________
*To clarify: The only discernible purpose for a man’s learning to dance is to get a girl. Having accomplished that feat first, there’s no point in doing so after the fact.

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Linda says:

    Doesn’t have to have a point. It’s a touching look at 41’s and Barbara’s first meeting. They are such a cute couple. 🙂

  2. michael reynolds says:

    True love. Just about everything else in life is bullshit.

  3. JS says:

    I assume that “Really, no point” refers to there not being a point to learn how to waltz once you’ve met the woman with whom you are going to spend the rest of your life.

  4. James Joyner says:

    @JS: Right! The only discernible purpose for a man’s learning to dance is to get a girl. Having accomplished that feat first, there’s no point in doing so after the fact.

  5. Linda says:

    James,

    Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Gregory Hines… Just to name a few 🙂

  6. democratsarefascists says:

    “The only discernible purpose for a man’s learning to dance is to get a girl. Having accomplished that feat first, there’s no point in doing so after the fact.”

    Dancing is tribal throwback and a primitive impulse.
    Women like it because it lowers a man and means he’s accessible, or so they think.
    And it feeds their egos.

    In truth, if a man is good at dancing, it’s because he’s not the type to settle for one woman.
    Unfortunately, no woman in history has ever figured that out.

  7. Mike says:

    Re Astaire, Kelly, Hines, etc.

    Dancing for show is an entirely different thing.
    Anybody who thinks Astaire and Kelly did it so they could dance with women didn’t have to watch them bandaging their bloody feet at the end of a shooting day.

    And Hines, well, he definitely didn’t do it to meet women, did he?

  8. Tano says:

    “In truth, if a man is good at dancing, it’s because he’s not the type to settle for one woman.”

    Wow. Can we award a “dumbest comment of the year”?

    “..no woman in history has ever figured that out.”

    gee, I wonder why…

  9. Neil Hudelson says:

    Mike,

    “And Hines, well, he definitely didn’t do it to meet women, did he?”

    I’m confused by this statement. Are you suggesting Hines was gay? He was married twice and was engaged at the time of his death–so evidently his dancing skills sure didn’t hurt his ability to meet girls.

    Just curious what you meant by that. (And we are talking about Gregory Hines, right? There’s not another famous Hines dancer that I’m aware of.)

  10. Joe says:

    So he accomplished this feat first without first getting to his feet, which was both no mean feat and no feet at all.

  11. Mike says:

    Why would you be confused by it? He was a professional dancer, not a guy hanging out in a disco lounge.

    And incidentally, just because he appeared in movies doesn’t mean he was a better dancer than Maurice.

  12. Mike says:

    Oh, I see now.
    Folks we’ve been visited by the PC police.
    Repower America and Houston Votes, huh?
    George Soros puppets.

    I don’t think I need to be policed by these people:

    “Two Texas activist groups, Houston Votes and Texans Together Education Fund, were accused Tuesday of an organized voter fraud campaign by Harris County Voter Registrar Leo Vasquez, who likened the groups to the now-discredited ACORN.”