What We All Forget (If We Ever Knew) About The Political Career of Bush 41

Bush had the training. He had the senator father, the Ivy League pedigree and the war hero story — not to mention years in politics. He had made a quixotic bid for the Senate in 1964 and then been elected to the House in 1966, one of just two Republicans in the chamber's Texas delegation. Nonetheless, as a freshman, he got a coveted seat on the Ways and Means Committee, a personal favor that Chairman Wilbur Mills did for an old friend (who happened to be Bush's father).

Bush had opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but once in Congress, he voted for a successor bill in 1968 that was deeply unpopular in his Houston district. In his two House terms, he had also voted to support Planned Parenthood and shown at least a passing interest in the nascent environmental movement.