The torch was passed Friday, not so much from first lady to first lady as from one generation of Bush women to another.
A beaming former First Lady Barbara Bush, her husband and the rest of the Bush clan gathered with hundreds of well-wishers at Washington’s Constitution Hall to honor President-elect George W. Bush’s wife, Laura, at what has become a traditional inauguration week first lady’s tribute.
The Bushes have returned to Washington in the full flush of triumph, wiping out the ignominy of what they view as their unjust loss to Bill Clinton in 1992.
Their relish of the occasion was evident Friday. It was as though the elder Mrs. Bush was passing on her former position as a family possession going to the next generation.
For her part, Laura Bush took to the stage not as a symbol of a Bush restoration, but as an individual in her own right with her own ideas on the role of her position and the needs of the nation. On Friday, she broke with Republican Party orthodoxy by saying she opposed overturning the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision establishing a woman’s constitutional right to abortion nationwide.
And she transformed the Friday tribute into a celebration honoring reading, books and authors.
“Traditionally, inaugurations include a tribute to the first lady,” said the former schoolteacher and librarian. “I’d like to depart from that tradition by making this occasion a tribute to the thousands of people who have affected my life and all of our lives–our great American authors.”
She then devoted the rest of the event to readings by five famous American writers: historian Stephen Ambrose; mystery writer Mary Higgins Clark and her novelist daughter, Carol Clark; black columnist and author Stanley Crouch; and Texas writer Steve Harrigan.
As Barbara Bush had advocated literacy while in the White House, Laura Bush said she would champion education and reading, calling the latter “the most important skill a child can learn in school.”
“The power of a book lies in its ability to turn a solitary act into a shared vision,” she said. “It’s because of Herman Melville that we know what it was like to sail beyond the rim of the world on a 19th Century sailing ship. … It’s because of [black author] Richard Wright that we can understand the boiling rage and desperate yearning of those who are denied full membership in America’s promise.”
She briefly turned the spotlight on her mother, Jenna Welch, and on her husband’s parents, describing Barbara Bush as “my mother-in-law and friend.”
The president-elect received a thunderous ovation after introducing his wife.
“Her love for books is real. Her love for children is real. And my love for her is real,” he said.
