Former White House Counsel C. Boyden Gray wrote and spoke about the legacy and person of President George H.W. Bush in the days following his passing.
President Bush’s policies and judicial appointees set the stage for the economic boom of the 1990s and beyond, Gray wrote in the Wall Street Journal:
George Bush did what had to be done, without complaint. His character was his destiny. Privately he didn’t talk about policy but its ultimate goal—the promotion of six words I heard 100 times daily: family, faith and friends; duty, honor and country.
Gray joined “The Ingraham Angle” following a day of tributes in the nation’s capital after the passing of the 41st president of the United States:
INGRAHAM: Boyden, your sense about just how rank the abuse of this moment is just to, again, as Craig said, bash Trump.
C. BOYDEN GRAY, FORMER COUNSEL TO GEORGE H.W. BUSH: It doesn’t make any sense and he wouldn’t have done this — that is, 41 wouldn’t have, and two of Trump’s greatest achievements, deregulation and judges were right out of the Bush playbook. So, I don’t understand why Kristol would turn what was actually a pretty good recital into a negative in the last two sentences. It doesn’t make any sense.
Gray joined CNN’s Jake Tapper’s for a special report remembering President Bush:
Politically, George H.W. Bush was probably most proud of his handling of the break up of the former Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany, but personally he was most proud of his family, former White House counsel C. Boyden Gray told Jake Tapper.
Gray reflected on the president’s death for Houston’s KHOU11 television news:
He was a giant. He was a man of extraordinary character and integrity, but at the same time a great deal of love, a great deal of humility, and a great deal of humor. He had a great sense of humor. . . . I can’t tell some of the jokes because you’re a family broadcasting station.
Gray spoke with NPR’s Michel Martin about the two Supreme Court vacancies that President George H.W. Bush filled:
He knew [Clarence] Thomas in some ways better than I knew him because he had worked with him in the Reagan administration, and he knew what Thomas was capable of. He knew how brilliant he was. And so he knew as much as any of us. That’s unusual for a president to know a candidate that well. That’s unusual.
Having worked for both presidents, Ambassador Gray talked with USA Today about the relationship between President George H.W. Bush and his son, President George W. Bush:
“The father was very proud of his son, and very loving and very supportive but not very prescriptive,” said C. Boyden Gray, White House counsel to George H.W. Bush who worked for George W. Bush as ambassador to the European Union. “I don’t think he gave detailed advice, if he was asked.”