You know, I always thought Bush Sr. was a good President.
I liked him, Ronnie. I voted for him in '92 and was, at the time, a little surprised that he wasn't re-elected, being an incumbent who did a nice job with the military during the Gulf War. And although Dick Cheney turned out to be a war monger as VP, he served well as Secretary of Defense under Bush Sr.
The problem was that in the 1990s after the USSR collapsed, foreign/military affairs wasn't that pressing of an issue. Nor really was again until 9/11. The economy was almost everything*, and in '92 Bush Sr. came off as a dried old raisin to the young casanova hillbilly Clinton. Plus Perot didn't help, nor did Pat Buchanan's ideological party nomination challenge.
Maybe its his son Dubya's reign that has colored up his father's term more favorably in retrospect, but it seems like both Presidencies featured serious militaristic endeavors overseas, except Bush Sr. seems like to at least be logical and practical in pulling them off publicly and behind the scenes.
He was greatly criticized for not going after the retreating Iraqi forces and "finish the job," but perhaps he knew that unilaterally that he neither had International support and well the fucking mess that occupying a power-void Iraq would become.
*=1992, 1996, 2000 elections the Democratic candidate won the popular vote.
