Regarding:
He stated – when an American missile had blown up an Iranian aircraft with 290 innocent civilians aboard in 1988 – that he would “never apologize for the United States of America. Ever. I don’t care what the facts are.”
Bush frequently stated his feelings regarding apologizing for America, and this was not related to the horrible shoot-down of the Iranian civilian airliner incident, which occurred during the Reagan administration and the Iran-Iraq war.

Bush was remarkable for some of the things he did not do, such as take an elaborate victory lap for the Western World during the demise of Soviet Communism. This enabled that other architect of the end of the Soviet era, Michael Gorbachev, to function without having to fight public humiliation from the U.S. There are other Presidents we can name who would not have shown that kind of self restraint.

While I was not a partisan for President Bush, I did not ever swallow his political opponents' argument that he was a 'wimp'. WWII fighter pilots are not wimps. I thought he handled Gulf War I well in that he worked with Margaret Thatcher in assembling a united front of allies in prosecuting that War. And he went to Congress. I thought he was a shoo-in for re-election. The events that led to his own party undercutting him over the tax issue were astonishing to me at the time, and sadly predictive of some of the short sightedness shown by many Americans when choosing their leaders.