“Where will our country find leaders with integrity, courage, strength — all the family values — in 10, 20, or 30 years?” Barbara Bush was the matriarch of the most successful political dynasty of the modern era. She was the first lady of the United States. The wife of a president. The mother of another president. The mother of a governor of a state. And she was for a long time, in the American psyche, sort of the picture of a maternal figure. “She’s the most popular woman in America and maybe in the whole world. Or at least up there with Mother Teresa.” But she was a much more interesting and sophisticated player than that. She was witty, sometimes acerbic. Smart and sharp. “When I was campaigning for governor, I would tell people of Texas I had my daddy’s eyes and my mother’s mouth.” “You should be so lucky.” Barbara Bush was not a political player in the sense that Hillary Clinton was. She didn’t shape policy. She didn’t screen staff the way Nancy Reagan did. She had a smart ear for politics, and long before we had social media or sophisticated data-mining programs for politics, we had Barbara Bush’s Christmas card list. Everyone her husband met through business, through friendship, through civic activities, she would make sure to get their contact information. She kept a very thorough file of people to send Christmas cards to every year. It literally grew to be thousands and thousands of names and addresses. And in effect that was the first direct-mail list for the Bush family. This would become the base of their political operation. “The next first lady of the United States. Come on up, sweetie pie. Come on up.” Barbara Bush had one of the most extraordinary marriages in presidential history. They not only stayed married, but stayed strong partners all the way to the end. “Thank you very, very much. ... Sweetie.” Literacy was one of Barbara Bush’s biggest issues. She cared a lot about that and she spent a lot of time on that. She also spoke out on issues like AIDS. And made clear that she was for abortion rights, even though that was against her husband’s political positions. “However you define family. That’s what we mean by family values.” Barbara Bush was a strong supporter of her children, obviously. But she was also very honest when she thought that they were biting off more than they could chew. When George W. told her that he wanted to run for governor of Texas, she told him flatly, ‘No, you shouldn’t do it. You’re going to lose.’ She turned out to be wrong. Similarly, when Jeb Bush started making noises about running for president in 2016, she publicly said she didn’t think that was necessarily a good idea. Didn’t we have enough of Bushes at this point in public life? She later, of course, recanted and said, of course she supported Jeb. And she was out there on the trail for both of her boys. “But we have other children. Maybe we’re going to have the first girl president. Who knows?” “Mom, I hope you’re not announcing your candidacy.” “Oh yes.” She drew a lot of admirers across the country for her straightforward, but always honest, way of dealing with the role that she had been assigned by history. “Who knows? Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps and preside over the White House as the president’s spouse. And I wish him well.”