Talk:Barbara Bush/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Vaticidalprophet (talk · contribs) 08:55, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

I've been idly watching the First Ladies GT project -- so, of course, I had to pick the biggest one currently up.

Having looked over (without combing through) this article a few times prior to committing, I'll make some notes that have previously stood out to me before launching into a full review sometime in the next few days:

• You never actually mention Robin Bush being known by that name until several thousand words after you first mention her (first mentioned in #Texas years as "Pauline Robinson"; next mentioned in #Later life and death as "Robin").
• Note ref order (e.g. Bush was generally popular as first lady.[143][95]), though most of these are okay.
• I will have a lot of comments to make -- it's a 6000-word article and I've read through it enough times to have opinions -- but this is solid, and in particular, should be FAC-able. It's a high-impact article with consistently Half Million pageviews, on a major enough figure to have many sources, but not so major as make 'comprehensiveness' a hideous headache (as is probably the case for every other First Lady from Nancy on), putting it in a particularly good band for FA candidacy. There are areas I think need particular work, but they can be worked up to GA and beyond.

Full review to come. Vaticidalprophet 08:55, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Starting to run through this now.

Lead

• The lead feels a little hagiographic. While we're talking about a generally well-remembered figure here, some of the choices of which more minor elements to include and exclude feel off. Trump's presidency very late in her life gets a dedicated mention, but nothing more negative from times when she was actually in the public eye does, and noticeably the Wellesley speech has no mention that it was a controversial idea before she pulled it off.
  • I've removed the part about her politics later in life and I've added a bit about the Wellesley speech. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 13:45, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
• Note prior mention about Pauline/Robin and which name is more recognizable.
  • "Robin" is now consistent throughout the article. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 13:45, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Early life + Courtship and marriage

• she took her mother's worldview and financial habits as examples to avoid -- examples of this?
  • Added the example from the source. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 13:45, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
• While in college, she focused the social and athletic aspects accidentally a word.
  • Fixed. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 13:45, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
• part time job is usually hyphenated part-time.
  • Fixed. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 13:45, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
• Consider that these short sections both discuss early parts of Bush's life and will likely be of interest to the same readers, but the fact they're separated out means a mobile reader has to open them separately. Most readers are on mobile, and less than half as many of readers open two sections as one. It may be better from a reader's point of view to make "Courtship and marriage" a subset of "Early life". This could possibly even be done for the next section, but it might start getting a little long.
  • The early life sections are now condensed under the "Early life" heading. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 13:45, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Texas years

• This doesn't seem like the ideal section header, given some significant (but no-years-given?) subset of it happened in California. Something like "Early married years" is more accurate, expresses the content better to a reader looking at the TOC, and strengthens the case for subsectioning (maybe pro, maybe con).
  • Changed. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 13:45, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
• The immediate jump from "George got a job from his family connections" to "the Bushes tried to be independent from their families" is jarring and needs more context.
  • I've reworded "independent" in case it's too jarring. Beyond that, it's about what I'd expect from a wealthy 20-year-old newlywed couple. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 13:45, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
• I am unsure about "housemaids" being the ideal paraphrase for "babysitter and housekeeper". I'm also unsure that capital-letters Civil Rights Movement, with all its Sixties implications, is quite what Anthony (1990) supports (having searched through the relevant keywords) -- there are meaningful differences here in that kind of subtle typographical choice.
  • Fixed and fixed. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 13:45, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
• Are any of the California towns worth naming?
  • The source doesn't seem to think so. It names Compton, California in reference to Robin's birth, but it doesn't give significance to where they lived beyond saying they were in California. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 13:45, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Vaticidalprophet 14:36, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Thebiguglyalien, just checking if you've seen this review yet? Vaticidalprophet 04:29, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I'll take a closer look at the notes in the next day or so. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:42, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Vaticidalprophet Done. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 13:45, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Entering political life

• though the boredom was severe enough at times that she took up needlepoint -- makes needlepoint sound like a punishment :) This and its preceding should probably be restructured a little -- I'd imagine that life on the campaign travel is something with busy uptime but very long periods of downtime? This could then be expressed as discussing how needlepoint and possibly others were hobbies she picked up in that downtime.
• "Primary" piped to "primary election" is not a full-blown easter egg but on that spectrum. the campaign of her husband's opponent in the primary election? (This is a little clunky still, unfortunately.)
• She actively campaigned for her husband, as she had in previous elections is a pleonasm.
• George ran for the U.S. Senate again in 1970 again skews EGG-y -- here you could just expand the pipe to include "ran for the U.S. Senate again".
• The it was a relief to both of the Bushes sentence also feels like a pleonasm -- surely they didn't campaign for a position they didn't want?
• I'm not seeing Anthony supporting the women's-lib thing in a search, and IA isn't letting me access full-text by page (as opposed to in specific term searches) for either book.
  • Anthony: Mrs. Bush would "confess" that in the mid-seventies, "I went through a difficult time, really, because suddenly women's lib had made me feel my life had been wasted."
  • Kilian: "I think part of it was that the children were all gone and part of if it was women's lib which made that woman who stayed home feel that she had somehow or another been a failure," Barbara said.
    • hmm. This might be subjective, but it doesn't so much seem to me that she was "questioning" her life as that she was worried that the movement presented her life as a housewife as "inferior" or "wasted". There's a meaningful distinction there, and the current presentation sounds more...'positive'? than what the sources say. Vaticidalprophet 14:33, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
• The White House bio seemingly doesn't support that she explicitly/publicly called herself "pro-choice" during this period.
  • Just prior to the convention, she had also stated empathically that she did not believe the issue of abortion should be addressed in its platform and that it was "a private matter," suggesting she was "pro-choice" and against the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, a fact she confirmed afterwards in her post-White House memoirs.
    • That was what I read, yeah. The way I'd put that would be that she 'called abortion a "private matter"' or similar rather than explicitly staring she identified as "pro-choice" during this period, but this also might be subjective. (Will continue to the next sections soon, just replying to these two.) Vaticidalprophet 14:33, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Second Lady of the United States (1981–1989)

• where first lady Nancy Reagan reduced the traditional social roles of the vice president and the second lady -- clarity?
• carried out her intention to promote can just be 'intent to promote', but even moreso, can just be 'promoted' ("promoted her chosen cause", if you want).
• Offsetting "overshadow" in quotes makes it sound scarequoted/like Wikipedia's voice is doubting the veracity of the statement, even if the technical underlying reason is "because it's quoting the source".
• Should link Eleanor Roosevelt and Pat Nixon.

Vaticidalprophet 11:59, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Vaticidalprophet I replied above with relevant excerpts, and I've fixed everything else to this point. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:19, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

First Lady of the United States (1989–1993)

Sorry about the delay -- was waiting on a response to the source queries, then got consumed by coordinating the drive, whoops. To repay for my sins, :) I'll go through as much here as I can. Also -- I added Anna Harrison to the old nominations list, so hopefully you'll get a new reviewer for her soon.

• caused her to undergo weight loss is an unnatural-sounding phrasing compared to "caused her to lose weight". I'm reading the intent here as "highlighting that the weight loss wasn't intentional", but that's gotten across by the part where it's caused by a disease.
  • Changed.
• Bush loved the White House, admiring both the aesthetics and the historical significance of each room -- will readers know what the rooms all are and understand their aesthetics and historical significance? Looking at the source, it refers to specific historical events she found interesting that might also be of interest to readers. (It's also not completely clear that her considering the house 'beautiful' is a statement of its physical aesthetics, as she explicitly calls out one room as not-so.)
  • Removed "aesthetics".
• The trust raises funds for the ongoing refurbishment and restoration of the White House -- we may assume that readers know what house is being referred to
  • Changed to "the building's ongoing".
• so she wouldn't feel trapped or isolated -- to avoid the contraction, this could be rephrased as "to avoid feeling trapped or isolated"
  • Changed.
• and she felt that -- "feeling that" is less stilted
  • Changed.
• When dealing with the press, she imposed her policy of "if I said it, I said it", in which was not allowed to explain or justify her statements to the press. There's an obvious missing part of this sentence, but the whole thing feels a little confused. "Imposed her policy" leads the reader to the conclusion this was intrinsically motivated, but "not allowed" leads to the conclusion it was extrinsic. Something like "took a stance" or "took a philosophy" is a more natural phrasing than "imposed a policy" unless you explicitly want the implication that she enforced this on interviewers (which you might!), and "refused to explain/justify/elaborate/any other term" less contextually confusing than "not allowed to".
  • Added "her staff", which was the missing part. I think it makes sense now with that context.
• Worth redlinking Anna Perez, who seems notable (entry in Contemporary Black Biography, contemporary and recentish news coverage, etc).
  • Done.
• The speech was listed as #45 in American Rhetoric's Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century -- is this a high honour or just some guy's list? Genuinely can't tell from context. (Site has the exact kind of 90s web design that could go either way.)
  • It looks like it's somewhere in between. Developed by academics, but no real formal criteria or significance. I've removed it.
• her influence in the administration included multiple cabinet appointments -- any more about what appointments, and where this was on a spectrum from "making suggestions" to "basically doing the whole thing"? That's a fairly significant claim without further context.
  • Specified that her role was providing suggestions.
• The campaign efforts were complicated by the early 1990s recession and the president's subsequent drop in approval ratings, should (probably?) be a full stop instead of a comma.
  • Fixed.

Post–White House years

• Bush had gone some time without cooking or driving a car: two skills that she was forced to reacquire -- colon seems an odd choice here compared to a comma
• Barbara and her husband did not take a prominent role in the campaign so as to avoid overshadowing him -- just 'to' rather than 'so as to' is sufficient
• Barbara's primary role was traveling with other women associated with the campaign in the "W Stands for Women" tour to increase his share of the women's vote is phrased in a way that almost implies...it did that. We don't know whether it did that or not, though most of these sorts of campaigns don't do much. This should probably be rephrased if there's no evidence that campaign had an effect.
• Barbara and George were on a plane when the September 11 attacks occurred -- I'd expect to see "on a flight". The source specifies they were going to Minnesota and diverted to Wisconsin, which may be worth adding.
• the pride that she felt for her son amidst her confusion -- the source refers to a statement about how 9/11-generally was shocking/confusing for the population. I think "amidst her confusion" is overly-personal/sounds like she's talking about a personal concrete concern rather than the more abstract post-9/11 zeitgeist.
• In 2002 she became an alumna initiate of the Texas Eta chapter of Pi Beta Phi at Texas A&M University. Bush chose this university due to it being the location of her husband's Presidential Library. She was also a member of the Junior League of Houston. Both of these are confusing if you don't know much about the organizations. Alumni are usually people who attended an institution -- is it common for alumni initiates to Greek societies to be people from somewhere else entirely? What do alumni initiates do, anyway? Also worth contextualizing what the Junior League is and does.
  • I really don't know about these organizations either. This was there prior to my rewrite of the article. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:02, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
• As it looked more likely that her son would launch an invasion of Iraq, she expressed worry that the decision may be a mistake is abrupt, and should have some contextualization of the war tensions.
• How was she involved in the '04 campaign?
• and she underwent aortic valve replacement surgery in March 2009 seems it'd be less choppy as a separate sentence. While it's good to avoid proseline, this seems like a little too intentional an attempt to avoid starting a sentence with "In 2009" in an article certainly not at risk of proseline.
• She later recanted this statement in 2015 -- 'later' is unneeded
• I was going to question the choice of what to pipe "comfort care" to (terminology around this is super-contentious), but, huh...Hospice care in the United States is a GA, and iirc most of our other articles on this are pretty rough and would be less useful to link. Impressive work by the authors of that one -- tough subject. I could imagine someone objecting to the characterization that the ideas are fully synonymous, though, so keep that in mind if you ever need to defend it.
• May be worth piping "half-staff" to Half-mast, as while the former is formal AmEng many AmEng speakers still recognize the latter more.
  • Made all changes except the one noted. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:02, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Political beliefs

• The "but" in but she believed this was in line with the Republican Party is a little too modern -- as Bush herself demonstrates, moderate Republicans were still plenty common at this point. More concerningly, I don't think the source supports a straightforward statement she was socially liberal. She considered her positions in line with contemporary moderate Republicans, or moreso "contemporary modern Republicans in line with her" -- compressing "she considered both herself and the party socially liberal" down to "she considered herself socially liberal but thought that was compatible with being a Republican" does not seem supported.
• Conflating "didn't think homosexuality should be in a platform" with "didn't think same-sex marriage should be in a platform" is anachronistic. Same-sex marriage was an extreme minority position at the time. The source doesn't specify what she was talking about past 'homosexuality', but we're talking about a point where sodomy laws were in force and pretty common.
• Bush was highly critical of Donald Trump since her own time as first lady in 1990 -- guessing this means 'as a person', given he wasn't a politican yet? (Future-proofing -- the more time goes on the more readers will only know him as a politician...)
  • Changed the wording of all three items here. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:29, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Legacy

• 100,000 letters each year each year is decontextualized. Is this high, low, normal for a first lady?
  • It doesn't say, but it seems the important part was that she was caught off guard by the volume, which I've added.
• Bush was the last first lady from the generation in which women were expected to become housewives rather than seek an education and a career. This is so intensely variable by upbringing and social context that I'm not comfortable with us stating this as 'a clear thing'. It is perfectly possible to imagine a future first lady from a culture or subculture where women are emphatically still expected to be housewives, and the degree of 'housewife expectations throughout history' has varied a lot in turn.
  • Reworded.
• In the 2014 survey, historians ranked Bush 5th among 20th and 21st century American first ladies that they felt "could have done more". This is an ambiguous statement (do first ladies need to 'do more'? couldn't all of them have 'done more' of something?), and the linked source doesn't really expand on what it means, but it's very brief in general. Does the organization that does these rankings have any more info on how these categories are determined?
  • I'd imagine that's the question that they were polled on. I'm not aware of any further breakdown of the questions.

That should be the lot of it, and again, sorry about the wait. Vaticidalprophet 03:18, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Vaticidalprophet I've replied to your most recent notes. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:29, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Thebiguglyalien, just a couple last notes:

• I still don't think the womens-lib thing is supported by the sources (it doesn't so much seem to me that she was "questioning" her life as that she was worried that the movement presented her life as a housewife as "inferior" or "wasted" [...] the current presentation sounds more 'positive' than what the sources say).
• Noticed in "White House life and ceremonial activity": in Bush determined that the protest was "much ado about nothing" by twenty-year-old, 'determined' seems slightly over-objective about a subjective opinion.

Vaticidalprophet 01:08, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Vaticidalprophet I changed "determined" to "countered". If the current sources don't support the claim well enough, does Caroli: The Bushes' return to Washington in late 1975 caused Barbara to reconsider, perhaps for the first time in her life, the choices she had made. The feminist movement, reaching a peak with its talk of consciousness raising and self-fulfillment, appeared to have its sharp arrows aimed at precisely the kind of life that Barbara Bush, then aged 50, had led. Her children, now grown to adulthood or nearly so, needed her less, and her husband’s job at the Central Intelligence Agency did not permit his sharing many work problems with her. Like other women of her generation, she began to reexamine her past and think about what to do with the rest of her life. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:09, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

I still wonder about whether this is the ideal/most neutral way to present that fact, but I don't think it's a problem at GAN level, so I'm happy to pass. Vaticidalprophet 17:58, 7 August 2023 (UTC)