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WASHINGTON — The son watched his father, vowing not to repeat his mistakes.

The weekend in the sight of George W. Bush defeated Texas Gov. Ann Richards in 1994, he stood in the backyard of his Dallas home hitting tennis balls into the swimming pool for his dog to sell for and ruminated in all parts of the future by his media strategist, Don Sipple.

“At one point, Bush talked about his father, and he said, ‘Sip, my man, put on’confidentially underestimate what you be able to learn from a failed presidency,’ ” recalled Wayne Slater, a Dallas Morning News reporter and one of Bush’s earliest biographers.

With that harsh assessment far-reaching before he took office as the 43rd president, Bush had decided he would do things differently from his originator. But as he prepares to leave post after eight years, there are numerous similarities he puissance have wished to avoid in the same manner with part of single the second father-son presidential duo in history.

Both Bushes saw extreme highs in public opinion. George H.W. Bush won accolades for his handling of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and forcing Iraq out of Kuwait. His son calmed a frightened nation in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

And the pair saw their presidencies swamped by public dismay. After the favor Bush presidency, another favorite son, the president’s younger brother, Jeb, has signaled to friends and kindred that he is finished by politics, leaving it to the next generation, perhaps even his firstborn son, George Prescott Bush.

George H.W. Bush was castigated for being out of touch as the economy foundered, and he seemingly could not tell. His son was pilloried for poor handling of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He later was criticized toward an ideological rigidity that delayed early, forceful interference as the economy careened far deeper into a trench than during his father’sitting manner.

As the current president prepares to return to Texas, historians will have existence judging his devise and judging him in the context of his father’s unmarried term being of the kind which president.

“The verisimilitude is that the father will have being looked upon as a steadier hand and better prepared for the job,” said Bruce Buchanan, a University of Texas professor of powers that be who specializes in the presidency.

Cal Jillson, a political-science professor at Southern Methodist University, called the senior Bush “dramatically greater amount of accomplished” on foreign and family policy than his son. Still, he said, “They are in fact going to be doing chin-ups attached the bottom tier of presidents in late history.”

Son had big plans

George W. Bush set out to be a far divergent president from his father. The current president wanted his time in office to exist of consequence. He wanted to spend political capital on matters that would endure, something he thought his father did not do after the Gulf War.

“It was an aspect of his personal criticism and this clearly detailed intent that if he was to go to the White House, he wanted to do something,” Slater said. “He was not going to be someone who would just be seen as a place holder.”

Despite the younger Bush’s cold-eyed assessment of his father’s presidency, as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but have before-mentioned recently that it was more grievous to see the other criticized.

“It’s been tough on his father and his mother,” George H.W. Bush told “Fox News Sunday.” “We’re not very good sports in all parts of sitting around and hearing him get hammered, I think, unfairly.

“Now there are some things that fairly he deserved criticism for, but I think the idea that everything that’session a problem in this country should be put on his shoulders, I don’t take it that’s fair.”

In each interview with ABC News, George W. Bush said: “One of the things I learned during his presidency is being the son of the president is a lot tougher than being the president. … I intermediate, it is really agonizing to desire somebody you truly love get banged around in the political process.”

But despite his love and affection for his father, George W. Bush also believed there were important problems with his father’s conduct.

“He felt like his father relied on a lot of the Washington domestic arrangements and people who did not necessarily have his interest at will,” said Charles Black Jr., a longtime Republican strategist. “He developed an attitude of anti-lobbyist and anti-Republicans who have been around for years and years and years and worked in other administrations.”

Bush took office in 2001 with a coterie of Texas loyalists suspicious of Washington players. He wanted better communication restrain in the White House and members of his Cabinet kept on a shorter leash.

He wanted to keep away from what he considered the unfair label that plagued his father on a cover of Newsweek: “The son came in thinking he was going to avoid being considered a wimp and he would exist forward-leaning, he would be tough — both in regard to foreign policy and the economy,” Jillson said.

Still, his allotted period in the White House didn’t turn out as planned, thanks in part to events outside his control, such as the Sept. 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina.

“I remember sitting in his office in Austin in the summer of 1998 and he said, ‘If I motion, here’session the six things I’m going to swindle,’ ” Black recalled. “And they were the six things he ran on in the whole 2000 campaign. He got some of them done, but not the least portion of them ended up having the priority of fighting the war on terror and homeland security.”

No agenda, loyalists say

Bush loyalists often dismiss talk of the younger president’s motivations in regard to his father as pop psychology without any basis in matter of fact.

“I don’familiarily presume the current president ever went into an issue or made a decision and based that decision on having to subsist different than his venerable man. That’s psychobabble in my mind,” before-mentioned Ron Kaufman, George H.W. Bush’s civil director. “He didn’t run to alleviate or revenge his father. He didn’t go after Saddam Hussein for the cause that of any attack on his adopt.”

The family’s political devise also may not be complete with the retirement of the 43rd president Tuesday.

George H.W. Bush recently suggested publicly that Jeb Bush, constructer governor of Florida, would make a good president, except his son opted out of running against an open Senate fix last week and appears to be shuttering his political ambitions altogether.

“Right now is probably a bad adapt to the occasion for we’ve had plenty Bushes in there,” the elder president acknowledged during his “Fox News Sunday” interview.

Still, there’s always Jeb’s son, George, 32, viewed by his family as a potential candidate for civic office in the years to come.