Propriety, like niceness, is a social strategy, and should not be confused with goodness.
Propriety limits the circumstances under which negative examples are deemed appropriate to bring up, to avoid causing more pain to those in mourning. Obviously, propriety has greater force the closer one is to the grieving family and friends--especially when their loss is fresh. It is highly unlikely that George H. W. Bush's family and friends will be overhearing this conversation, so propriety is nearly irrelevant in this thread, I think.
Goodness, in contrast, respects universal human dignity. It always applies, no matter who else is (or is not) around. Goodness is not deliberately cruel, but it values the truth. Goodness wants people to be able to learn from the deceased's negative example as well as their positive example.
I've always found the song "Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead" from
The Wizard of Oz disturbingly macabre and callous. When I hear people whistling something that sounds like that tune, and apparently expecting applause for it, I tell them they won't get any from me. I find it interesting that propriety seems to have no problem with that song, in the context of the movie--perhaps because the deceased had no family or friends to grieve her loss. But I think it violates goodness to rejoice over the death of anyone.
[BTW, I also mentioned that song in my comments in
the 2011 General Talk thread about Osama Bin Laden's death, if anyone's interested in what Eratosphereans said about that at the time. Note that the Martin Luther King quote in post #12 had an important caveat at post #72.]
I have far more ill than good to say about George H. W. Bush's policies, although I do--rather grudgingly--admire some of his personal qualities. I struggle to understand how he could embrace certain of those policies, in light of those same admirable personal qualities; but I'm aware of inconsistencies between my own character and my own actions, too. (Then again, it would be silly and vain for me to think that my own moral strengths and shortcomings are really comparable with those of someone whose decisions affected billions of lives worldwide.)