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Obama to attend George W. Bush library dedication in Texas By DONOVAN SLACK | 4/2/13 7:40 PM EDT President Obama will travel to Texas later this month to attend the dedication of the George W. Bush George W. Bush Presidential Center at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, a White House official confirms to POLITICO. "It’s difficult to fully comprehend what it’s like to serve as President of the United States unless you’ve done it – and President Obama has developed a good relationship with both President George W. Bush and President George H.W. Bush," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said....

In an upcoming documentary about the life and legacy of Dick Cheney previewed by Foreign Policy, the former vice president lashes out at former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Brooding over one issue specifically, Cheney criticizes his former colleague for overriding his recommendation to bomb a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007. "I thought [destroying the reactor] would reassert the kind of authority and influence we had back in '03 when we took down Saddam Hussein and eliminated Iraq as a potential source of WMD," Cheney says in the film, The World According to Dick Cheney. "Condi was on the...

Former first lady Laura Bush, who is one of three prominent Republicans featured in a new ad supporting same-sex marriage, has asked the spot's creator to remove a clip of her espousing support for equal marriage rights. "Mrs. Bush did not approve of her inclusion in this advertisement nor is she associated in any way with the group that made the ad," Anne MacDonald, a spokeswoman for the former first lady, wrote in a statement Thursday. "When she became aware of the advertisement Tuesday night, we requested that the group remove her from it." The ad, from the Respect for...

U.S. former first lady Laura Bush has requested that her spot be removed from a pro-gay marriage advertisement that launched this week. The ad is part of a $1 million print and broadcast media campaign by the Respect for Marriage Coalition. "Mrs. Bush did not approve of her inclusion in this advertisement nor is she associated in any way with the group that made the ad," Anne MacDonald, a spokeswoman for the former first lady, told The Dallas Morning News Thursday morning. "When she became aware of the advertisement Tuesday night, we requested that the group remove her from it,"...

OMG! Pigs fly. I like something about George W. Bush. A lot. After spending more than a decade having almost physiological-chemical reactions anytime I saw him, getting the heebie-jeebies whenever he spoke — after being sure from the start that he was a Gremlin on the wing of America — I really like the paintings of George W. Bush. A hacker today released what are apparently Bush family photos and three of W's own "in-progress" paintings. They all look finished to me. We knew Winston Churchill was a painter. But George W. Bush?! Our W.! I didn't even think he...

President George W. Bush’s dog Barney has died of lymphoma at the age of 12, the former president said in a statement Friday. “Barney was by my side during our eight years in the White House,” Bush wrote. “He never discussed politics and was always a faithful friend. Laura and I will miss our pal.”

Changing the guard: George W Bush is sworn in George W Bush has taken the oath of office on Capitol Hill in Washington to become the 43rd president of the United States. In his inauguration address Mr Bush pledged to "work to build a single nation of justice and opportunity". The last formality of the day was a inaugural parade along a rain-soaked Pennsylvania Avenue. Along with the well-wishers were anti-Bush demonstrators. Police in riot gear lined the route of the parade five deep. One protester threw an egg at the new president's motorcade. Mr Bush delighted supporters by getting...

DALLAS (Reuters) - A pickup truck used by former President George W. Bush at his Texas ranch was sold for $300,000 at an auction on Saturday after he donated it to benefit a charity that serves U.S. military families.

Former President George W. Bush does not plan to attend President Obama’s second inauguration on Monday, joining his father, former President George H.W. Bush, among the living former presidents who are sending regrets, according to several officials with knowledge of inaugural planning. The decisions mean Obama’s second oath of office will occur with only Democratic former presidents sharing the stage. Both former President Bill Clinton and former President Jimmy Carter plan on attending. The younger President Bush is citing his father’s health in declining the invitation to attend, according to the officials. The older Bush, who is 88, was just...

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has signed into law a bill granting lifetime Secret Service protection to former presidents and their wives. The measure Obama signed Thursday applies to presidents elected after Jan. 1, 1997, specifically Obama and former President George W. Bush. It reverses a 1994 law that ended Secret Service protection 10 years after a president leaves office. Under that law, the Homeland Security secretary could extend such protection on a temporary basis. A sponsor of the bill, Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, says increased terrorist threats and the greater mobility and youth of former presidents...

Just a few days after Hurricane Sandy devastated parts of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, the New York Times' Paul Krugman crowed triumphantly about the federal government's response to the disaster. "[A]fter Katrina the government seemed to have no idea what it was doing; this time it did. And that's no accident: the federal government's ability to respond effectively to disaster always collapses when antigovernment Republicans hold the White House, and always recovers when Democrats take it back." What a fairy tale. Mature adults understand that earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters are an unfortunate fact of life. They...

George W. Bush left office in January 2009 with one of the lowest job-approval ratings for a president (34 percent) since Gallup started compiling them — as compared to Harry Truman’s low of 32 percent, Richard Nixon’s of 24 percent, and Jimmy Carter’s of 34 percent — and to the general derision of the media. At times the venom accorded Bush in popular culture reached absurd — and even sick — levels. Alfred A. Knopf, for example, infamously published Nicholson Baker’s Checkpoint, a pathetic riff on shooting Bush. Gabriel Range’s unhinged 2006 “docudrama,” The Death of a President, focused on...

One of the more hysterical components of the fiscal cliff saga is watching the Democrats falling all over themselves to champion the importance of preserving the existing tax rates – the George W. Bush Tax Rates – for nearly every American taxpayer.  The President last offer to Speaker Boehner would preserve the Bush Tax Rates for at least 99.5% of all taxpayers according to IRS data (all but individuals above $400,000 annual income). To be clear, there's nothing funny about the fiscal mess that our nation is in.  It's real.  It's serious.  And, if Washington fails to get its act...

I think I owe an apology to George W. Bush. William F. Buckley once noted that he was 19 when the Cold War began at the Yalta conference. The year the Berlin Wall came down, he became a senior citizen. In other words, he explained, anti-communism was a defining feature of conservatism his entire adult life. Domestically, meanwhile, the right was largely a “leave me alone coalition”: Religious and traditional conservatives, overtaxed businessmen, Western libertarians, and others fed up with government social engineering and economic folly. The battle against tyrannical statism abroad only buttressed the domestic antagonism toward well-intentioned and...

From a blog comment on a Drudge link: Congratulations to the Democrats and Young People! You now own it and you can't blame Bush. The next terrorist attack, you own it. Can't get a job after graduation, you own it. Sky rocketing energy prices due to Obama's EPA shutting down the energy producing states, you own it. A nuclear Iran, you own it. Bowing to Russia, you own it. Another severe recession, you own it. A volatile border with Mexico, you own it. Trouble getting good health care, you own it. Higher health insurance costs and health care costs, you...

I agree that Obama inherited a crappy economy, and I think it is silly to assert that he bears any responsibility for the severity of the 2007-2009 recession. But it is very fair to hold him responsible for what’s happened since the recession ended. I’ve cited data from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve on both employment and gross domestic product to show that Obama has presided over the weakest recovery in the post-World War II period.And I think it is fair to blame Obama for the economy’s anemic performance during that time, largely because his agenda of faux stimulus and Obamacare...

William F. Buckley once noted that he was 19 when the Cold War began at the Yalta conference. The year the Berlin Wall came down, he became a senior citizen. In other words, he explained, anti-Communism was a defining feature of conservatism his entire adult life. Domestically, meanwhile, the right was largely a "leave me alone coalition": Religious and traditional conservatives, overtaxed businessmen, Western libertarians, and others fed up with government social engineering and economic folly. The foreign policy battle against tyrannical statism abroad only buttressed the domestic antagonism toward well-intentioned and occasionally democratic statism at home. The end of...

Rising prices and chronic unemployment were heavy on the minds of voters Tuesday even as a glimmer of optimism peeked through. Four in 10 said the nation’s battered economy is getting better. Most everyone agreed there’s still far to go. They were less likely to blame President Barack Obama for the economic troubles, however, than to point the finger at his predecessor, George W. Bush, according to preliminary results of a national exit poll. Only a fourth thought they were better off financially than four years ago when Obama was elected. Voters were most likely to say their families were...

On the 11th anniversary of 9/11, I blogged with the following: Vanity Fair contributing editor and former NYTimes reporter Kurt Eichenwald is out promoting a new Bush-Derangement Syndrome book, 500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars You can read an excerpt at Vanity Fair. To be clear, this is an anti-Bush book, putting the worst possible spin upon events described in the book. I loathe spending any money on this; but even partisan books can provide nuggets of useful information when you can cross-reference and wade through the bias filter that any actual facts had been transmuted and...

Former president George W. Bush isn’t exactly doing Mitt Romney any favors on the messaging front. As the current face of the Republican party, Mitt’s single biggest challenge has been distancing himself from his image as a business tycoon who got rich by outsourcing American jobs and then keeping big chunks of his fortune in Swiss bank accounts and invested in the Cayman Islands. On election week, George W. will rub the sketchy Cayman Islands playboy image right in Mitt’s face. BuzzFeed points out that W. will give the keynote address to the Cayman Islands Alternative Investment Summit, which goes...