Posted on 02/26/2009 4:58:46 PM PST by Sub-Driver
Bush Talks About Life Outside the White House 'The Only Thing We Don't Have Are the Newspapers,' Says Former First Lady By JONATHAN KARL and KAREN TRAVERS
HOUSTON Feb. 26, 2009—
Commercial airline travel, trips to the hardware store for nightlights and walks around the neighborhood all part of everyday life these days for former President George W. Bush and his wife, former first lady Laura Bush.
In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Mrs. Bush said she and her husband were settling into a normal, post-presidency life at their new home in the Preston Hollow section of Dallas after spending a month at their ranch in Crawford while the house was finished.
Watch This Exclusive Interview With Laura Bush Tonight on 'World News' at 6:30 p.m. ET, and Again Tomorrow on 'Good Morning America', 7 a.m. ET
Mrs. Bush said she has yet to cook a meal herself, because friends have been bringing over prepared dinners to welcome them back to town. The Bushes have had several large dinner parties with old friends, but they had to resort to borrowing furniture to accommodate their guests.
"We have very little furniture. We don't have a kitchen table or a dining room table," she said. "Friends loaned me a kitchen table and the other night I had 16 people for dinner and I had to borrow chairs from the Secret Service next door."
After years of having everything they wanted right at their finger tips, the Bushes are finding that sometimes the little things are the most difficult to get.
"The only thing we don't have are the newspapers. It has been slow to get The Dallas Morning News delivered," she said. "People bring the newspaper to us later in the day. It's just not being delivered yet."
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
My response is to the numerous comments at the beginning that were knee jerk criticisms (the 'poseur' 'photo op' and 'LBJ' lines, for example) that aren't based on any form of reality.
Laura has always joked that her husband was a "windshield rancher." There was no pretense in what he was doing at the ranch while he was President.
He cleared brush because it needed to be cleared, and it released tension. He drove around in his pick up truck, fished and took hikes, and long walks with his lovely wife.
He's still going to do all those things at the ranch. Not for "photo ops," but because it's been their Texas home for 8 years, and they like it there.
My point, I guess, is that among reasonable people, there would have been no criticisms of this nature at all. They're all concocted to draw attention to the person doing the posting, and not any legitimate form of criticism of the President and First Lady.
We have an enemy of all that is right and good in the White House, and a very real danger to this republic, so I wonder about those who still feel the need to nitpick and gripe about the President who led us through turmoil and danger with dignity and courage.
JMHO
BS
I'll let this comment speak for both of us.
But now I am curious about which article or report said that, so I may just hunt it down anyway. :)
Don’t go to that effort. I remember them talking about plans but I didn’t take it that serious as plans will change once they establish themselves out of the WH and the forced routines of DC. The ranch is a couple of hours away with so by Texas standards that isn’t a big deal. Like you I expect the President to want the freedom of roaming the countryside on his bike, etc.
If they would just start being positive, they’d get a lot more attaboys from me. At heart I believe most everything they do, except this deep seated anger at their allies. NB: allies, not coreligionist conservatives, of whom few are pure enough to claim title.
Allies are people who can help support a cause and help guarantee its success. To shun and demean allies because they don’t bow to the Holy Grail in exactly the same way is foolish. That doesn’t mean you stop trying to convince your allies about the particulars where you are in disagreement, it means you are simply civil about how you do it.
I dislike elitists, whether liberal or conservative, because the heart of the American ideal is that everyone is worthy of freedom, and because Christianity teaches us that it is wrong to set yourself higher than another.
There was a time when I had deep anger at the human race in general for being so stupid, but in my older age I now see my own imperfections all too clearly and have surrendered my anger to Christ. Not that I don’t get riled up from time to time, but I’m no longer angry all the time.
The exigencies of the day now dictate that we coalesce around our fundamental beliefs, and, as Rush just said, speak the enduring truths of these beliefs to the voters and to the children. So, I agree we should move off this debate on Bush and on to the why President Obama is destroying our country discussion.
So GHWB, with the newborn GWB, wasn't even in grad school housing, but student housing, even more minimal.
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Aw, c'mon Laura! Forget the Dallas Mourning Spews!
Just sign up here on FreeRepublic.com !!!!
"The BEST site on the 'Net !!"
:)
While living in Midland, W and Laura also took part in garage sales. He helped a lady that I worked with carry stuff home from one.
Bump!
Thanks Meek. I see people spewing about President Bush having his ranch for ‘fake reasons’. Guess they don’t understand Texans.
Many people here have ‘land’ and a ‘ranch house’, however small, to go to to ‘get away’ from it all. To socialize with friends you must be back in the city.
How silly it all is.
I guess they don’t understand alrighty.
Silly indeed!
please.
Domestic spending went through the roof under Pres. Bush.
He only vetoed 12 bills, through 2008.
http://uspolitics.about.com/od/electionissues/tp/Bush-Vetos.htm
This is the fewest Presidential vetoes of any modern President;
“in March 2006 Bush set a 200-year veto [fewest vetoes] record.”
http://uspolitics.about.com/b/2006/03/23/bush-veto-action-sets-200-year-record.htm
I'll live on, somehow.
regarding your #78 post:
The top 5 biggest spending presidents 1964-2005:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb-0510-26.pdf
“...All presidents presided over net increases in spending overall, though some were bigger spenders than others. As it turns out, George W. Bush is one of the biggest spenders of them all. In fact, he is an even bigger spender than Lyndon B. Johnson in terms of discretionary spending.
Comparing the Presidents
The increase in discretionary spending—that is, all nonentitlement programs—in Bush’s first term was 48.5 percent in nominal terms. That’s more than twice as large as the increase in discretionary spending during Clinton’s entire two terms (21.6 percent), and just higher than Lyndon Johnson’s entire discretionary spending spree (48.3 percent).
A more accurate comparison accounts for how long each president served in office and adjusts for inflation. To adjust for the varying tenures of each president, growth rates in average annual terms should be used for ranking purposes.
The results of adjusting the budget trends for inflation and the length of time in office are shown in the figure to the right. It compares the top five biggest spending presidents in terms of nonentitlement spending.
Bush’s record looks even worse by this standard. His spending rate is much higher than Lyndon Johnson’s. In other words, Bush has expanded federal nonentitlement programs in his first term almost twice as fast each year as Lyndon Johnson did during his entire presidency...”
http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb-0510-26.pdf
.
Gee, I might think that President Bush was fighting a war or something?!!
[BTW: What about adjusting for size and percentage of GDP?]
I believe it was adjusted. The CATO institute does good research.
This was discretionary spending. Bush had the highest amount of discretionary spending, Reagan the least.
Look, I liked President Bush too, I think he is a decent man. But no amount of spin will change the fact that he was a big spender.
Discretionary spending INCLUDES War/homeland security spending.
CATO is a LIBERTARIAN think tank and approaches all research from that perspective — which is why they’ve both consistently devalued (ridiculed) President Bush’s War/homeland security spending and refused to provide comparative benchmarks relative to spending as percentage of GDP/actual size of the economy vs previous administrations.
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