Audio By Carbonatix
Vanity Fair contributing editor Nancy Jo Sales has a lengthy “Web exclusive” about the post-presidency of George W. Bush — specifically, how he’s looking to “reshape his legacy,” both alone and with the assist of former White House colleagues. From Bush’s March 17 speech in Calgary, Sales offers this highlight:
The former president says that his first day home in Preston Hollow, the suburb of Dallas where he and his wife moved in January, he kicked back on the couch and hollered, “Baby, free at last!” To which Laura responded, “‘Yeah, you’re free to take out the trash. Consider it your new domestic policy agenda.'”
Big laugh. A woman at my table mouths, “He’s so funny!“
Then, we come across SMU assistant history prof Benjamin Johnson, who shut down his Bush Library Blog in May 2007. Former White House press secretary Dana Perino says Bush invited former Czech Republic president and writer Václav Havel to write a book at the Bush Policy Institute. To which Johnson replies, “Václav Havel is not going to come to the fucking Bush center!”
And, finally, Texas Monthly‘s Skip Hollandsworth offers this adorable comment:
“He
hasn’t been out much yet. There is a lurid fascination with what is he
going to be doing in Dallas. A lot of us were stunned that he had
already gotten down 45,000 words on his book!” (With the help of former
speechwriter Christopher Michel, 27.) “He doesn’t go out for meals.
Bush eats lunch at home; he can get through a nice dinner in about 15
minutes. Still there’s a quickening of the heart whenever the black
motorcade passes by.”
