The New York Post's Page Six, home to gossip about wanna-be celebrities and their cousins, the actually famous, disclosed today that First Lady Laura Bush is negotiating with publishers who are bidding on her memoirs. As one literary agent told the Post, "The publishers are coming to the White House to meet with her and discuss the book."
President Bush, by contrast, is said to be waiting before pitching his memoirs. With an approval rating at historic lows, the president apparently thinks he should wait five years before approaching publishers. One agent, Mort Janklow, asked how long Bush should wait, quipped, "30 or 40 years might be good." In the meantime, the more popular first lady -- a former teacher, librarian and a published author -- may serve up a more palatable version of the Bush 43 White House, say literary agents.
The Blairs pioneered this strategy and it is a great way of testing the waters. Mrs. Bush is clearly a lot more popular than her husband at the moment and this is a way of serving up a story in a way that is palatable to the public. Longer term, I am sure we will also see a book from her husband and this of course allows for two bites of the cherry. Commercially, it makes great sense. Also, of course, the public tend to mellow in their attitude to even the most hated political leaders over time.
No word yet on the size of the advance, but you can start counting those zeroes. Bill Clinton made $30 million from sales of his "My Life" and his "Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World." Former First Lady, now New York senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton, got $8 million for "Living History."
When the sun comes up on the White House Wednesday morning, tourists will gawk through the gate and a new administration will be planning its transition to power.
But Tuesday night, President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush spent their last election night in the White House. It was billed as a quiet evening, with some friends and staffers invited to dinner to watch the election returns and celebrate Mrs. Bush's birthday.
At the start of the dinner, said White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, the president gave a toast. He thanked those present for all they had done during his eight years in office, and for their friendship. Then he said, "And may God bless whoever wins tonight."
Bush appreciates today's vivid demonstration of "the strength of our country and democracy," Perino said, and he is committed to a transition "that is as smooth as possible."
Later, after it was clear that Barack Obama was going to be the 44th president of the United States, Bush called the Illinois senator. offered his congratulations and invited the Obama family to the White House.
For her birthday I'd like to send her something new, fresh, youthful and energetic: A president named Barack Obama. Laura Bush has a lot of class, and I'm sure she will appreciate it.
No word yet on what President Bush is getting the first lady for her last birthday in the White House. (Actually we got word late at night that he gave her a pair of what press secretary Dana Perino described as "a pair of beautiful earrings.") But Mrs. Bush herself hinted that she was looking forward to a new president, or at least to the end of the presidential campaign. In a speech the other day, she made reference to all the times during the campaign that Obama tried to tie John McCain to the Bush White House. At a Kentucky campaign stop, she said:
I'm really looking forward to election day, partly because it seems like George has been on the ticket this entire year.
Press secretary Sally McDonough says that the president and Mrs. Bush have invited friends and senior staff to join them for dinner on election night. And, in celebration of her birthday, they'll have coconut birthday cake for dessert.
With less than three months left in the Bush administration, the battle over protecting two vast areas of the Pacific Ocean from fishing and mineral exploitation is raging as if the president's legacy depended on it.
Which, actually, it does.
On one side is first lady Laura Bush, who according to the Washington Post has asked for two briefings on the issue from the White House staff, and has asked her aides to confer with scientists on how to preserve diverse ecosystems.
On the other side is Vice President Dick Cheney, who along with some officials in the Northern Mariana Islands argues that banning fishing and mineral exploration will hurt the region's economy.
"It's hard, but it should be," said James L. Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. "These are big, consequential, national decisions that have international ramifications."
In August, President Bush told several federal agencies to begin working on a plan so that he could create two "marine conservation management areas" in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth between Japan and Guam. That move -- if it happens -- would greatly expand Bush's environmental legacy, adding vast territory to the 140,000 miles he designated for protection in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands in 2006.
It would also protect blue sharks like the one above from shark finning, the practice of removing the dorsal fin from sharks for such Asian delicacies as shark fin soup. According to the National Marine Fisheries Service, hundreds of thousands of finned sharks are incidentally caught by fishermen chasing swordfish and tuna in the waters off Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.
-- Johanna Neuman
Photo: National Marine Fisheries Service / Associated Press
The interview was taped in the spring, before the Wall Street meltdown that turned the 2008 presidential election into a referendum on George W. Bush's stewardship of the economy. Back then, both the president and the first lady gave exclusive interviews to C-SPAN, along with unpredecented access to the White House's private and public spaces, for a weeklong "White House Week" the network is planning to launch Dec. 14 at 9 p.m. Eastern time.
C-SPAN's venerable Brian Lamb, who built the network on the premise that viewers wanted an unfiltered camera inside the corridors of power in Washington, asked the president:
What's your feeling about walking out of here for the last time?
To which the president replied:
I'll be sad in a way. I mean, sad because we have become so close with many of the people who work here. We'll have eight years here working with most of the same people all the time. ... These have become like family. And so I'll be grateful on the one hand and sad to know that I won't see them a lot.
On the other hand, I'm fully aware that it's healthy for democracies to change leadership and I'm also somewhat joyous about the fact that I'm heading home to Texas.
After eight years in office, George W. Bush is finally getting reflective about his predecessors, maybe even nostalgic.
On Monday night he hosted an event in the East Room of the White House to mark the 150th anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt's birthday. Teddy Roosevelt, who took the Rough Riders charging up San Juan Hill and who refused to shoot a tethered teddy bear (leading one New York toy manufacturer to invent a doll in his honor), is an icon to Republicans. Teddy is the wilderness guy, the one loved exercising in the outdoors, the one they point to with pride whenever Democrats berate them for not caring enough about the environment.
First Lady Laura Bush talked about the raucous Roosevelt family, with the youngest of five children sliding on stairs on stolen trays, peppering Andrew Jackson's portrait with spitballs and turning the East Room into a makeshift skating ring. In remarks recalling the exuberance of TR's family, she said:
They kept a zoo of pets. And they took their calico pony, Algonquin, upstairs in the White House elevator to visit their brother when he was sick. As White House Chief Usher Ike Hoover put it, "A nervous person had no business around the White House in those days."
When the president spoke, he acknowledged Joe Wiegand, an actor on hand to reenact scenes from Roosevelt's life. Bush said:
Oftentimes people ask me, "Do you ever see any of the ghosts of your predecessors here in the White House?" I said, "No I quit drinking." But I just saw one.
Calling Roosevelt "one of the greatest statesmen in our nation's history," Bush, who has a penchant for giving nicknames to almost everyone, added, "I call him Theodore. Occasionally call him TR."
Bush praised Roosevelt as "a man who felt at home on a sprawling ranch in the West," who believed in a strenuous life of exercise. "I can relate to that," said Bush. And he recalled that during TR's presidency, one member of Congress said President Roosevelt's efforts would create "confusion and discord" in the English language. Quipped Bush: "I can relate to that."
During the two weeks before election day 2000, President Clinton was a busy man.
He spent nearly half his time out of town, campaigning for Democratic candidates in New York (his wife and others), Kentucky, California, back to New York, and Arkansas. He spoke at several political events in Washington, D.C., too.
There were private receptions and public rallies. And even as Al Gore, the Democrats' presidential candidate and Clinton's vice president, sought to distance himself from the president to leave no doubt about his own political identity, Clinton was aggressive -- and very out there -- on behalf of Democratic candidates.
Friday is pretty busy: Briefings at the National Security Agency, an Oval Office meeting with the secretary-general of NATO, and a ceremony bringing Albania and Croatia into the Atlantic alliance.
The president is spending this weekend at Camp David, the ultra-private presidential retreat in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains.
On Monday, he is meeting with the president of Paraguay, and, with Laura Bush, he is speaking at a White House reception marking the 150th birthday of Theodore Roosevelt.
And on it goes.
What's missing?
Hint: Is there an election taking place?
When he blessed McCain's bid for the presidency last March, Bush said he would campaign for or against the Republican -- whichever would help.
That was before the Wall Street meltdown and broader global financial crisis. So, we're not likely to be seeing any picture like this one -- at the White House or anywhere -- in the next few days:
As of now, with his poll numbers continuing to bump along near record lows for an incumbent president, and even McCain structuring much of his campaign as a contrast to the last eight years, Bush is neither working for nor against his preferred successor.
He's just disappearing.
For the president's public schedule, click on Read Full Story...
-- James Gerstenzang
Upper photo: President Clinton at a Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza rally in 2000. Credit: Anacleto Rapping / Los Angeles Times. Lower photo: Sen. John McCain and President Bush at the White House in 2008. Credit: Joyce N. Boghosian / The White House.
First Lady Laura Bush has used her final year in the White House to try to influence two of the most doggedly difficult human rights and foreign policy issues to face the Bush administration and its recent predecessors.
She has made a personal crusade of trying to free political opposition leader and human rights campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest in Myanmar, and -- on a broader front -- she has tried to bring democracy in general to the country also known as Burma.
And today, she brought a very public spotlight to the Ladies in White, the group of spouses and other relatives of jailed dissidents seeking to bring respect for human rights to Cuba -- as they worked to do in the 2007 protest march pictured above.
Just as her work on behalf of Burmese dissidents has had an "in-your-face" quality, so, too, has her direct challenge to the Castro regime in Cuba.
With Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez, who was born in Havana, she spoke with members of the group by digital video conference.
In a written statement issued after the long-distance meeting, she said:
These women show a courage and determination that is deeply moving, and their stories are an important reminder that dictatorship cannot crush the spirit of freedom.
The United States will continue to shine a light on the abuses of the Castro regime, which has imprisoned the husbands, sons and brothers of the Ladies in White, as well as other Cubans who attempt to exercise their fundamental human rights. The United States supports the efforts of the Ladies in White and other independent civil society activists to free all political prisoners and restore human rights in Cuba.
If the video conference and a statement by the first lady suggest to Cuban Americans in Miami and elsewhere a continued White House effort on behalf of Castro's opponents, well, what Republican campaigner would complain?
-- James Gerstenzang
Photos: Above: Ladies in White in a 2007 protest. Credit: Gregory Bull / Associated Press.
Below: First Lady Laura Bush and Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez in video conference with members of the group. Credit: Joyce N. Boghosian / The White House.
The White House went pink tonight, part of worldwide campaign at more than 200 landmarks around the globe this month to commemorate breast cancer awareness.
During a ceremony at the White House, First Lady Laura Bush flipped a switch and suddenly a building that has been white ever since John and Abigail Adams took up residence there in 1800 was suddenly pink. She said:
We're showing our support of breast cancer awareness and research in a historic way. In recognition of the mothers, daughters, sisters and wives who struggle with this disease, we're lighting the White House in pink, which is the color of the cause. May our lights tonight shine as beacons around the world, a signal of the United States' commitment to saving lives for breast cancer.
Check it out:
-- Johanna Neuman
Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press
It isn't that director Oliver Stone is trying to influence the Nov. 4 election. Really. It's just that his biopic on George W. Bush is due to be released Oct. 17, about three weeks before voters head to the polls.
In an interview last week with the Times of London, Stone said in advance of the release that his new movie portrays President Bush as, well, a character.
It's a comedy only in the sense of tragic comedy. You laugh in your mind because Bush is a goof-ball, because he's awkward, but at the same time he has a stubbornness, a John Wayne ethos, an anger, an impatience, that make him fascinating. You may hate Wayne's politics, but you may well enjoy his company on screen.
The movie, starring Josh Brolin as George W. Bush and Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney, is "a human portrait of a man, not meant to insult people who believe in what Bush believes in," said Stone, whose earlier works on "JFK" and "Nixon" stirred controversy. Brolin, he said, portrays Bush as "charming, which I think he is." Stone also compared Bush to his father, George H.W. Bush:
I think he (W.) is a wonderful salesman, charismatic to many people and he has a politician's ability to touch and reach, which his father never had. So he did outdo his father -- as a salesman.
Stone told The Times he's not sure the public will rush to the theaters to see a movie about an unpopular president, even though he tried to walk in the president's shoes. He explained:
It's my job ... if I'm dramatizing his life ... to step above my hate.
But enough of words. Here's the latest trailer leaking out of his studios.
James Gerstenzang and Johanna Neuman are reporters in The Times' Washington bureau. Between the two of them, they have covered the White House, diplomacy, military affairs, the environment, international economics, trade and Congress. They have both spent time in Crawford, Texas.
