Laura Bush fills in the blanks

POLITICO - By NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON 5/23/09



Her staff jokingly called it a “legacy lunch.” About two dozen historians, journalists, White House staffers, and Beltway insiders gathered in the yellow Oval Room to hear Laura Bush’s take on Laura Bush. The unusual three-hour session went little noticed and largely unreported at the time, coming just days before the November election. Several people who were there told POLITICO that Bush was candid, funny, confident, and open to every question. And there were many, as the consensus in the public and among scholars hadn’t been so much unkind to Laura Bush as a little fuzzy – as in Laura Bush, we hardly know you. Bush’s staff made clear the lunch was designed to remedy just that – to provide details and historical context about her time in the White House. Attendees recall it as an attempt to shape the public perception of Bush now and in the future, by giving her an opportunity to lay out how she would most like to be remembered. “When we sat down I have the recollection that Anita McBride said, ‘You are the people who are going to be writing about the history of the administration and we want to share with you some of the things that she wanted to do and her accomplishments,’” said first ladies historian Myra Gutin, referring to Laura Bush’s then-chief of staff. “No first lady has ever reached out to historians to talk about what she'd done. It was a first.” Her husband has said history will judge his actions. For Laura Bush, who maintained high favorable ratings throughout her husband’s eight years, it isn’t a matter of burnishing her image as much as filling in the blanks. (Read more ...)