Tales from the Trail

I almost didn’t recognize him.

Watching Dick Cheney, one of the most recognizable political figures of the decade, on television speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony for the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, I did a double-take.

He is about 30 pounds lighter, after being in the hospital for five weeks this summer for a procedure to improve his heart function, according to someone close to him.

The former vice president  and president appear to have moved beyond the end-of-term friction over Bush’s decision not to pardon Cheney’s chief of staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

Cheney in a television interview last year, and Bush in his newly released book, both said they hadn’t seen eye-to-eye on the former president’s decision to commute Libby’s sentence but not pardon him. Bush also wrote in his memoir “Decision Points” that he once had considered replacing Cheney as vice president.

But in a rare public appearance together since they left office, both seemed to have left past disagreements in the past.

George W. Bush’s memoir, “Decision Points,” is full of newsy tidbits, and there’s a lot of material about his relationship with his vice president, Dick Cheney, whom Bush considered dumping from the 2004 ticket.

In the book, which hits bookstore shelves on Tuesday, Bush describes how upset Cheney was at him for his refusal to give a full pardon to Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the senior Cheney aide who got caught up in the Valerie Plame scandal and who in 2007 was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Bush commuted the sentence, but refused entreaties to give Libby a full pardon.

Bush writes that in the closing days of his time in the White House in early 2009, Cheney pressed his case that Libby should be pardoned, and was angry when Bush refused.

When George W. Bush says he’s done with politics — believe it.

Not even the queen of daytime TV could draw the former Republican president into commenting on the current political scene when Bush sat down with her to discuss his new book.

He makes it clear he has moved on from politics and that punditry is not his thing.

“I’m through with politics. It’s hard for people to believe. I already said that. I am through. I enjoyed it,” Bush says in excerpts of an upcoming interview with Oprah Winfrey released Thursday.

Who would have thought former President George W. Bush would publicly admit that he had actually thought of dumping Dick Cheney as his veep?

But that’s just what he does in his memoir “Decision Points,” according to my colleague Steve Holland who obtained a copy of the book which is coming out next Tuesday.

And the worst moment of his presidency? When charges of racism were flung at him over Hurricane Katrina.

George W. Bush is slowly starting to emerge from a self-imposed cone of silence that he has generally adhered to since leaving Washington for Texas when he turned over the presidency to Barack Obama.

President No. 43 gave a lecture at the University of Texas in Tyler, Texas, on Tuesday and spoke before a sold-out crowd of 2,000 people. All this is according to the Tyler newspaper.

Bush talked up a book he has written about major decisions he made as president, “Decision Points,” which is to be published on Nov. 9. The author will be doing a number of major interviews surrounding the publication of his memoir, including with a Facebook fan.

We’re one month and a day away from the launch of George W. Bush’s presidential memoir “Decision Points.”

The former president’s book, which goes on sale on Nov. 9, will  have a huge first printing of 1.5 million copies, Crown Publishers said in a statement on Thursday.

Bush writes about crucial points in his life and presidency including his decision to run for the highest office in the country; 9/11; the decisions to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq; his response to Hurricane Katrina; and his relationship with his father, former President George H.W. Bush, Crown said.

Candid… Gripping… Shattering… are words being used to promote former President George W. Bush’s memoir “Decision Points.”

The book is due out on November 9, exactly a week after the midterm elections. But if past is prelude when it comes to newsmaker books, the details are likely to leak out earlier, possibly right around election day…

Bush writes about the contested 2000 election, the hours after the September 11 attacks, the moments before launching the Iraq war, his decisions on the financial crisis and more, the Crown Publishing online promotion says. He also writes about his “flaws and mistakes” and serves up new details about quitting drinking and his relationship with his family.