Tales from the Trail

Former U.S. President George W. Bush said in Dallas on Thursday that he was weary of politics but hoped his institute would play a role in public policy debates.
    
“The truth of the matter is, I am tired of politics,” Bush, back to his Texas energy roots, told a conference on natural gas sponsored by the George W. Bush Institute and Southern Methodist University’s Cox Maguire Energy Institute.    

But he said he and his wife Laura were “not just interested in retiring” to the family ranch in Crawford, Texas.    

“We want to be active participants in the debate that affects America. We wanted to have a policy center … out of which will come action plans,” Bush said.
    
The institute is the policy arm of the George W. Bush Presidential Center, which is being built in Dallas.

Photo credit: Reuters/Eduardo Munoz (Bush in Haiti on March 22)

WASHINGTON – President George W. Bush, who has stayed out of the public eye in the final days before the election to choose his successor, knows his popularity has suffered, but the White House insists he will have no problem looking in the mirror when he returns to Texas.

Bush spent the weekend at Camp David and has no public events on Monday or Tuesday. He last spoke with his preferred successor Republican John McCain on Sept. 25, the day of a White House meeting on the financial bailout.

McCain has actively campaigned to distance himself from the unpopular 43rd U.S. president, rarely appearing with Bush since capturing the Republican presidential nomination in March.