When Laura Bush moved into the White House on January 20,
2001, everyone wanted to know what kind of first lady she
would be. Would she be like Mamie Eisenhower? Would she
follow in Barbara Bush's footsteps? Would she be another
Hillary Clinton?
"I think I'll just be Laura Bush,"
she would say.
On Saturday, April 30, 2005, the world
got a glimpse of what that meant when she pushed aside the
leader of the free world and stole the show at the White
House Correspondents' Association dinner. Wearing a
shimmering lime green Oscar de la Renta gown, Laura
wisecracked that she was a "desperate housewife" married to
a president who was always asleep at nine.
Replayed
constantly on the air, the stand-up routine with its
impeccable comedic timing turned the first lady into a
glittering star. But while the performance catapulted her to
new status, it did not answer the question of who this
former teacher and librarian really is and just what role
she plays in influencing her husband and shaping his
administration. The Bushes are more effective than the FBI
or CIA at keeping secret what goes on behind the scenes at
the White House, the ranch, or Camp David.
Now,
New York Times bestselling author Ronald Kessler
draws back that curtain in the first biography of Laura Bush
to be written with White House cooperation. Based on
interviews with her closest friends and confidantes from
childhood to the present, as well as family members and
administration heavyweights like Condoleezza Rice and Andrew
Card, Kessler paints a portrait of a woman who, even as she
ascended to the heights of political fortune and power,
never lost touch with the bedrock American values she
absorbed in her youth.
In this unprecedented account,
Kessler reveals:
How Laura's opinions have brought
budget changes to a range of federal agencies and have
affected her husband's policies, appointments, and
worldview. Why Laura told her press secretary in May 2001
she did not want to do any more media interviews. What
President Bush said to Laura at the dinner table after
giving the "go" for the invasion of Iraq, and what his
father, former President George H. W. Bush, wrote him the
next day about the war. What Laura's own political
opinions are and what her relationship with twin daughters
Jenna and Barbara is really like. What Laura says in
private about Hillary Clinton, media attacks on her husband,
and his victory in the 2004 election. And why Laura, at
the age of seventeen, missed a stop sign and caused a fatal
accident that tragically left one of her best friends
dead.
LAURA BUSH offers a remarkable look at the
private world of this famously reserved woman, as well as
the beliefs and attitudes that shape it. The book will
surprise readers whose knowledge of the first lady comes
from cautious media interviews and speeches.
Laura
Bush's approval rating stands at 85 percent. Since opinion
polls first began asking about them, no first lady has
received a higher rating. This moving biography is the first
to penetrate the secret world of the president's stealth
counselor who is one of our most admired public figures.
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