NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / World

George who? Dubya not so big in real life

By David Usborne
Independent·
27 Feb, 2009 08:05 PM6 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Former president Geroge W. Bush has hardly been in hiding since he returned to Dallas. Photo / AP

Former president Geroge W. Bush has hardly been in hiding since he returned to Dallas. Photo / AP

How fast they fade. Poor George W. Bush decided that an unannounced visit to a Dallas hardware shop last weekend would be a fun way to emerge from a month of post-presidential purdah and make a splash with his new neighbours.

But the greeter who met him inside, a pensioner
named Henry Long, didn't recognise him.

It could be that Bush looks smaller in real life than he does on TV. That, at least, was the observation of Andrea Bond, the marketing director for Elliott's Hardware, who was there the moment the 43rd President of the United States pushed open the door and asked Long where he might find a torch and batteries. It probably didn't help that Bush was dressed not in a suit but, says Bond, "sweatpants and a windbreaker".

No one will fault Bush for having kept a low profile - mostly at his Crawford ranch with his wife, Laura; it is just polite since someone else is in charge. But sweatpant obscurity is not something he can afford to contemplate.

There are memoirs to sell - no luck so far - and lectures to give and he already has the serious handicap of having left office with some of the lowest approval ratings of any president in modern history.

The resurfacing of "W" began with the moving vans arriving at the Bush's new, one-storey home in the fancy Preston Hollow neighbourhood of northwest Dallas last weekend. The house, a 1959 four-bedroom brick "ranch", is at the end of a cul-de-sac called Daria Place that will shortly be shut off with heavy-duty security gates that the Bushes have agreed to pay for. A police checkpoint is in place to discourage gawkers.

A few "Welcome Home, George and Laura" signs have sprouted on local lawns. The area is close to where Bush lived before he became the governor of Texas in 1994 and is handy for the Preston Centre, where he will have a temporary office for planning and fundraising for his presidential library.

Retirement is tough, particularly if your job has been as all-consuming as running a superpower.

"From personal experience, it will take a while to re-acclimate," said James Oberwetter, a fellow Texan and family friend who served as ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Don Evans, Bush's commerce secretary, says the Bushes are making a good start. "They're adjusting quickly to this new life, to being out of the White House, and out of the proverbial bubble," he said.

Moving weekend went well enough. There was a dinner on Saturday night at the home of the Preston Hollow billionaire Harold Simmons and his wife, Annette, with live entertainment from the pianist Adrian King, who is a favourite among Dallas's well-heeled. King is British, originally from Peterborough, but reportedly managed a fine rendition of Hail to the Chief.

And maybe showing up like an "ordinary George" at Elliott's was a smart move. Bond insists that her staff had had no warning of the visit. "I heard my boss saying something about the Secret Service outside and I thought it was a joke. Then George Bush was coming in the door with a big smile on his face. He walked in the door and said he was looking for a job and laughed about it."

This wasn't an entirely spontaneous joke, however. It was a few weeks back when the owners of Elliott's used an open letter to the former President offering him a job - in fact Long's job, as a greeter - in the Dallas newspapers as a fun way to promote itself. Someone on Bush's staff must have spotted it.

"We're confident that your experience working in your own family business, as well as your people skills developed throughout years of meeting with foreign dignitaries would make you an excellent candidate for the position," read the offer, signed by Kyle Walters, the president and chief executive of Elliott's Hardware.

"Furthermore, like you, many of our greeters are retired from the corporate world, so we're sure you'll have no trouble making new friends."

As other ex-presidents, not least Bill Clinton, have demonstrated, taking a job as a shop greeter should not be necessary. In general, former leaders of the free world earn a very good deal more than the US$400,000 ($786,000) salary they were paid annually while in office.

Making sure he does at least as well as his predecessors is now Bush's first priority.

"Previous presidents have found it often a gold mine," says Stephen Hess, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, of the move out of office.

Nor can he ignore the challenge of launching his presidential library. To be built on the grounds of the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, it will, according to the latest plans, be twice the size of his father's presidential library and will include a policy centre that has already been informally tagged the "Freedom Institute". Raising the estimated US$300 million will be left largely to Bush working the telephones.

"He's got two or three really important priorities on his mind," said Evans. "One, he has to earn a living, so he'll be on the speaking tour. He's into writing his book. Thirdly is the importance of building the presidential centre, particularly the institute. He's making many phone calls and will continue to, I would say, almost on a daily basis."

While Bush is rumoured to have already started writing a memoir of his eight years on Pennsylvania Ave, there has so far been no word of his having actually landed a publishing contract.

He may or may not have been galled to learn last weekend of the deal struck by Condoleezza Rice with Crown Books, promising at least US$2.5 million for three memoirs.

His prospects on the lecture circuit may also be a little dodgy. Certainly, they would be brighter if he had not left Washington with such dismal popularity ratings - 25 per cent was his paltry score as Barack Obama was elected his successor.

So far, only one "W" appearance has been announced: he will travel to Calgary, Alberta, for a lunch speech on March 17. It is a long way in real miles but not political ones. Calgary, like Dallas, is an oil and cow town with plenty of conservatives willing to pay big bucks to hear Bush.

But it isn't clear even in Dallas that feelings towards the Bush clan will be universally warm. "I do think the Bushes will be well received, very comfortable within their circle," said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University. "But they cannot but know that the broader interpretation of the Bush presidency is very negative."

- INDEPENDENT

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Save

    Share this article

Latest from World

World

Ukraine says Russia launched largest drone, missile attack of war

09 Jul 07:42 AM
Premium
World

Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot shares anti-Semitic posts on X

09 Jul 07:19 AM
World

Study: Climate change made European heatwave up to 4C hotter

09 Jul 05:07 AM

From early mornings to easy living

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from World

Ukraine says Russia launched largest drone, missile attack of war

Ukraine says Russia launched largest drone, missile attack of war

09 Jul 07:42 AM

The latest strike beat a previous Russian record of 550 drones and missiles.

Premium
Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot shares anti-Semitic posts on X

Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot shares anti-Semitic posts on X

09 Jul 07:19 AM
 Study: Climate change made European heatwave up to 4C hotter

Study: Climate change made European heatwave up to 4C hotter

09 Jul 05:07 AM
Teen attack at Brazil school kills child, injures two more

Teen attack at Brazil school kills child, injures two more

09 Jul 03:43 AM
Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP