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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Friday, January 09, 2009

Thin money in the Bush "retirement."

President Bush has added the "Freedom Institute" to his presidential library because he needs a multiple decade think tank effort to try and create a belief that his foreign policy wasn't the disaster it's perceived to have been.

(ThinkProgress) Bush’s library foundation has only raised $3 million of the $300 million needed for completion.

And, who is going to pay this President for speeches?

I'm sure there will be a few big group spots (Federalist Society, AEI?) who will host Bush out of goodwill, and probably a rich Arab or two, or the Israelis, who might make a payment out of generosity or political horsetrading, but, really, who else is going to pay top dollar to be associated this President.

World Business leaders? The Europeans? Asia? Middle East?

Past Presidents have made good money on their post presidential speaking tours, but they were either popular (Clinton, Reagan,) or paid for their knowledge/opinion (Bush Sr.)

What does Bush Jr offer except a PR problem?

There's already been a decided lack of excitement from the publishing world over his memoir.

He'll certainly make money being ex-President Bush, but it's gonna look small compared to the rest.

5 Comments:

  • "He'll certainly make money being ex-President Bush, but it's gonna look small compared to the rest."

    Kinda sums up W as a human being as well, I'd say.

    By Blogger -epm, at 3:25 PM  

  • Unfortunately, his impact has been big.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 4:27 PM  

  • The GOP was, for all intents and purposes, required to defend and even like Bush as long as he was in power. After all, they were the ones who advanced the pathetic concept that criticising the President during "time of war" was tantamount to treason. Once he is out of power, however, those rhetorical constraints are gone.

    The "fundies" will continue to respect him as one of their own, but the Party leadership will most likely label him as the "dirty linen" that good Republicans don't bring up.

    He was "set for life" before he ever set foot in the White House. Cheney was always the real power, anyway. Why would someone want to hear the ventriloquist dummy speak when they can just hire the ventriloquist?

    The real money will be in Bush cronies singing like birds about what really went on behind the scenes. After that, nobody will take the Decider seriously again. Remember, there are a whole lot of incompetent loyalists who will be out of a job in a fortnight or so. They can't all go to "think tanks" for a minority Party, especially since most of them are unable to think for themselves to begin with.

    By Blogger Todd Dugdale , at 11:57 AM  

  • You know... From what I read, alot of the fundies aren't really that big on Bush anymore. There's enough of them out there that there's certainly an audience, but some of the actions cooled them.

    And, I'm really curious about the post White House books interviews, etc. You'll have the folks trying to push off blame on others, and the true loyalists trying to write "what really happened."

    And you figure, you'll also have issue/policy proponents trying to blame Bush for execution. (see Neocons, Grover Norquist.)

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 2:16 PM  

  • By Blogger raybanoutlet001, at 8:24 PM  

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