Did he just disappear off the planet or what? For someone who never lost a bid for office... it just seems like he absolutely vanished from the political landscape.
I hate saying this, but part of me thinks it has finally dawned on him that every time he opens his mouth he just puts his foot in it. By staying silent, he makes himself look smarter.
That may be. You'd think he would have to be out reading some speaches at least... something like that. He probably is... just strange how much he has disappeared.
Regarding speeds' post... It's generally accepted that former presidents don't comment on the current president or policy. It's an honorable thing Bush is doing (as his father did), and another reason why Jimmy Carter is an utter asshole.
There was a trend with ex-presidents making dough on the lecture circuit. I know Bush Sr. and Clinton both really cashed in on the million-dollar speaking engagements. (Reagan was of course too far gone by the end of his presidency to do much.) I haven't heard of Dubya cashing in, but that may just be a combination of ending as an unpopular president even to his own constituency (the TARP program, etc) and his widely known poor speaking ability. Anyway, if he's smart he'll lay low for a few years and wait for the memory to fade and the legends to grow. Even Nixon had something of a career renaissance in the 1990's.
I don't know... I think Bush could cash in if it were presented properly. "Bush Unleashed: The musings of Dubya" If it were more of a comedy act and less of an inspirational thing, I think people would totally show up to see him reveal his actual thoughts on things. Or maybe just an open book session on why he did things the way he did. One of the best documentaries ever made, "The Fog of War", was really just a one-on-one interview with Robert McNamara, and it was a fascinating journey through Kennedy's presidency. It would be interesting to hear something similar from Bush about 9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
Bush certainly has a lucrative book deal already. He's also making money doing speaking engagments: Bush speaking fee - $150,000 a pop Reagan wasn't so far gone that he was unable to make a bunch of speaking engagements himself. His last one was in 1994, in fact.
I'd venture to say that W doesn't really need the money, but I applaud him for staying out of Obama's way. I think, as time goes by, we'll see more of him in "humanitarian" causes like Bush 41 and Clinton doing tsunami relief drives, Haiti spots, etc.
W's net worth was about $27M when he left office, which makes him one of the least rich presidents of my lifetime. The bulk of that was the sale of the Texas Rangers, which he actually ran and ran extremely well. Carter and Clinton were worth less when they left office, but Clinton is now worth over $100M. Compare, say, to John Kerry whose net worth (from his marriage to Teresa Heinz) was half a $trillion.
I generally don't keep track, and I don't know why I remember this fragment, but I was under the impression that the Obamas "only" were worth something like 3M when he took office? I guess I was comparing W to Clinton (who was relatively poor -- compared to Perot and GHW Bush) and Obama and Carter (Reagan being a movie star beforehand) and Ford and thinking that he was one of the richer ones recently.
Yep. Almost all of Obama's net worth comes from royalties from writing his two books. That's about as "self-made-man" as you can get. If Kerry were indeed worth half a trillion dollars, he'd be 10 times richer than the wealthiest man on the planet. As it is, he appears to be worth "only" about $167 million.
Carter's making up for Reagan being an asshole to him. The networks loved Reagan, so they gave him a prime time speech just about every month for 6 years until he bored everyone with the vague Star Wars speech. That ended his run. In every single speech, TV and other, he criticized his predecessor, and used words like "Recovery" (actually the economy was much worse under him than Carter). Carter just took it with dignity. I'm glad to see Carter finally get feisty.
Half a billion, sorry. http://ask.yahoo.com/20040823.html According to Slate magazine, George W. Bush has a net worth of around $9 million to $26 million, and John Kerry has a net worth of about $165 million to $626 million, which includes his wife's assets. The Center for Public Integrity has collected details of both candidates' income and assets. Bush's biggest asset is his Texas ranch, while Kerry's top income source is his wife's portion of the Heinz company. But including Teresa Heinz Kerry's personal fortune isn't wholly accurate. As Heinz Kerry has publicly noted, a prenuptial agreement keeps her money separate. Also, federal election laws limit how much of his wife's funds Kerry can use. In 2002 financial disclosures, Kerry stated that assets in his own name were worth $409,000 to $1.8 million, and he had an additional $300,000 to $600,000 in assets owned jointly with his wife.
BTW--not to get too off-topic here, but how fucked up is it that Kerry is worth such a ridiculous amount of money? When I hear about how horrible the "death tax" is, I can't help but wonder at how strange it is that Kerry's got 5 houses and all that dough because he started banging a chick who used to bang a guy who inherited a shit-load of money from his dad who inherited a shitload of money from his dad who inherited a shitload of money from Henry Heinz, who built the Heinz ketchup company.
