Background

Ethnicity: Bush is of primarily English descent and also more distant German, Dutch, Welsh, Irish, French, and Scottish ancestry.

George Walker Bush was born on July 6, 1946 at Grace-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut as the first child of George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Pierce. He was raised in Midland and Houston, Texas with four siblings, Jeb, Neil, Marvin and Dorothy. Another younger sister, Robin, died from leukemia at the age of three in 1953.

His grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a U.S. Senator from Connecticut. His father George H. W. Bush was Ronald Reagan's Vice President from 1981 to 1989 and the 41st U.S. President from 1989 to 1993.

Education

Bush attended public schools in Midland, Texas until the family moved to Houston after he had completed his 7th grade year. He then went to The Kinkaid School, a prep school in Houston for two years.

Bush finished high school at Phillips Academy, a boarding school (then all-male) in Andover, Massachusetts, where he played baseball and during his senior year was the head cheerleader.

He attended Yale University (coincidentally located at his place of birth in New Haven, Connecticut) from 1964 to 1968, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. During this time, he was a cheerleader and a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon, being elected the fraternity's president during his senior year. Bush also became a member of the Skull and Bones society as a senior. Bush was a keen rugby union player and was on Yale's 1st XV. He characterized himself as an average student. His average during his first three years at Yale was 77 and he had a similar average under a nonnumeric rating system in his final year.

Beginning in the fall of 1973, Bush attended the Harvard Business School, where he earned an M.B.A. degree. As such, he is the only U.S. President to have earned an M.B.A.

Career

In 1994, Bush was elected governor of Texas, defeating the incumbent, Ann Richards. In office he won a reputation for being able to forge bipartisan coalitions with the conservative legislature's Democrats, and won passage of changes to tort laws and the welfare, public-school, and juvenile-justice systems. Bush was reelected in 1998 by a landslide.

In 1999, Bush officially began his campaign for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination, and quickly raised record campaign funding. He won a majority of convention delegates in the primaries and became the GOP's candidate.

Although he appeared generally to lead in the polls, he ultimately lost the popular vote to Democrat Al Gore. However, Bush secured the presidency with a victory in the electoral college when he won Florida by a narrow margin, having outlasted Gore's attempt to challenge the Florida vote-counting process in court. He thus became the first person in more than a century to win the presidency without achieving a plurality in the popular vote.

Eight months into Bush's first term as president, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks occurred and had a profound effect on USA.

In response, Bush announced the War on Terror, an international military campaign which included the war in Afghanistan launched in 2001 which succeeded in destroying the government of the Taliban and severely disrupting the al-Qaida network, which had used the country as a base for training and operations. The United States then worked with the United Nations in trying to rebuild the country around President Hamid Karzai.

Bush successfully ran for re-election against Democratic Senator John Kerry in 2004, in another relatively close election. After his re-election, Bush received increasingly heated criticism from across the political spectrum for his handling of the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina and numerous other controversies.

As a result, the Democratic Party won control of Congress in the 2006 elections. In December 2007, the United States entered its longest post-World War II recession, prompting the Bush Administration to enact multiple economic programs intended to preserve the country's financial system.

Nationally, Bush was both one of the most popular and unpopular presidents in history, having received the highest recorded presidential approval ratings in the wake of 9/11, as well as one of the lowest approval ratings during the 2008 financial crisis.

Internationally, he was a highly controversial figure, with public protests occurring even during visits to close allies, such as the United Kingdom.

Bush has returned to Texas and purchased a home in a suburban area of Dallas. He is currently a public speaker and has written a book about his life entitled Decision Points.

Achievements

• 

  Several historians and commentators hold the view that Bush was one of the most consequential presidents in American history. Among the public, his reputation has improved somewhat since his presidency ended in 2009. Bush had achieved notable gains among seniors, non-college whites, and moderate and conservative Democrats since leaving office, although majorities disapproved of his handling of the economy (53 percent) and the Iraq War (57 percent). His 47 percent approval rating was equal to that of President Obama's in the same polling period. A CNN poll conducted that same month found that 55 percent of Americans said Bush's presidency had been a failure, with opinions divided along party lines, and 43 percent of independents calling it a success. Bush's public image saw greater improvement starting in 2017, which has been interpreted as Democrats viewing him more favorably in response to Donald Trump's presidency, an assessment that has also been expressed by Bush himself.
  
  George W. Bush was named the Person of the Year by ‘Time’ magazine in 2000 and 2004.
  
  In 2005, Latvian President Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga awarded him the Order of the Three Stars and in 2012 Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves bestowed him with the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana.

Works

More photos

• book

  • A Charge to Keep: My Journey to the White House
  • Decision Points
  • 41: A Portrait of My Father

Religion

Bush was raised in the Episcopal Church but converted to Methodism upon his marriage in 1977.

Politics

Beginning in 2002, Bush dramatically escalated pressure on Iraq and its president, Saddam Hussein. Claiming that Iraq still possessed weapons of mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons, he argued that the country constituted a threat to U.S. security. Despite massive global opposition, even from traditional American allies like Germany and France, U.S. and British forces invaded the country in March 2003 and overthrew Saddam Hussein's government.

In addition to national security issues, Bush also promoted policies on the economy, health care, education, and social security reform. He signed into law broad tax cuts, the PATRIOT Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, and Medicare prescription drug benefits for seniors. His tenure saw national debates on immigration, Social Security, electronic surveillance, and enhanced interrogation techniques. He announced the U.S. would not implement the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, which had been signed by the previous administration but never ratified by the Senate.

Views

Bush was against abortion and same-sex marriage.

Quotations: "Taking care of women is good politics."

"America is a young country, full of vitality, constantly growing and renewing itself. And even in the toughest times, we lift our eyes to the broad horizon ahead."]

"The founding ideals of the political party I represent, was and remains today the equal dignity and equal rights of every American."

Membership

• Delta Kappa Epsilon , United States

  1964 - 1968

• The Skull and Bones Society , United States

  1964 - 1968

Personality

George W. Bush is lively and outgoing. He has a quick wit and tells frequent jokes, thus enabling strangers to feel at ease in his presence. When he was younger, George W. was considered the life of the party, going to great lengths to generate fun. Friends of Bush think that he took on this fun persona while trying to cheer up his mother after his sister’s death from leukemia when he was seven years old. He is often described as a “late bloomer” since he had a devil-may-care attitude toward life until he was about 40 years old.

When he was a young man, president Bush generally lived the life of a playboy, dating a variety of women and partying hard. He was apt to make outrageous statements, once telling the Queen of England that he wwas the black sheep of the family and asked her who was the black sheep of her family. He could be obnoxious when he drank too much and once challenged his father to a fight, to which the elder Bush only expressed his disappointment in his son. After his marriage and the birth of his daughters, Bush began to mature. He admitted he had been drinking too much because of the reversals that his oil company was then undergoing.

His wife, Laura, warned that she would leave him if he did not ease up on his drinking. After a particularly bad hangover following his fortieth birthday party, Bush quit drinking and says he hasn’t had a drink since. The year before, he had rekindled his interest in religion.

About this time, Bush also found direction in his life by participating in politics. First, he helped in his father’s campaign and then he ran for office himself. George W. Bush is intensely loyal, especially to his father. He does not allow anyone in his presence to speak ill of his father.

Despite reversals in his life, such as those he suffered in the oil business, Bush’s self-confidence has never flagged. He is well-centered person, knowing who and what he is and what he is capable of accomplishing. Bush is punctual and expects others to be also. He likes to maintain schedules that he sets and his life falls into routine patterns, such as getting up and feeding the family animals in the morning and running at lunch time. He allots only five minutes for each appointment and allows almost no interruptions of his meetings with others, giving them his full attention.

Bush is fiercely competitive, and if he cannot best an opponent in a sport, he may use psychological distractions, especially humorous ones, in order to win. When he was young, friends said that you had to keep playing until George won.

Physical Characteristics: Bush is often described as handsome and resembles his father, complete with the Bush family trademark uneven grin. He has his father’s blue eyes and brown hair which is graying, but he isn’t quite as tall. George W. stands 6 feet tall and weighs 192 pounds. He has an athletic build and runs several miles a day, five days a week. Bush’s pace is about 7.5 minutes per mile. His pace is so fast that his security detail need bicycles to keep up with him. He has been exercising regularly since 1972. Bush had an appendectomy at age 10, minor surgery to his chest wall at age 13, arthroscopic knee surgery in 1997, and two benign polyps removed from his colon in July 1998. Bush has excellent cardiovascular fitness and displays no signs of coronary artery disease.

Bush has mild hearing loss in high-frequency range due to flying jets, but his hearing is excellent in the speech frequencies. He is farsighted, which was advantageous when he was a pilot. According to his doctor in a 1999 report, “he has totally abstained from alcohol for the past 13 years. He has no history of any alcohol, drug, mental, or psychiatric treatment or rehabilitation.”

Bush dresses conservatively, but often sports a silver belt buckle and cowboy boots and hat. He never dresses down for public appearances, but he sometimes dresses casually to meet reporters, and, of course, wears a jogging suit when he runs. When he was younger, he did not always take as much care in his dress. His post-college dressing style has been described as “indifferent,” “careless,” “wretched,” and “ratty.” Perhaps his careless dress came as a result of a rebellion against having to follow jacket-and-tie dress codes in prep school and college. His sartorial epiphany came, apparently, when he first ran for public office.

Quotes from others about the person

• "Even Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's socialist president, found this a stunning move for a nominally market economy to take. "Bush is to the left of me now," he said. "Comrade Bush announced he will buy shares in private banks."" Thomas E. Woods
  
  "Watching Bush give a speech is like watching a drunk man cross an icy street. You really want him to get to the other side, but it's clear he won't be able to make it without a lot of stumbling." Tucker Carlson

Interests

• Reading, biking

• Writers

  John Le Carre, Natan Sharansky, Marquis James, Robert J. Samuelson

• Sport & Clubs

  Golf

• Music & Bands

  Country music

Connections

George W. Bush married Laura Welch, a school teacher and librarian, in 1977, and four years later Laura gave birth to fraternal twin daughters, Barbara Pierce Bush and Jenna Welch Bush.

Father:

George Bush

Mother:

Barbara Bush

First Lady of the United States

Brother:

John Ellis Bush

Brother:

Neil Mallon Pierce Bush

Brother:

Marvin Pierce Bush

Sister:

Dorothy Walker Bush Koch

Grandfather:

Prescott Bush

grandmother:

Dorothy Wear Walker Bush

Wife:

Laura Bush

First Lady of the United States

Daughter:

Barbara Pierce Welch Bush

Daughter:

Jenna Welch Bush-Hager

colleague:

Dick Cheney

colleague:

Vladimir Putin

References

• Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush
• Bush
• George W. Bush (Getting to Know the U.S. Presidents)
• George W. Bush: America's 43rd President (Encyclopedia of Presidents. Second Series)
• George W. Bush: Our Forty-Third President (A Real-Life Story)