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Briefing Book! Laura Bush Took Obama's Criticism Personally

CitizenSugar — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 12:00:38 -0800

Laura Bush: Laura Bush says she took Obama's criticism of her husband personally. - Townhall
Torture: Top military official says US tortured. - Talking Points Memo
Eat the View: Vegetable garden coming to 1600 Pennsylvania? Petition to plant an edible landscape at the White House has won a competition for what Obama should do on first day. - CasaSugar
Flu Epidemic: This season's particular flu virus doesn't respond to the standard flu medicine. We should get WHO on the case. - Good
GOP Senator Blocks Treasury Hearing: All because of a tax mistake? Despite otherwise bipartisan support for Timothy Geithner, Obama won't have a treasury secretary until after the inauguration. - Huffington Post

Bush Plans Return to Texas on Inauguration Day

CitizenSugar — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 03:00:39 -0800

Considering the anticipation and preparation for Barack Obama's Inauguration it comes as no surprise that President Bush is ready to jet out of town. The White House has announced that President Bush will go straight to Midland, Texas after leaving Washington on Inauguration Day.

The President and First Lady Laura Bush will leave Andrews Air Force Base and head to Midland (which is Laura's hometown) for a welcome event. They will fly in one of the jets he used as Air Force One during his presidency.

The couple plans to spend their first night away from the White House at their ranch in Crawford.

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Laura Bush's Rumored Advance Looks Small Next to Hillary's

CitizenSugar — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 03:00:58 -0800

Outgoing First Lady Laura Bush is said to have received an advance of $1.6 million for her memoir, which is scheduled for release in 2010, though sources say it could be more. Though it seems like a large number, the sum is far below the rumored $8 million that Hillary Clinton received from Simon & Schuster for her eventual bestseller, Living History. The check is in line, however, with the $2 million Nancy Reagan and Laura's mother-in-law Barbara Bush were said to have received for their memoirs.

Yesterday 32 percent of CitizenSugar readers said they were interested in Laura's story, while 44 percent said they were more interested in Hillary's. Could it be no one expects Laura has a dirty story to tell, or is she simply perceived as less of a public figure and political powerhouse than Hillary?

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Which Former First Lady's Memoir Piques Your Interest?

CitizenSugar — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:30:46 -0800

Yesterday news broke that First Lady Laura Bush has signed on to pen a memoir with Scribner, the house of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Laura's mother-in-law, Barbara Bush. The book is currently untitled, but scheduled for release in 2010, and it's unclear what type of secrets she will reveal. Memoirs are somewhat of a right of passage for former first ladies - Hillary Clinton, Barbara Bush and Nancy Davis Reagan have each written one. Is there one you find particularly alluring?
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Laura Bush Prepares to Return to the Kitchen

YumSugar — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:15:48 -0800

First Lady Laura Bush can host opulent diplomat dinners, but can she still stir the pots? As the first lady and her husband, President George W. Bush, get ready to move out of the White House next month, they're looking forward to returning to the humdrum of everyday life. For her, this means getting back into the kitchen. "I haven't cooked in 14 years," she told Fox News Channel's On the Record. Perhaps the first lady could use a refresher course on how to peel shrimp or some simple tips on one of the most basic cooking skills: scrambling eggs. "He can't even remember what it was like, and neither can I," she admits. "This will be interesting."

What advice do you have for First Lady Laura Bush as she attempts to polish her rusty cooking skills?

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President Bush Buys a Post-White House House

CasaSugar — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:00:53 -0800

As President-elect Barack Obama prepares to move into the White House, President Bush has picked up some new property for his life post-1600 Penn, when he leaves office in January. George and Laura have ponied up for a 8,501-square-foot, four-bedroom, ranch-style home in Preston Hollow, a wealthy North Dallas neighborhood where they lived before he became governor of Texas in 1995. I guess George is saying goodbye to the Georgian style.Preston Hollow counts some other prominent residents, including Dallas mayor Tom Leppert, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, former Dallas Cowboys Roger Staubach and Chuck Howley, and billionaire investors Harold Simmons and T. Boone Pickens, among others, so the Bush family should feel right at home, and perhaps their new neighbors won't be starstruck. The word on the sale price is that the property sold for "considerably more" than its $2.1 million appraisal price. There's also rumor that the couple is under contract to purchase an adjacent home, which they may tear down, use for an office, or for secret service. To see photos of that property, read more.

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How-To: Steal Holiday Decorating Ideas From the White House

CasaSugar — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:00:53 -0800

When US First Lady Laura Bush let the press preview the White House's holiday decorating look yesterday, she gave reporters a lot of holiday eye candy to absorb. This year's theme, "A Red, White and Blue Christmas" may be too patriotically themed and colored for your home decorating scheme, but that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of ideas to steal from the White House's look. For some suggestions for adding White House style to your casa, check out the slideshow. Source

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"Impeach Bush" Ornament to Hang on White House Tree

LibertySugar — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:30:32 -0800

Santa may still have to decide whether President Bush has been naughty or nice this year, but an artist invited to decorate an ornament for the White House Christmas tree has made up her mind. Deborah Lawrence, a Bush opponent and Seattle artist, decided to whip up some holiday activism and create an "Impeach Bush" ornament.

Through a local art organization, Deborah's Congressman, Jim McDermott, invited her submit his district's ornament. She told the Washington Post that despite feeling sick from the idea of painting a decoration for the Bush White House, she decided it was the perfect opportunity to highlight Rep. McDermott's support of Bush's impeachment. On the ornament she also features her state's 1919 labor strike, suffrage movement, and the 1999 WTO protests. Laura Bush's press secretary said there were no plans to reject the ornament and that Deborah is still invited to a White House reception for the artists.

Do you find Deborah's bold action an example of someone courageously staying true to what she believes, or did Deborah simply forget her manners?

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Buzz Interview: Curtis Sittenfeld, Author of American Wife

BuzzSugar — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 06:30:44 -0700

This week, author Curtis Sittenfeld's new book American Wife hits book stores near you. The book is inspired by the life of Laura Bush, and a few weeks ago, when I was about halfway through American Wife, I chatted with Sittenfeld about the controversial aspects of the book, how this epic American tale is a departure from her previous two books, and what's going on with the movie version of Prep!

Buzz: This character, Alice Blackwell, is intriguing and sexy, and generally those terms are considered mutually exclusive from the first lady. How did you work around people's ideas of what it means to be the first lady?
Curtis Sittenfeld: I think that all people are complicated and all people have inner lives. I think that a lot of times our view of first ladies is that they’re very stiff or proper or formal but I think they’re people like anyone else. When they’re not in public they probably can relax a lot more.

I know that these characters are based on the lives of George and Laura Bush, and when I read some of the sex scenes, I wondered if you had a hard time going there?
Laura Bush was a starting point for this novel, but there’s so much that we don’t know about her even though she’s a very public figure. And so what I did was invent a character who’s loosely inspired by her but isn’t her. I do not see Alice Blackwell as just, you know, Laura Bush is her name change. I see Alice Blackwell as a distinct person. I know that some readers might feel differently but I don't feel like I wrote sex scenes between George and Laura Bush [laughs].

To learn more about her new book and why she might still write about weird, neurotic girls, read more!

My experience reading the book so far has been to forget it’s Laura, and Alice is her own person to me except when I bump into events that I recognize from Laura’s life. It’s a unique reading experience to say the least. Is that the experience you think people will have? Hope they’ll have?
Well, the way that I conceived of the book, there are four major events in in Laura Bush’s life that I included - you know, one in each of the four sections of the book that are real - and then pretty much everything else is made up. So I would say 85 percent of the book is made up. The characters, the situations, the conversations - and I trust the sophistication and intelligence of my readers and I like when I read a book that assumes my intelligence. So I know that it's a kind of weird hybrid book, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

When it comes to women married to men who do things that we don’t agree with, there’s this tendency to implicate them by association. Did you find yourself more sympathetic to a woman like that? This book has made me rethink my ideas of those women’s responsibilities, etc.
Yeah, that is definitely a question that’s really interesting to me, which is: How much is one spouse responsible for another spouse? Or how much does one spouse represent another spouse? And I think it’s an incredibly complicated question and the answer varies a lot from marriage to marriage. But I actually just got married, like, three months ago. So I do think the subject of marriage is probably interesting to me during the time I was writing this. You know, I’m about to turn 33 and you know there are marriages . . . like of course the ideal is to marry for a long time but then sometimes you look at, you know, marriages that have lasted, you know, 30 or 40 years and you think, "Well it lasted long, but I don’t know if I’d want to be in it." But I think it’s a worthy goal for people to try to stay together, but I also think that you have to make compromises.

Yeah, it's such an intriguing question and so far I find myself feeling very sympathetic toward this character who I know will become the first lady and judged by people for her husband. I keep thinking, "Aw, but she's young and falling in love."
Right, well, it’s so hard to guess how anyone’s life will turn out I mean even with, you know people I knew in high school or people I knew in graduate school. Their lives . . . some have taken much different turns than I would have guessed, but you know, that’s what makes life interesting.

Unlike Lee in Prep, or Hannah in The Man of My Dreams, Alice is a grown woman and more mature than either of those young women. Are your characters going to grow up as you continue to grow?
Well, by the end of the book Alice is 61, so she obviously gets to be much older than I am in real life. I think that I don’t feel like I’ll never write about teenage girls or young women again. I mean, I still think that there’s so much material there, so I don’t think my characters will only get older as I get older, although to some extent that will probably happen. I do feel like one of my core readers is probably like the 22- or 23-year-old young woman, and I do hope she does not feel abandoned by this book. You know, like, "What happened?!"

Right! You hit on my initial reaction when the book was in my hands. Which was, "Oh my. This is a big epic book . . . It’s so different from the others."
This is a story and a personality that really captured my imagination, but I’m not determined to only write epics from here on out, you know? I still have room in my heart for neurotic, you know, weirdo girls [laughs].

Oh good - I feel like I can speak for many when I say that’s somewhat of a relief!
Yeah - I promise, I promise!

Finally, are there plans for any of your books to become movies? Do you want that?
Prep was optioned by Paramount, and the option has been renewed, and actually a screenplay exists, which was written by Noah Baumbach - he did Squid and the Whale. I think, you know, it seems like with movies all the stars have to align - every thing has to correspond perfectly for a movie to be made. But I think things are a little bit murky, but I would be delighted if it got made. He is attached as a writer/director. I would be delighted if he were the one who made it. I don’t know, Man of My Dreams was not optioned and this one I think they just started sort of sending it out in Hollywood. I don’t know. It’s not an area where I feel like I have any control, which is kind of liberating.

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The Sittenfeld Book Debate: Should Laura Bush Be Off-Limits?

BuzzSugar — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:32:32 -0700

My friend Citizen sparked a lively conversation yesterday around an upcoming book by Prep author Curtis Sittenfeld titled American Wife. The novel follows a character named Alice Blackwell who is based on Laura Bush, and many of the first lady's real-life experiences are included.

I was intrigued by the strong reactions that spread across the Web yesterday, especially after Radar posted several sex scenes from the book that earned the unpublished novel descriptors like "steamy" and "tawdry."

Some folks feel strongly that this was disrespectful to Laura Bush, and that Sittenfeld should have left her alone. The assumption there is that the main character will be trashed in the book, but actually, there is reason to suspect the opposite. In 2004, Sittenfeld wrote an article ("Why I Love Laura Bush") explaining how much she admires Laura, calling her "such an easy heroine to root for - smart and nice but just flawed enough (she still sneaks cigarettes!) to remain likable." There doesn't appear to be malice in Sittenfeld's intentions.

Many fictional characters are based on real people - some famous, some not - but do you think Laura Bush should be off-limits? Or is any public figure fair game for novelists?

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