page_title: Barbara Bush
section_title: After being First Lady
hierarchical_section_title: Barbara Bush / After being First Lady
caption_attribution_description: Former President George H. W. Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush react during remarks by President George W. Bush during the Christening Ceremony for the George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) in Newport News, Virginia, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2006. White House photo by Eric Draper
context_page_description: Barbara Pierce Bush was the wife of the 41st President of the United States, George H. W. Bush, and was the First Lady of the United States from 1989 to 1993. She was the mother of the 43rd U.S. President George W. Bush and of the 43rd Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush. Previously, she was the Second Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989.
context_section_description: After her husband's presidency, they moved to Houston, Texas. They also had a big house in Kennebunkport, Maine.
  On March 18, 2003, two days before the beginning of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when her son George W. Bush was President, ABC's Good Morning America asked her about her family's television viewing habits. She replied:
  
  I watch none. He [former President George H.W. Bush] sits and listens and I read books, because I know perfectly well that, don't take offense, that 90 percent of what I hear on television is supposition, when we're talking about the news. And he's not, not as understanding of my pettiness about that. But why should we hear about body bags and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or that or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that, and watch him suffer.
  While visiting a Houston relief center for people displaced by Hurricane Katrina, Bush told the radio program Marketplace,
  
  Almost everyone I've talked to says, 'We're gonna move to Houston.' What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas... Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality, and so many of the people in the arenas here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this (as she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.
  The remarks were controversial. In 2006, it was revealed that Barbara Bush donated an undisclosed amount of money to the Bush–Clinton Katrina Fund on the condition that the charity do business with an educational software company owned by her son Neil Bush.
  In November 2008, Bush was hospitalized for abdominal pains. On November 25, a dime-sized hole in her small intestine was found by surgeons. She was released on December 2, 2008 and was reported to be doing well.
  Bush underwent aortic valve replacement surgery on March 4, 2009; she was released from the hospital on March 13, 2009.
  In a November 2010 interview with Larry King, Bush was asked about former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Bush remarked, "I sat next to her once, thought she was beautiful, and I think she's very happy in Alaska, and I hope she'll stay there." Palin responded, "I don't want to, sort of, concede that we have to get used to this kind of thing, because I think the majority of Americans don't want to put up with the blue-bloods – and I say it with all due respect, because I love the Bushes – but, the blue-bloods, who want to pick and choose their winners, instead of allowing competition to pick and choose the winners."
  Barbara Bush was portrayed by Ellen Burstyn in the 2008 movie W..
caption: George and Barbara Bush attend the christening ceremony for the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77 6), October 2006
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "200", "Image YResolution": "200", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2006:10:07 08:45:56", "Image WhitePoint": "[313/1000, 329/1000]", "Image PrimaryChromaticities": "[16/25, 33/100, 21/100, 71/100, 3/20, 3/50]", "Image YCbCrCoefficients": "[299/1000, 587/1000, 57/500]", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "352", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1198", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6658", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/500", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Shutter Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:10:07 10:58:30", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:10:07 10:58:30", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "9", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "108", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1600", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1203", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R03", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1072", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "250400/71", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "666800/189", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Gamma": "11/5"}