Tincy Miller was there. So were Ed Cox, Karen and Denis Boulle, and nearly 400 others. The occasion: an exclusive, invitation-only reception Tuesday evening for George W. and Laura Bush at the tony Brook Hollow Golf Club. To find out what the former president said when he addressed the country clubbers, their spouses and their guests, make the jump.
The reception’s official purpose was to recognize W and Laura, “the newest honorary” members of Brook Hollow, the venerable old country club off Dallas’ Harry Hines Boulevard. After drinks and hors d’oeuvres were served up, the former president spoke off the cuff to the crowd for nearly an hour.
Bush began by joking about how it was Laura who’d decided the couple would return to Dallas–but now he was glad they had. Then he launched into some recollections of life at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, beginning with the shape of the Oval Office. It really is oval, he said, with no corners–and that’s important. It’s a place where the president must be prepared to make decisions and to stand tall, because there’s literally no place there to hide.
Bush explained that he had Texas art on the walls of his Oval Office, including a picture of the Alamo, to remind himself of the importance of defending Texas values. He was criticized a lot, he said, but he was OK with that, because in America you have the right to say what you think. Even so he never watched the evening news, he said, because he was only interested in making decisions that he knew were right for America’s citizens over the long haul.
He’s currently writing a book, Bush said with a smile, and he hoped that everyone present would buy a copy. He said he’d just finished the chapter on Sept. 11, 12, 13 and 14. He recalled being in a Florida elementary school on 9/11, scheduled to read to the students, when he got word about the jet-plane incidents in New York City.Â
Hearing news of the first airliner hitting the World Trade Center, he said, his initial thought was, “That’s a really bad pilot.” When the second plane hit, he thought, “We’re being attacked.” When he learned of the plane at the Pentagon, Bush said, he thought, “We’re at war.”
“I will defend that until I die,” Bush said of the certainty of his reaction, “because that’s what it was and how I perceived it.”
At the end of his talk, Bush took questions from those in the crowd. One asked what citizens could do or should do in the midst of the economic crisis. This is a time when leaders are bound to emerge, the former president replied, because when times are tough, grass-roots movements will take hold. The key, he said, is to relax, to stick to your principles and to stay strong.
Finally, the Bushes acknowledged that limiting the crowd to 400 Tuesday had disappointed many who couldn’t get in. So the former First Couple vowed to return to Brook Hollow for a second reception sometime in the future.
