Bob will have some more highlights coming up, but walking away from some quality time this morning with former president George W. Bush (Rich, Bob, and I were there with some other familiar conservative faces), I was overwhelmed with the same impression I’ve always had of him: There’s a peace about him. While he no longer has the burdens of the commander-in-chief weighing on his shoulders, he’s a relatively young guy who still finds ways to serve — staying engaged with military families, as we’ve seen and as he has talked about a bit in some of his interviews — and will continue to. But he’s at peace, even about things that bug him and the things he regrets (like not coming clean about his DWI, despite wanting to set a good example for his driving-age daughters). Maybe it’s the running. I think you can’t come away from the book without knowing it’s largely something called faith (as I wrote about earlier in the week here).
On every occasion I’ve spent time with the man, I just see something that not everyone in politics has but that they all sure need. You don’t have to agree with all his decisions to see that. I think part of the reason he wrote Decision Points is so the reader could get some sense of it — how one can make consequential decisions and be at peace, even as some big things remain uncertain or worse.