Life After The White House
Since leaving the White House, she and her husband reside in River Oaks, section of Houston, Texas and at the Bush Compound in Kennebunkport, Maine.
Several schools have been named for her: three primary schools and two middle schools in Texas and an elementary school in Mesa, Arizona. Also named for her is the Barbara Bush Library in Harris County, Texas and the Barbara Bush Children's Hospital at Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine. She serves on the Boards of AmeriCares and the Mayo Clinic, and heads the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy.
On March 18, 2003, two days before the beginning of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, ABC's Good Morning America asked her about her family's television viewing habits; she replied:
I watch none. He 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 generated controversy. 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, that was caused by an ulcer, was closed by surgeons. She was released 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 film W.
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