the book spoken from the heart, published by scribner s. our special guest for the hour. mick jagger one week from tonight. how did you meet george w.? well, we actually grew up together in the same town not that far away from each other. our houses were probably ten blocks apart. but we went to two separate elementary schools. and we went only one year together to one year of junior high before the bushes moved to houston. larry: how much older is he than you? he is my exact same years. 18, 19 years later i was back in midland visiting my parents, and george had moved back to go in the oil business, and some friends had invited us to come over to their house for dinner. they had been sort of talking up george for a year or two because we were literally the last of their friends who weren t married. they put us together. larry: what do you remember
tough. you know, i hated the criticism of him. any wife would. anyone would hate that. but also, it was something i knew, and i knew to expect it. that was one of the reasons i had had a hesitation about even running when george decided to run when we lived at the texas governors mansion. because we had seen someone in that job that we love very much and seen the way he was criticized and characterized in a way that he wasn t at all. and i knew that that s the risk you run. and that s just what happens in american politics. and that s actually one of the great things about american politics. that is what happens, and people are free to criticize the president. larry: but in your book, you show some anger toward nancy pelosi and harry reid. i didn t like, you know, what was really ended up being personal comments about george. and i don t appreciate that. and i think it demeans the office that they re in.
he s my exact same age. so 18 or 19 years later i was back in midland visiting my parents, and george had moved back to go in the oil business and some friends had invited us to come over to their house for dinner. they had been sort of talking up george for a year or two because we were literally the last of their friends who weren t married. they put us together. larry: what do you remember about the first meeting? i remember a lot about it. i remember what i wore. i remember what jan and joey fixed. they fixed hamburgers in the backyard. i remember how i thought george was very funny. he made me laugh. the next day he called me and asked for a date. we went to a miniature golf course and played miniature golf. larry: was there an immediate attraction? there was, really. there was really. we were really ready. we were looking for somebody to share our life with. larry: how long before you got married? three months. larry: pretty quick. very quick. larry: was there
you run. and that s just what happens in american politics. and that s actually one of the great things about american politics. that is what happens, and people are free to criticize the president. larry: but in your book, you show some anger toward nancy pelosi and harry reid. i didn t like, you know, what was really ended up being personal comments about george. and i don t appreciate that. and i think it demeans the office that they re in. larry: they were personal to make those sort of comments about the president of the united states. i don t think it s constructive. i know that there are other speakers and other leaders who have been of different parties with the president who can have a collegial relationship. and i think george would never do that. he would never call people names, the speaker or the leader names. he knows that he had more of a
i encouraged him. i put in the book i didn t use the line it s jim beam or me. that was a joke that came later. i wasn t about to divorce george. larry: no? divorce wasn t in our dna. plus i had baby twin girls and i wasn t going to be left with twins. larry: is it hard to live with an alcoholic? i wouldn t say that he was really like that. it was heavy drinking, but it was at night and he worked. he was a very disciplined athlete. he ran every single day. i just knew that he would like himself better if he quit. and there were a number of things that happened. we met billy graham the summer before in maine. and then some midland men started a bible study that he started going to. his dad was thinking about running for president. and all of those things really worked to make george see that he didn t want to keep drinking. larry: weren t there some bad nights, though? well, there were bad nights,