The Afterlife of George W. Bush

There has been resistance to the policy institute, or think tank, he's seeking to establish at Southern Methodist University. Critics see it as a place designed to burnish the Bush legacy, glossing over problems—and wounding the school's academic independence in the process. Defenders say it will be a forward-looking organization devoted to examining 21st-century global concerns.

A state district judge ordered Bush to give up to a six-hour deposition in a civil lawsuit claiming that SMU officials broke the law when they acquired and tore down a condominium complex to make room for his center. Bush's lawyers say they will appeal, and legal observers say it is highly unusual for sitting or former presidents to be compelled to testify in litigation.

Meanwhile, Bush has talked to a political-science class at SMU, worked out at the school's training facilities and met with old hands to plot strategy for his presidential center. "It seems that former president Bush is always on campus," says student-body president-elect Patrick Kobler. "Though I may not agree with every policy he put forth, I believe that he led from the heart, meaning he looked beyond what was considered popular and instead did what he thought was right."

He has set up an office in North Dallas, where, friends say, he is deeply enmeshed in his memoirs. The book will revolve around key decisions of his presidency—and of his life before Washington, such as when, at 40, he stopped drinking. "I know he is working on his book," says billionaire Tom Hicks, his longtime friend. "I get the sense that he has the confidence that history will judge him a lot better than The New York Times or the current media does."

Hicks, who made Bush a wealthy man by buying the Rangers from his ownership group, helped the Bushes get settled in their spot on Daria Place—right next door to his estate. Another Texas billionaire, Harold Simmons, a major player in the world's titanium supply, is nearby; Simmons helped bankroll the Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry. The men who helped give Bush the platform, the money and the political muscle to win his various campaigns are within easy walking distance of his new front porch.

Fred Meyer, former chairman of the Texas GOP, was on hand at Ellington Airport in Houston when Bush's father came home. "And there were not a lot of us there," Meyer says, contrasting the reception with the "gang" present for 43's return. An ailing economy had dampened enthusiasm for the father. But 41's approval ratings had rebounded to 56 percent by the time he jetted to Houston, and he was buoyed by the many friends he'd made over the course of a long career. Larry Temple, formerly special counsel to Lyndon Johnson, says the vibe surrounding 43's return is different. "I see people reliving [George W.] Bush's presidency. There is a lingering dissatisfaction. It may be the war, it may be the residual effects of the economy," he says.

"Presidents don't get a full and fair hearing until everyone who was alive when they were alive is dead and so are they," says UT's Buchanan. It will take time.

The waiting must be hard on Bush, a man still bristling with a jangly, kinetic energy at 62. One day in Dallas, according to a local blog, he visited Pershing Elementary and a parent asked him to consider coming to work at the school's haunted-house carnival.