Yes, I’m interested in reading Laura Bush’s autobiography. She’s a lovely, strong, interesting woman who handled a thankless job incredibly well. I also don’t think she’s been given enough credit for some of her activities while in office. She has done far more than read to grade-school children. She has actively supported the people of Burma, speaking out against the prolonged detainment of Aung San Suu Kyi and protesting the treatment of peaceful protesters by the ruling junta. She has urged the international community not to buy Burmese gemstones — which prop up the regime — and has visited the refugee camps on the Thai-Burmese border. Her own private library foundation is responsible for the rebuilding and restocking of countless libraries on the Katrina-ravaged Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans, where she has made 23 visits and also driven school recovery efforts. She has focused attention on two of her husband’s better ideas, the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the largest international health initiative in history to fight a single disease, and has visited ten of the 15 PEPFAR focus countries and ten of the 15 countries aided by PMI.

I could go on about her work, but that’s not what makes her interesting to me. She is warm, has a great sense of humor that few have seen and has a core group of good friends she has known since childhood and to whom she is extraordinarily close and supportive. The first time I did a story on her for Newsweek when she was still First Lady of Texas, we went to lunch with two of these women and I had a blast. They were as bright and warm and hilarious as she is. Every year they take a trip together and go hiking in some national park or whitewater rafting, which I don’t think most people can imagine her doing. 

Also, no matter what you think of the administration, it’s important to have a record of people’s time in the White House. I was at lunch at the White House about three weeks ago. There were some writers like me, some historians, Cokie Roberts, Dee Myers. It was very relaxed and we sat around in the exquisitely restored Green Room downstairs, where she has hung some beautiful 20th-century works of art, and one of the historians urged her to write her memoirs because, he said, the president’s and First Lady’s official papers aren’t released for years, and it is vital for them to put down in their own words their experiences.

Further, it is absurd to transfer the feelings one might have about the president to his wife — or to be rude to her because of him. Once, about two years ago, I had dinner with Mrs. Bush and two other women at Galatoire’s in New Orleans. She had instructed the Secret Service to hang back as she just wanted to relax and have a few laughs before getting up at dawn to go to some schools along the Gulf Coast. And we had barely sat down before the parade started. A man came up and told her that he wished her husband would be tortured like they tortured the prisoners at Abu Graib. It went on and on. When one guy came by and told her that while he thought the president was a monster, he had always liked her, she waited until he had walked off and looked at me and said, "And that’s supposed to make me feel better?" I was embarrassed to my core for my city — hell, for my fellow man. I have enormous respect for her and now I would love to hear what she has to say.