(CNN) - Yesterday - as his former vice president and his successor both gave major national security speeches in Washington, DC - former President Bush was nearly 1,900 miles away, telling a high school audience how "liberating" it felt to get some distance between himself and the burdens of governance.
"I no longer feel that great sense of responsibility that I had when I was in the Oval Office," he told listeners at New Mexico's Artesia High School, according to the Roswell Daily Record. "And frankly, it's a liberating feeling."
Former Vice President Dick Cheney, famously reluctant to grant mainstream interviews while still in office, has become an outspoken presence on the airwaves in recent months. In Washington Thursday, he offered a vigorous defense of the Bush administration's policies on national security and interrogation of terror suspects - and criticism of President Obama's approach - at a conservative think-tank in downtown Washington, just minutes after the new commander-in-chief addressed the same issues in an address at the National Archives.
But Bush has been conspicuously silent on the president– and told prospective graduates Friday he was glad to be back to a lower-key existence, at a comfortable remove from the national spotlight.
Walking his dog Barney recently, "I realized this was the first time I'd been walking in a neighborhood for 14 years," he said. "It's not all that hard, by the way. You take one step, and then you take another.
...And there I was, former President of the United States of America, with a plastic bag on my hand. Life is returning back to normal."
Bush sounded just a few familiar, non-partisan policy notes, saying a soldier who had lost both legs because the president ordered him into battle had made his sacrifice for a "noble and necessary reason."
No video cameras were allowed into the president's speech. He has not granted any interviews since leaving office.
From CNN Politics
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we feel the same way, Mr. Bush: liberated from your daily torture
Liberating for the whole world actually. Bye bye.
Dick Cheney needs to put a sock in it. Try picking up hunting again, just remember which end of the gun is the dangerous end.
Im just glad Bush is not bashing Obama like Dick is. I have a bit more respect for him now.......
it is easy for the demotax to be Monday morning quarterbacks, and Peloisi and company would have no idea how to handle what President Bush had to do.
Where is my stimulus check?
I like eggs
Bush should have to spend all his days in IRAQ instead of billionaire row in Dallas.
Our soldiers are fighting and dying at his hand, and he has the guts to say how good it is to be out of office.
He makes me sick!!!!!
donttreadonme May 22nd, 2009 2:05 pm ET
I find it ironic that some want put you on trial for warterboarding when the evil dictator Sadam who slaughtered 100s of thousands of people was never put on trial at all.
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Considering how often you post on a news site, I would think you should have actually gotten some news out of it. Saddam was put on trial. And found guilty. And executed.
I feel liberated since Bush left, too. We all do.
Sounds like Bush and Cheney aren't playing with a full deck. What is wrong with those people???? Seriously, the entire GOP is acting a little loopy. Maybe they got mad-cow disease at one of the RNC dinners or something. There is just no logic or reason with any of them – It's getting to the point of being scary.
Fred Barry
would you care about trying to make some sense when you write a post?
Obama will probably not be so worn out from the job when he leaves office. 8 years are much harder on a guy than 4.
I have to give Bush credit. He has handled the transition with class and honor. It's too bad that Cheney didn't take lessons.
I also feel liberated thanks.
Bush may not have been the greatest President we've ever had but he can take comfort in knowing that he was far, far better than the imbecile we have now.
I am sick and tired of you morons thanking this creep for keeping us "safe"
9/11 happened on his watch because he ignored the warning signs. Is 3,000 dead amercians the "safe" you are thanking him for?
I am sure he does, as would anyone.
I have to say, like many others that I feel liberated since he left office and the republicans were removed from power in the house and senate.
Imagine how we feel.......
This idiot should have never been the president of any countries period. hahahaha!!!!!!!!!!
I was just thinking how liberating it was to have him out of office. Apparently, a lot of people here feel the same way.
This man literally scared the Republican out of me. I'm no longer a Republican and I am not looking back.
I am a proud supporter of President Obama.