Barbara Bush

BLUE BELL, Pa. - With the presidential candidates fighting for every last vote in the final weeks, the Bush campaign is now turning to its most lethal weapon: the mother. Barbara Bush is taking no prisoners, hitting the campaign trail for her son Gov. George W. Bush with a pugnacious starring role in the "W is for Women" tour that began this week. With her New England flint sharpened and her white bouffant hairdo firmly in place, she is on a mission to convince female voters that her son is their man. "I know about our son, what he's accomplished, what he believes in, what kind of person he is and what kind of president he'll be," the former first lady told a pompom-waving rally here.

May 15, 1991: President George H.W. Bush, Barbara Bush, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip are in attendance as the Athletics beat the Orioles at Memorial Stadium.

Politics aside, the presidential election may have brought an end to a nice radio tradition established just last year by first lady Barbara Bush. But happily, "Mrs. Bush's Story Time" can be heard again this holiday season.Did you listen? Last night on WBAL-AM 1090, Baltimore Oriole Cal Ripken Jr. joined everybody's aunt Mrs. Bush and other celebrity voices to read holiday stories for kids.The four-hour Thanksgiving special also included ABC weather guy Spencer Christian, country singer Reba McEntire and Winnie the Pooh.

Friends told him not to do it. He'd even turned it down once. The possible maelstrom of partisan controversy weighed on him. But in deciding to play the Decider for Oliver Stone's new satirical biopic, W., which opens in theaters tomorrow, Josh Brolin relied on a very non-President Bush-like standard: doubt. Unlike the 43rd president of the United States, a man fatally confident of his actions, Brolin wasn't sure he could pull it off. As he explained recently, being scared puts him in a good place.

HOUSTON -- As is her way, Barbara Bush has tried to play down the significance of the speech she will deliver to the Republican convention tonight, calling it no big deal, a ho-hummer, "sort of a little Mighty Mouse speech."But Mighty Mouse, albeit a polite little mouse, always comes to save the day.As the first lady steps to the podium tonight, she does so as the embodiment of the "family values" her husband's campaign has trumpeted, as the most popular woman in America, as Everymom and grandmom, and ultimately, the Bush camp hopes, as the president's political lifeline.

How you look impacts how you feel.Choose fashionable clothes that fit well and you'll greet the world with confidence -- and get compliments in return.Fortunately, styles that lend themselves to the over-60 set are easy to find and easy to wear.You'll be happy to know that trends in men's and women's fashions indicate a return to traditional, comfortable styling ideal for seniors with active lifestyles.It's alright to be 60-plus and slender, petite and sophisticated -- HTC like Nancy Reagan or Audrey Hepburn.

SEEN ON THE SCENE: Yesterday was a great day. The war was over and I had the pleasure of attending the grand opening of the International Book Bank (IBB) along with first lady Barbara Bush.Mrs. Bush has been a longtime advocate of literacy and education, which is what IBB is all about. They procure and ship large quantities of educational materials to countries all over the world.There was an air of excitement as the helicopters hovered, and Mrs. Bush's limo arrived with her police escort and a hoard of Secret Service men. She looked very smart in a red suit and her famous pearls.

Give it a B-minus. That's the grade state officials are handing the phony Maryland photo ID that presidential daughter Barbara Bush tried to use last October at Toad's Place, a bar in New Haven, Conn. The incident, which was first reported this week by Newsweek magazine, sent Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration officials scrambling to see how good a forgery the 19-year-old first daughter had employed. Their verdict? Close, but not good enough to pass muster in Maryland or even in most discerning out-of-state bars - at least if the bartenders or bouncers have ever seen a real Maryland driver's license or the similar non-driver's photo ID. "It's a reasonable duplicate," says Andrew S. Krajewski, director of driver education and licensing for the MVA. "It just wouldn't get very far around here."

Worthington Elementary School will be crowded with celebrities, reporters, photographers and film crews Thursday afternoon as first lady Barbara Bush and Gov. William Donald Schaefer visit the Ellitocc Cityschool.Mrs. Bush and the governor are scheduled to kick off "Maryland 2000," an integration of a nationwide program to involve communities in school improvement with the Maryland "Schools for Success" program started by former Superintendent Joseph L. Shilling.The goal is "a community by community crusade for school improvement," said Maryland Department of Education spokesman Ronald A. Peiffer.

It was classic Barbara Bush.The first lady had just set foot in the lobby of Baltimore's Harbor Court Hotel for a campaign fund-raiser yesterday when she spotted a baby.With her Secret Service entourage in tow, she halted to admire 2-month-old Chelsea Chalhoub, who was in Baltimore with her mother, Peggy, to visit relatives.Because the encounter was unexpected, Mrs. Chalhoub seemed even more thrilled to see Mrs. Bush than were the 140 Bush supporters who paid $500 each to eat a seafood lunch with her. The event raised $70,000 for the Bush/Quayle re-election campaign.

One of the many election-related headlines last week involved Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Democratic candidate John Kerry, who questioned whether Laura Bush had ever had "a real job." Heinz Kerry, who quickly apologized when reminded that the president's wife had been a public school teacher and librarian for 10 years, made the remark during an interview for a PBS program to be aired tonight: The First Lady: Public Expectations, Private Lives. Conducted by Margaret Warner, senior correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and Susan Page, of USA Today, parts of the interview were published last week by both USA Today and The NewsHour.

Dick Cheney Vice President of the United States "He (Bush) doesn't waffle. That's exactly what we need in a president. We don't need indecision or confusion." Debra Bayron New York City resident "He had the nerve, the audacity, to come here. We'd been through a lot already. We've had enough. He should have gone to Texas." Sen. John McCain of Arizona "I just believe we are not enemies of the Democrats. Let's debate our differences, then win or lose work for the better of the country."

CRAWFORD, Texas - For more than five weeks, the president's inner circle and top security advisers kept the idea to themselves. During a trip to Asia in October, President Bush had asked his most trusted aides to try to fly him to Baghdad, Iraq, for Thanksgiving dinner with U.S. troops. There hadn't been a secretive presidential trip to a war zone in decades, and if it was to work, they agreed, not even their deputies could know. That was the start of a trip yesterday in which the president of the United States slipped away from his Texas ranch and into Baghdad undetected, surprising hundreds of U.S. troops, the news media - and his own parents who came here for Thanksgiving dinner.

On April 29, 2003, ANTHONY JOSEPH; beloved husband of the late Anna Mae Serio; devoted father of Salvatore Joseph Serio, Anthony Joseph Serio, Jr. and his wife Eraina, Carl Joseph Serio and Barbara Bush and her husband William; loving grandfather of April, Angelina Ann, Anthony Joseph III and William Serio, Barbara Christine and Gina Marie Bush. Also survived by three brothers and one sister. Friends may call at the Witzke Funeral Home of Catonsville Inc., 1630 Edmondson Avenue (1 mile west of beltway exit 14)

ONE OF THE MOST predictable lines in President Bush's all-purpose stump speech is the introduction of his wife, Laura, with the observation that he married above himself. Her performance so far as first lady suggests he may be right. He's cocky, she's reserved. He's flip, she's thoughtful. He's constantly in motion, she moves at a deliberate pace. She's extraordinarily literate. Sometimes it seems he can barely talk. Politics is in his blood and bones. She's all but apolitical. It doesn't naturally occur to her to divide the world into Us vs. Them.

Give it a B-minus. That's the grade state officials are handing the phony Maryland photo ID that presidential daughter Barbara Bush tried to use last October at Toad's Place, a bar in New Haven, Conn. The incident, which was first reported this week by Newsweek magazine, sent Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration officials scrambling to see how good a forgery the 19-year-old first daughter had employed. Their verdict? Close, but not good enough to pass muster in Maryland or even in most discerning out-of-state bars - at least if the bartenders or bouncers have ever seen a real Maryland driver's license or the similar non-driver's photo ID. "It's a reasonable duplicate," says Andrew S. Krajewski, director of driver education and licensing for the MVA. "It just wouldn't get very far around here."

WASHINGTON -- One has been described as a tough political insider who is fiercely protective of her husband's interests; the other has gained a reputation as a warm friend and devoted mother.Both descriptions fit Hillary Clinton and both fit Barbara Bush. Yesterday, the two women met at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to search for other common ground.The occasion was a tour of the White House for its new resident, Mrs. Clinton. As part of this week's ceremonies involving rituals of transferring power, the two women stepped delicately into the footprints their husbands left on the White House lawn on Wednesday.

First lady Barbara Bush visited Worthington Elementary School in Ellicott City yesterday to launch a program aimed at improving education in Maryland and used the occasion to gently teach the governor a lesson about gender equality.A second-grade class sat in rapt attention as Mrs. Bush and Gov. William Donald Schaefer took turns reading "Jamaica Tag-Along," a story by Juanita Havill.The governor told the children that they will "always remember that the wife of the president read to you and how important it is to read."

WASHINGTON - It is the rite of passage for all first ladies: picking the personal cause. Yesterday, Laura Bush joined in the tradition, announcing early childhood education as her signature issue and promising to use her celebrity to promote it. She marked the occasion at Cesar Chavez Elementary School in Hyattsville with a speech, a visit with students and an enthusiastic reading of the book "If You Give a Pig a Pancake." With flashbulbs popping, Bush stepped into her shoes as national education pitchwoman with the poise of a glammed-up substitute teacher, smiling in a periwinkle blue suit under a sign promising "Reading is Fun."

Throughout George W. Bush's Inauguration Day, leading lights on television emphasized the timeless civics lesson unfolding in Washington. "The peaceful transfer of power is so awesome," former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey told NBC's Tom Brokaw, in a typical comment. "I think President Bush's speech was good, his substance was good. But it's the ceremony itself that impresses me." Occasionally, however, the camera revealed some of the more compelling narratives taking place beneath the surface.