Texas Ready to Warmly Receive Former President

Miguel Bustillo reports from Midland, Texas. While much of the world took in the spectacle of Barack Obama ’s history-making inauguration, a smaller but equally passionate crowd of more than 20,000 supporters in Midland was preparing to warmly welcome George W. Bush back to Texas. Bush spent several boyhood years here in the 1950s, and subsequently settled in Midland in the mid-1970s following his graduate education at Harvard. This is where he met his wife, Laura , at a backyard barbecue. Now he may be leaving Washington with a miserable approval rating and a mountain of criticisms, including his handling of the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina and the domestic economy. But in Midland Bush is still hailed as a conquering hero, a man who restored plain-spoken logic and decency to the White House. “For all he had facing him, he did good,” said Midland native Jo Ann Martin , 71, expressing a view shared by many here. “I have no regrets about helping send him to Washington. He had a lot ... (link)