Bush to host college reunion at White House

rockHEAD · Apr 21, 2003

A Reunion Mends Frayed School Ties
By ELISABETH BUMILLER

WASHINGTON - Earlier this month, some 950 invitations were mailed out for an extraordinary event at the White House: George W. Bush's 35th Yale reunion.

Although Mr. Bush has been warming in recent years to the alma mater he derided as an incubator of intellectual snobbery when he was governor of Texas, the May 29 picnic dinner to be held on the South Lawn is a milestone in his rapprochement.

This time Mr. Bush is the host, not just the commencement speaker, as he was in New Haven in 2001. This time Mr. Bush is opening up his house to as many as 1,200 people, which may be a record number for an early-rising, teetotaling president who has vowed never to hold the huge parties that the Clintons did.

And this time, Mr. Bush is embracing members of the heavily anti-Vietnam War class of 1968, a group whose politics he was never comfortable with, and whose members include those who vehemently disagree with him on the war in Iraq.

Mr. Bush's love-hate relationship with Yale has been well-documented since he became president, but the short version, told by close friends, is this: Mr. Bush, the fraternity president who excelled socially but not academically at Yale, had a grand time there. But he distanced himself when he perceived his Yale degree to be a liability in Texas politics and was angry when he felt the school succumbed to liberal bias and did not offer an honorary degree to his father, also a Yale graduate, until 1991.

Things began to change when Mr. Bush became a candidate for president and realized that his Yale degree was a political asset, not just a stamp of his East Coast roots.

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Did anyone see the episode of That's My Bush (Comedy Central Sitcom) where W's college buddies paid him a visit? This story reminds me of that episode...

outlaw · Apr 21, 2003

that was a funny episode. the not so fake execution was great.
where the hell is karl rove nowaways anyway?

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Bush to host college reunion at White House

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