George Bush speaks The motivator Dec 10th 2009 | SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

THE former president looked healthy and well-rested, and happier than he has in recent years. He said that he had been enjoying walking his dog in his new neighbourhood in Dallas, although he misses being commander-in-chief. It was December 2nd, and George W. Bush was back on stage. Not the world stage, of course. The former vice-president, Dick Cheney, has been nipping at Barack Obama’s heels all year. But Mr Bush has let his successor forge ahead without second-guessing him. This was a temporary stage at the AT&T Centre in San Antonio, Texas, and Mr Bush was the keynote speaker at an event called Get Motivated!, a day of inspirational speeches for personal and business success.

Motivational seminars are an interesting corner of American life. They feel a bit like megachurch meetings, but with beer and hot dogs, and seem to be descended from the tent-revivals and circuses of the antebellum era. At the San Antonio event the speakers emphasised self-reliance, faith, and hard work and scoffed at government intervention, higher education, mainstream media and the cult of celebrity. “The world is going to hell in a handbasket and the UN can’t do a frickin’ thing about it,” said Tamara Lowe, one of the founders of the series, before challenging the audience to tackle global poverty themselves.
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It struck some as a strange billet for such a recent ex-president, and after Mr Bush’s first engagement, in Fort Worth, the bigwigs at the Get Motivated! offices declared that the San Antonio event would be closed to the press. This deterred a few hecklers, who were swiftly bustled out of the building (Mr Bush has always succeeded in motivating the opposition). But thousands of supporters in the stadium roared their applause.

Some of Mr Bush’s advice was rather specific. For example, it is traditional for a president to hang a portrait of a particularly influential predecessor in the Oval Office. In his case, Mr Bush said, it was a dilemma because of his personal connection to the presidency. He decided that he would keep a picture of his father in his heart, but that Abraham Lincoln should go on the wall. On more general topics, Mr Bush was quotable. “Oftentimes in life you get dealt a hand that you did not expect or want to play. I’m sure that’s happened to you,” he said. Yes, but maybe not quite so much.
 
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