iwatch news 20 may 2011 on the subject of former U.S. President George Walker Bush:
“When George W. Bush declined President Barack Obama’s invitation to a ceremony at New York City’s Ground Zero after Osama bin Laden was killed, the former president cited his desire to keep a low public profile.
But Bush has been high profile on the private, paid speaking circuit: he has raked in millions of dollars since he left office by making scores of speeches that typically earn him six figures a pop.
In the week after Obama’s Ground Zero event, the nation’s 43rd president made time for three separate speeches to hedge fund executives, a Swiss bank sanctioned for keeping secret bank accounts, and a pro golf event underwritten by the accounting firm involved in the Tyco International financial scandal.
Bush’s standard speaking fee is reportedly between $100,000 and $150,000.
David Sherzer, a spokesman for the former president, told iWatch News that since Bush left office he has delivered almost 140 paid talks, at home and abroad. Those speeches have earned Bush about $15 million, a conservative estimate, following in the golden path blazed by his predecessor, Bill Clinton.
Almost all of Bush’s speeches are closed to the press. Bush uses the Washington Speakers Bureau to arrange his paid speaking gigs.”
When you add what wife Laura earns from speaking engagements I imagine the family retirement pot grows larger.
Listed under “similar speakers” at the Washington Speakers Bureau is none other than that antipodean retired alleged war criminal John Winston Howard. Although Jackboot Johnny is not in the same fee league as his mentor, he is charging $40,000 or up for his pearls of wisdom. It comes as no surprise that the third member of that sanguinary trio, Tony Blair is also on the Bureau’s books. Who said alleged crime did not pay?
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