Bush Image Rehabilitation Begins in Earnest

March 17, 2009— -- Less than two months after President Bush left office, his aides and associates have fanned out to accentuate what they view as the positive aspects of his administration.

The attempt to frame history before history frames them has extended to the top tier of the Bush administration.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Bush press secretary Dana Perino have both given extended interviews of late, issuing extensive defenses of the president's approach to national security and economic challenges. Karl Rove is a regular contributor to the Fox News Channel and writes a column for The Wall Street Journal, where he has often defended Bush administration actions and tweaked the current occupant of the Oval Office.

Today, the former president will give a speech -- his first since leaving office -- about his years in the White House.

It's unusual for ex-presidents to launch a coordinated image repair campaign, according to presidential historian and ABC News consultant Richard Norton Smith.

"Presidents don't lie awake at night worrying about these things. Presidents think they did a pretty good job," Smith said.

Yet invitations for today's speech in Canada by the former president, which were obtained by reporters, show Bush plans to discuss topics that seem perfect for the kickoff of an image repair tour: thoughts on his eight years in office and the challenges the country now faces.

The issues on which the Bush camp is talking up the record -- the Iraq War and the economy -- are some of the ones that the public has given the Bush administration low marks for. But those issues, analysts say, define the Bush administration's eight years, and so it makes sense that Bush supporters would try to accentuate the positive.

Bush has said repeatedly that he doesn't worry about his legacy and says it's always hard to fully understand the breadth of an administration and its impact on the world until some time has passed.

But the man who left office with a 33 percent approval rating -- one of the lowest approval ratings of any president in history -- is expected to reflect on his years as president during a private speech today in Canada to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce.

The location and the group selected for this first time out for Bush is not insignificant. Alberta is a conservative Canadian province and the expected audience of 1,500 should be welcoming to a Republican ex-president. Bush's free trade policies made him popular among the business community in Canada.

The appearance for Bush, albeit in private, is like a testing of the waters. If the speech goes well, Bush might hit up the speech circuit more often.

Cheney, Perino Weigh In On Economic Crisis

Aides to the former president have been mute about Bush's speaking fee. Former presidents can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars for their speeches. In the years after his presidency, Bill Clinton brought in tens of millions in speaking fees. In 2006, one of his best years, he earned $9 million to $10 million.

Since the speech is private, the world may not immediately know the substance of what Bush said when he dons his historian-in-chief hat. One person from the Bush world who is happy to talk about the past in public is former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Cheney used a Sunday television appearance on CNN to claim that the Bush administration is not at fault for the current economic mess.