Easels, tees trump politics for Bush.

• Author: Baker, Peter
• Position: News

Byline: Peter Baker

DALLAS -- When the executive director of former President George W. Bush's public policy institute decided to move on recently, he stopped by for an exit interview. Bush asked if he had anything in particular he wanted to talk about.

Nothing specific, said James K. Glassman, the departing director.

"OK,'' Bush replied, "I want to talk about painting.''

After early self-portraits in the shower and then dozens of paintings of dogs and cats, Bush, it seems, has now moved on to world leaders. He told Glassman that he wanted to produce portraits of 19 foreign presidents and prime ministers he worked with during his time in the White House.

Nearly five years after leaving office, the nation's 43rd president lives a life of self-imposed exile in Texas, more interested in painting than politics, recovering from a heart scare, privately worried about the rise of the Tea Party, golfing with fervor, bicycling with wounded veterans and enjoying a modest revival in public opinion.

While Bill Clinton criticizes Republicans on the campaign trail and Dick Cheney chastises the current administration on his book tour, Bush resolutely stays out of the public debate.

That his voice remains silent may be all the more striking given how much he seems at the center of the debate anyway. Some of the issues dominating Washington trace their roots to his time in power, including whether to use force to counter nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in the Middle East and how to find the right balance between security and privacy when it comes to the surveillance state.

When the rollout of the federal health care exchange was botched, some looked to Bush's expansion of Medicare for lessons. When President Barack Obama vowed to fix it, he promised a "tech surge,'' echoing the language used for Bush's second-term troop buildup in Iraq. And when Obama pushes lawmakers to overhaul the immigration system, he makes a point of noting that his predecessor supported it too.

But Bush seems to miss none of it. "He's moved on,'' said Mark K. Updegrove, director of the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, who has been interviewing him for a book on the two Bush presidents. "He's comfortable with the decisions he made. He doesn't obsess about his place in history.''

Bush is not completely removed from public policy. His institute promotes free-market economics, global health, democratic reform and other causes. He travels to Africa as part of a program...