CALGARY, Alberta — For mer President George W. Bush said Tuesday that he won’t criticize Barack Obama because the new U.S. president “deserves my silence,” and Bush said he plans to write a book about the 12 toughest decisions he made in office.
Bush declined to critique the Obama administration in his first speech since leaving office in January. Former Vice President Dick Cheney has said that Obama’s decisions threatened America’s safety.
“I’m not going to spend my time criticizing him (Obama). There are plenty of critics in the arena,” Bush said. “He deserves my silence.”
Bush said he wants Obama to succeed and said it’s important that he has that support.
“I love my country a lot more than I love politics,” Bush said. “I think it is essential that he be helped in office.”
The invitation-only event, titled “Conversation with George W. Bush,” attracted close to 2,000 guests who paid $3,100 per table. Bush received two standing ovations from the predominantly business crowd.
About 200 people protested outside the event; four of them were arrested.
Some protesters threw shoes at an effigy of Bush, a reference to the Iraqi journalist who tossed his shoes at the president during a December news conference in Baghdad.
While Bush is unpopular in Canada, he is less so in oil-rich Alberta, the country’s most conservative province and one sometimes called the Texas of the north.
“This is my maiden voyage, my first speech since I was the president of the United States, and I couldn’t think of a better place to give it than Calgary, Canada,” Bush said.
Bush said that he doesn’t know what he will do in the long term but that he will write a book that will ask people to consider what they would do if they had to protect the United States as president.
Bush was also full of jokes during his appearance.
He joked that he would do more speeches to pay for his new house in Dallas. “I actually paid for a house last fall. I think I’m the only American to have bought a house in the fall of 2008,” he quipped.
Also, he said his mother, Barbara, 83, was doing well. She was released from a Houston hospital Friday, nine days after heart surgery.
