Former President George W. Bush Joins Facebook

by Meenal Vamburkar | 2:36 pm, June 2nd, 2010

» 7 comments

Just when you thought you’d stopped hearing about Dubya, he decided to dabble in the social media scene. The 43rd president has joined Facebook.

His page includes information such as his birthday, location (Dallas, TX) and educational background (Harvard Business School and Yale). It also includes links to the George W. Bush Presidential Center’s website and the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. In regards to self-promotion, Bush’s page also has a shout-out to his wife (and her recently released memoir) as well as a link to pre-order his own book, Decision Points.

Bush’s inaugural status update, posted around 10amET, stated:

“Since leaving office, President Bush has remained active. He has visited 20 states and 8 countries; given over 65 speeches; launched the George W. Bush Presidential Center; participated in 4 policy conferences through The Bush Institute; finished the first draft of his memoir, “Decision Points”; and partnered with Pres…ident Clinton to establish the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. More on his activities in future posts…”

While it may initially seem a bit pointless, Bush’s new online presence could be a good political move. Following his presidency, it is an effective, and more importantly, a direct way him to promote his more recent work and connect with people.

At the time of this post, 14,279 people “liked” his page, with some of those users posting messages on his wall, ranging (not surprisingly) from the kindest to the most negative:

“God Bless you Mr. President. It was a honor to be an American when you were our President.”

“Welcome to facebook sir! You were the best standup comedian the world ever had!”

Politicians joining Facebook and other social media sites is hardly something new (see: Sarah Palin) –we can only wonder who will be next.

dubya, Facebook, George W. Bush

http://www.sailrabbits.com Magister

President Bush joining Facebook in advance of his book is Marketing 101 and I’m sure it’s real, but I wouldn’t say the same for the unverified Twitter account that everyone is tweeting. The list of those he follows makes it too suspect.
ImNotBlue

Exactly when did anyone say we thought we’d heard the last about President Bush?

After all… the left likes to talk about him whenever something goes wrong and they need someone to blame (other than those really responsible, of course).
felixw

Keith Olbermann is celebrating. Now he has something to report on besides Sarah Palin’s Twitter feed. Of course, Olbermann could report on the current President’s many achievements…..but that would take about five seconds. There’s the Nobel Prize, and nothing else except a few trillion dollars of Chinese money piddled away by Obama on pork and (pause for laughter at this word) for stimulus.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Kam-Fet/572005492 Kam Fet

its going to be removed soon as there would be too much negativity towards him.
http://www.sailrabbits.com Magister

@Kam Fet: While some poor intern is probably going to be charged with maintaining the Facebook account, I doubt anyone is going to read the comments and it’ll mostly serve as a way to promote the book.
paulmdoro

Why not get a Facebook account to promote a book? Seems logical in 2010.
Ination

@Kam Fet

http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/rulings/promise-kept/

It’s a little bigger than your list.