Posted on 04/11/2008 7:45:33 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
The party girl image was nowhere to be seen when Jenna Bush gave the keynote address at the annual banquet held by Wisconsin Women in Government.
The 25-year-old daughter of President George W. Bush, who was cited twice for underage drinking during her college days, has undergone a public relations metamorphosis since the publication last year of her bestselling book, "Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope," which is about a single mother living with HIV.
On Thursday night at the Monona Terrace Convention Center, Bush, who is expected to wed fiance Henry Hager this May, was gracious and humble in her address to some 800 people at the banquet. The crowd was about half the size of the audience that came out last year to see Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards.
After graduating from college in 2004, Bush worked as a schoolteacher in Washington, D.C., before leaving for a UNICEF internship in Panama in 2006. She said she was inspired to travel to Latin America because many of her students had roots there.
"The more I talked to my kids and their parents, the more interested I became in exploring the places they called home."
Bush, who speaks Spanish, said she was shocked at the poverty she would find in Latin America and the Caribbean.
"I thought I had seen deprivation in Washington, but nothing I saw would prepare me for what I saw in Latin America," she said.
Bush said many of the children she met lacked even a primary education, and many were living with HIV infection.
"I met with kids. I listened to their stories, and then I wrote them in order to raise awareness," Bush said. She said statistics don't provide a real insight into the way people live.
"I think the details of people's lives resonate with us," she said.
The woman she calls Ana in her book was infected with HIV at birth. She survived, but all of her immediate family members died from the disease. She was shuffled around to other homes, beaten, abused and ultimately abandoned.
At 16, she had a baby.
Though afraid to use her real name in the book for fear of being forced from her community, Ana wanted her story to be told as a lesson for others, Bush said.
"She wanted to share her life story so people in the U.S. would be inspired to make a difference in our schools and communities around the world."
In her talk, Bush steered clear of politics, though the question of how the Bush administration's focus on abstinence-only education hinders the spread of sexually transmitted diseases has been broached to her in other settings. She has said that she is not part of the Bush administration so she feels free to address issues of keeping kids safe.
At the start of Thursday night's program, first lady Jessica Doyle recalled that, at a February luncheon hosted by Laura Bush at the White House, she and other governors' wives were notified that mosquito netting had been donated in each of their names to fight malaria.
"Jenna, I believe you have influenced your parents and served to strengthen our country's commitment to fighting diseases worldwide," Doyle said.
I'd guess that one is especially hard to give up.
From everything I've heard that is old news. They might as well get used to it.
Where’s the picture of the lovely Jenna??
How many times do they mention Bill Clinton’s rapes or Hillary Clinton’s lies in the opening paragraphs of “human interest” stories about them?
Judith is a catty woman. No?
Thank you Diana. I get tired of looking at Hillary and Huma..;))
Yes indeed. I have heard interviews Jenna has done in speaking about her book and her experience in seeing how horrific the conditions were/are. The very things that liberals claim they are concerned for...the children... yet the way liberals have treated the Bush daughters has exposed them as cruel and unacceptable to be near any child, rich or poor.
yes, but Chelsea is creating awareness of hedge funds-—
much more helpful to the world........
Google Pelosi’s memo on some library/teach children to read initiative. “Tell them... blah blah blah blah.” (I may have the ocassion off and she may not have said “Tell them” but the BLAHS were there.
The children are just another damned photo op. They KILL kids. 50 million aborted and counting. Kids are NOT a priority.
LOL! I love how your link reads “Madistan.com”!
I myself was quite the little rascal in my younger years. I think many of us were. We’ll be reading stuff like this from some quarters every time the Bush daughters are in the news.
"Public relations metamorphosis?" Of course it would never occur to the author, who spends as much time slamming her relationship to the President as possible, that just maybe she's grown up since she was a teenager!
Mark
Vice-President Dick Cheney, once former CEO of Halliburton...
(I get it)
Meanwhile Chelsea works for a hedge funding making 6 figures.
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