George Walker Bush (/ˈdʒɔɹdʒ ˈwɑkɚ ˈbʊʃ/ (help·info); born July 6, 1946) is the forty-third and current President of the United States. He served as the forty-sixth Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000 before being sworn in as President on January 20, 2001. His current term will end at noon (ET) on January 20, 2009.

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Source: Wikipedia

George Walker Bush (/ˈdʒɔɹdʒ ˈwɑkɚ ˈbʊʃ/ (help·info); born July 6, 1946) is the forty-third and current President of the United States. He served as the forty-sixth Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000 before being sworn in as President on January 20, 2001. His current term will end at noon (ET) on January 20, 2009.
Bush is the eldest son of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush. After graduating from Yale University, Bush worked in his family's oil businesses. Shortly after marrying his wife, Laura, he unsuccessfully ran for the United States House of Representatives in 1978. He later co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team before defeating Ann Richards to become Governor of Texas in 1994. In a close and controversial election, Bush was elected to the Presidency in 2000 as the Republican candidate, receiving a majority of the electoral votes but narrowly losing the popular vote.
As President, Bush's main policies have largely focused on foreign policy and the economy. He has enacted large tax cuts, the No Child Left Behind Act, and his tenure has seen a national debate on immigration. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Bush announced a global War on Terrorism, ordered an invasion of Afghanistan that same year, and an invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Bush ran for re-election against the Democratic Party's nominee, Senator John Kerry, in 2004. Though Kerry debated Bush's handling of the Iraq War and domestic issues, Bush was re-elected on November 2, garnering 50.7% of the popular vote to his opponent's 48.3%.
After his re-election, Bush received increasingly heated criticism. During his two terms, he has earned both the highest and the lowest domestic approval ratings of American Presidents.

Childhood to mid-life

Born in New Haven, Connecticut on July 6, 1946, Bush was the first child of George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush (born Pierce). He was raised in Midland and Houston, Texas, with his four siblings, Jeb, Neil, Marvin, and Dorothy. Another younger sister, Robin, died from leukemia at the age of three in 1953. Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a Senator from Connecticut, and his father served as U.S. President from 1989 to 1993.
During his 2000 presidential campaign, Vanity Fair magazine and The New York Times reported that Bush, as a child, was not accepted for admission by St. John's School in Houston, Texas, a prestigious private school. In the two years following, Bush attended The Kinkaid School, the private school from which St. John's had broken away. Ironically, Bush, then the Governor of Texas, served as the commencement speaker at St. John's Academy in 1995.
Bush attended the all-boys school Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where he played baseball and during his senior year was the head cheerleader. Following in his father's footsteps, Bush attended Yale University, where he received a Bachelor's degree in history in 1968. As a college senior, Bush became a member of the secretive Skull and Bones society. By his own characterization, he was an average student.

Texas Air National Guard
In May 1968, Bush was accepted into the Texas Air National Guard, after scoring the lowest acceptable passing grade on the pilot's written aptitude test. After training, he was assigned to duty in Houston, flying Convair F-102s out of Ellington Air Force Base. Critics allege Bush was favorably treated because of his father's political standing, citing his lack of combat service and his irregular attendance. The United States Department of Defense released all the records of Bush's Texas Air National Guard service, which remain in its official archives. Although not accepted to the University of Texas School of Law in 1970, he accepted a transfer to the Alabama Air National Guard in 1972 to work on a Republican senate campaign, and in October 1973 he was discharged from the Texas Air National Guard. Bush then attended Harvard University, where he earned his MBA, and completed his six-year service obligation in the inactive reserve.
During this time Bush had multiple accounts of alcohol abuse. In one instance, Bush was arrested near his family's summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine for driving under the influence of alcohol at the age of thirty on September 4, 1976. He pleaded guilty, was fined US$150, and had his Maine driver's license suspended until 1978. Soon after, Bush entered the oil industry in Texas.
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