Copyright © 2008-2009 Timothy Horrigan
[April 27, 2009]
Jenna Bush Hager has been keeping out of the news for the most part in recent months, although there was a brief ruckus in March 2009 in Baltimore when her Secret Service contingent's van was towed for numerous unpaid parking tickets. The mere fact that she even still had a Secret Service contingent was newsworthy. Adult children of ex-Presidents no longer get Secret Service protection— unless the current President orders it. It is unclear which President signed the order, Bush or Obama.
She and her new husband are marking a key point in their marriage on April 15th by filing their first joint tax return and their first anniversary is on May 10th.
The institution of marriage has been in the news a lot lately. My home state of New Hampshire (and its neighbor to the west, Vermont), has been considering making gay marriage legal. I am all for that, even though I personally am not planning on getting married anytime soon.
Speaking of marriage and the Bush Twins, I have had a couple of joking references to Barabra Bush's love life on my web site in the past. But now, there is some actual news. Well, kinda, maybe. There was a brief flurry of rumors in mid-April to the effect that she would be marrying her longtime boyfriend Jay Blount. The rumor seemed to originate with an April 14 Stylelist.com posting by Ben Widdicombe: an undidentified source said a summer wedding was planned for the Bush family compound in Maine but the Bush family's PR person denied the report. For whatever it is worth, the family denied the rumors of Jenna's engagement right up to the day it was officially announced.
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Jay
Blount in a basement somewhere with steam pipes (well
insulated) and a Firex
smoke detector |
Jay is a square-jawed young guy who ironically works for an organization called "Envirolution" (as a "Powerpint PIMP") which promotes Green Technology and fights Global Warming. Well, maybe it's not so ironic that she might be marrying an anti-global warming crusader. Barbara is a Republican (though we are not so sure about Jenna's political affiliation), but she (like Jenna) grew up in an era where global warming is simply a fact of life. For her generation, global warming is not something to be denied: it's just one more problem to deal with and maybe even make some money off of.
I am not sure what, if anything, I will do to my web site if the engagement becomes a reality. Maybe nothing.
See also:
[January 20, 2009]
I am not sure why I am bothering to keep this page up. Jenna Bush was not very relevant when her father was President and she is even less relevant now. But there is some interest in her wedding anyway. And I seem to have become the definitive source for info on her wedding even though if you look at the rest of my web site (which very few of you will bother to do) you will see how ironic that is. I do still have another Bush Twins page, by the way, which leads to a few other relevant pages which are still up and running:
Jenna's wedding day came at a time when Emperor Bush's subjects were short of bread (in every sense of the word "bread") and she refused to put on a circus (although the security precautions— and the wedding itself— were highly expensive.) The groom is one Henry Chase Hager, who seems like a decent enough fellow, even if he does use too much hairspray and even if he did work for Karl Rove for a long time.
Jenna is ostensibly a deeply private person: however, before and
after the wedding she crisscrossed the country promoting her own book
Ana's
Story: A Journey of Hope
It was a wedding of the sort which liberal couples often put on: strenuously casual, held at an gratuitously inconvenient venue (the President's ranch is in a remote area of South Central Texas and the Jenna in fact actually grew up in Austin), and it was be linked to irrelevant causes (in this case, wildflowers and literacy) which are supposed to be of special significance to the couple.
The literacy may seem ironic because Bush II is a man of limited book learnin'- but the bride and her mother are both elementary reading teachers.
The wildflowers were the theme of the wedding. Apparently, Laura Bush kept herself busy all these years by planting wildflowers on the ranch in Crawford. The dresses for the "house party" (i..e., what folks in the other 49 states would refer to as the "bridesmaids") are also wildflower-colored. (In Texas, the "bridesmaid" is what non-Texans would refer to by the term "maid of honor." Jenna's bridesmaid was the other twin, Barbara.) The designer Lela Rose released the following sketch of some of the house party dresses:
So, if you are looking for photos of Jenna Bush's bridesmaids' dresses, they do not exist. Well, the photos undoubtedly exist somewhere in the archives, but they haven't been declassified yet. Happily, there are plenty of declassified photos of Jenna's white embroidered organza wedding gown with matte beading by Oscar de la Renta:
The ceremony was held beside the pond at the Bush family ranch, which has since been put up for sale. The officiant was a longtime Bush family friend, Rev. Kirbyjon H. Caldwell of the Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston- who ironically is a Barack Obama supporter. The father-daughter dance at the reception was the old Joe Cocker song "You Are So Beautiful" performed by the Tyrone Smith Revue. The couples first dance was Taj Mahal's "Lovin' in My Baby's Eyes. " ("Tyrone "Super T" Smith heads a wedding band with a 70s funk and blues flavor to it.)
The weather was fine in Crawford, even though there were severe thunderstorms not far away in the Temple area (which is where most of the guests are staying.) The ceremony was performed in front of a limestone altar with a attached three-ton cross which Bush II designed himself. No word on whether he and Vice President Cheney would be using it for any ceremonials of a somewhat more esoteric nature at some point in the future. The reception was held under tents set up for the occasion.
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The guests were bussed in from an undisclosed location:
Actually, it was not undisclosed. The rehearsal dinner actually and other pre-wedding day celebrations actually took place over 50 miles away in the pre-Civil War town of Salado,Texas at the Stagecoach Inn:
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Here are my favorites from the released pictures. These are all official White House photos (although I tweaked the color settings, etc.) There are unlikely to be any unofficial photos because all cellphones and cameras were confiscated before the guests were allowed to go to the events. The guests were family and friends: the highest ranking politicians (aside from the two President George Bushes) were Jenna's Uncle Jeb and Henry's mentor Karl Rove. The officiant at the lakeside ceremony (held in fromt of a spooky limestone cross) was a minister from Houston named Pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell, who is an old family friend. |
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Here are a few pictures which have surfaced from the preparations for the wedding:
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You might also want to check out my main Bush Twins page: |
Although the liberal media like to paint young Republicans as stodgy and unfashionable. Henry and Jenna are way more hip than that boring old Chelsea Clinton— as proven by these next two pictures.
Here is Sir Henry in Boston with his ex-boss Karl Rove and other friends. The red Speedos represent the fact that the Republicans aren't counting any state as being "Blue"— not even the Bluest of all states, Massachusetts.
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And here is Jenna with her close friend John Waters, the film-maker and author who is now her neighbor in Baltimore:
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See also:
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You might also want to check out my main Bush Twins page: |
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overhead.
On
January 13, 2009, 
