Laura Bush 'Stood Straighter' After Leaving White House

Laura Bush felt a weight lift when she returned to Texas after 8 years in Washington, free of the rigors of protecting America in the post-9/11 era, the former first lady tells Politico. “I didn’t really realize how stressed we were and how vigilant we were—that hypervigilance—until we came home and I wasn’t so stressed anymore," Bush says. "I almost stood straighter, just without that weight of worry.”

Bush is promoting her book Spoken From the Heart. She says that despite the unpopularity of the administration when her husband left office, “most of the people that were close to us are still very, very close to us, and they were outstanding people with really great character who served our country for the right reasons.” She adds that she "definitely" doesn't blame anyone for the faulty intelligence on Iraqi WMDs. "That was the intelligence from everybody.”