George Bush believes he will set the record straight with his memoir, due out later this year

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http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/bushlibrary/stories/012310dnmetbush.42538e6.html

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"I'm sure he appreciates it when others speak up to defend him," said Karen Hughes, who was a top Bush adviser in Austin and Washington.

Hughes, an executive with a global communications firm, still guides some of the Bush Foundation's media operations. Ever the loyalist, she hopes that history will "set the record straight" on Bush's eight-year tenure.

Longtime observers say Bush believes he will set the record straight with his memoir, which will be released later this year. He started writing it the day after he left office and is nearly finished.

"I don't think Bush is obsessed with being loved by Americans in the near term," said Robert Draper, author of Dead Certain, a portrait of the final years of the Bush administration. "George W. Bush has been around long enough to know that poll numbers are snapshots."

Still, Bush will probably win over fellow Texans quicker than he will anyone else, Draper said.

"There was a level of disdain for Bush that seemed out of proportion to what he'd done. It was almost primal," he said. "There isn't a lot in the way of nostalgia for Bush."