Revisiting the George W. Bush presidency

Joshua Bolten is CEO of Business Roundtable, an association of more than 200 CEOs of America’s leading companies. Bolten’s twenty years of government service includes eight years in the White House under President George W. Bush as Chief of Staff (2006-09), Director of the Office of Management & Budget (2003-06), and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy (2001-03). For the preceding two years, he was Policy Director of the Bush 2000 presidential campaign. Bolten’s previous private sector experience includes work at Goldman Sachs in London and O’Melveny & Myers in Washington, DC.

Stephen Hadley is a principal of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm founded with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and former State Department official Anja Manuel. He currently serves as an Executive Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Council, a member of Yale University’s Kissinger Papers Advisory Board, and a member of the Board of Managers of the John Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory. Hadley served for four years as the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (the National Security Advisor) in the George W. Bush administration from 2005 to 2009. From 2001 to 2005, he served in the administration as the Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor, serving under then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

A nationally recognized leader in public policy, Margaret Spellings serves as President and CEO of the Bipartisan Policy Center. Spellings most recently served as President and CEO of Texas 2036, a bipartisan think tank. Her extensive leadership experience in state and federal government includes service as U.S. Secretary of Education, White House Chief Domestic Policy Advisor, Senior Policy Advisor to then-Governor George W. Bush, President of the George W. Bush Presidential Center, and President of the 17-institution University of North Carolina System.

Russell L. Riley is the Miller Center’s White Burkett Miller Center Professor of Ethics and Institutions and codirects the Presidential Oral History Program. He is one of the nation’s foremost authorities on elite oral history interviewing and the contemporary presidency. He has logged more than 1,500 hours of confidential interviews with senior members of the White House staff, Cabinet officers, and foreign leaders back to the days of the Carter and Reagan administrations. He holds a BS from Auburn University and an MA and PhD from the University of Virginia.

William J. Antholis has served as director and CEO of UVA’s Miller Center of Public Affairs since January 2015. In that time, the Miller Center has strengthened its position as the leading nonpartisan research institution on the American presidency and worked with scholars across the University of Virginia to deliver vital research to policymakers and the public. Before coming to the Miller Center, Antholis served as managing director at the Brookings Institution from 2004 to 2014, working directly with Brookings’s president and vice presidents. He also served at the U.S. Department of State and National Security Council. Antholis is the author of two books and dozens of articles on U.S. politics, U.S. foreign policy, international organizations, the G8, climate change, and trade. He holds a BA from UVA and a PhD from Yale University.