Over a period of eight years in the White House, every president changes.
The results are internal and external.
Here are two pictures demonstrating the toll of the years on President George W. Bush: The hair more gray, the wrinkles pronounced.
The first, in the initial weeks of his presidency, shows a confident Bush at a Townsend, Tenn., elementary school on Feb. 21, 2001. The Twin Towers were still standing. The American economy was still standing tall. Here is a president on top of the world.
The second, below, shows the president in the Rose Garden on Oct. 14, 2008, speaking to reporters. The topic was the financial rescue package.
The eyes, the forehead, the hair: the toll of the job can be fierce.
-- James Gerstenzang
Photos: Top, Kenneth Lambert / Associated Press. Bottom, Alex Wong / Getty Images
President Bush, who kept a public silence on the race to succeed him in the closing days of the campaign, called Barack Obama seven minutes after the Associated Press projected that the Democratic senator would win the presidency.
The president called John McCain 26 minutes later, after McCain conceded defeat.
In a brief e-mailed statement, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said Bush spoke with Obama at 11:12 p.m. EST.
According to Perino's message, Bush said:
Mr. President-elect, congratulations to you. What an awesome night for you, your family and your supporters. Laura and I called to congratulate you and your good bride.
I promise to make this a smooth transition. You are about to go on one of the great journeys of life. Congratulations and go enjoy yourself.
She said Bush invited Obama and his family "to visit the White House soon, at their convenience."
Perino said Bush told McCain:
John, you gave it your all. I'm proud of you, and I'm sorry it didn't work out. You didn't leave anything on the playing field.
Your statement was fabulous and very classy. Please give our love to Cindy.
Both calls were made from the Treaty Room, the president's office in the White House residence, Perino said.
She said Bush would speak in the Rose Garden at 7:40 a.m. PST on Wednesday.
There were no lines. No finicky touch screens. There was no voting booth.
Just a cleared desk on Oct. 24 as President Bush filled out his ballot in the Oval Office and dispatched it to Texas. White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said he did, indeed, vote for Republican John McCain.
It was symbolic of a quiet election season for a president who grew up in a political family, the grandson of a senator, the son of a member of Congress and president and, on his mother's side, the descendant of a president, Franklin Pierce.
Since endorsing McCain eight months ago, Bush has been seen with him only once -- and that was in passing at an airport in Arizona in late May. He spent the weekend before the election at Camp David, Md. His White House schedule Monday and today was clear of any public events.
His presence on the campaign trail was not welcome.
Somehow, however, the paper managed the produce its endorsement editorial without reference to Cheney or President Bush--while making abundantly clear that conditions in the country after eight years of their leadership demanded a change.
The newspaper's editorial board wrote:
The next occupant of the White House will inherit a national economy that's collapsing and two wars our nation has been fighting for years, depleting valuable resources we need to fix a multitude of domestic problems. Far too many of our nation's citizens live paycheck to paycheck, worried about whether they'll have a job next week or if a medical crisis will bankrupt them.
By a count assembled by Editor & Publisher, that makes the pro-Obama editorial tally over McCain 250 to 110.
-- James Gerstenzang
Photo: Ben Woloszyn / Laramie Daily Boomerang, via Associated Press
Keeping in mind that it is more difficult to undo a government regulation than it is to put one into place, President Bush's aides are making a final push to shape the federal rule book -- and weaken the regs that protect consumers and the environment.
The idea is to put the new rules into effect before Bush leaves office -- knowing that whether he is followed by Barack Obama or John McCain, the changes are likely to remain in place for a long time.
In bits and pieces, the administration has been chipping away, tweaking here, chain-sawing there, in an effort to redraw the government's reach -- and in many cases, pull it back.
Countdown to Crawford reported on a couple of moves earlier this month, including one to limit product-safety lawsuits by consumers and states.
The Washington Post took a look at the administration's efforts today, noting:
The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.
The paper noted that the latest changes would reduce obstacles to some commercial fishing activities, reduce controls on the emissions that contribute to global warming, "relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining."
If a new administration wants to remove the rules, in most cases it would have to go through a lengthy regulatory proceeding involving a period of public comment, rule-writing and analysis of the proposed changes.
President Bush paid a visit today to Marine Helicopter Squadron One, known as HMX-1, at its base in Quantico, Va. The unit is responsible for White House helicopter operations -- a role it has played since 1957, when Dwight D. Eisenhower made the first presidential helicopter flight.
Bush was in Quantico to address the current graduating class at the FBI Academy, and made a short detour (by Marine One helicopter, of course) to the Marine Corps Air Station there to thank the Marines and sailors for the eight years of transportation they have provided during his presidency.
In return, the Marines gave him parts of a chopper -- a piece of a tail rotor and a window.
As for the size of the squadron that provides the airlift -- it's slightly more than 700 people.
Some days, the White House must feel like a prison to those living there. But the bars displayed here are ...
... part of the barriers and fences being erected around a construction site:
Crews are about to begin work on the heated, security-enhanced reviewing stand from which the next president will watch the inaugural parade.
For the moment, though, the view of the White House from Lafayette Park is unobstructed, in this essay -- autumnal by hue and by political calendar -- by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Ron Edmonds.
Some days, for political, diplomatic or security reasons, a White House press secretary can comment not one bit on the topic of the day.
Today was such a day, when President Bush's spokeswoman, Dana Perino, came up against questions about reports that U.S. commandos conducted raids in Syria that left at least eight people dead.
Here's how the questioning went -- and the non-answer answers from the White House briefing room podium:
Question: What is the likelihood of more raids into Syria like the one we saw this weekend?
Perino: The United States government has not commented on reports about that and I'm not able to here, either.
Q: So we've talked about Pakistan, the raids into Pakistan, whether by ground or by air. And there's been some acknowledgment by U.S. officials that those are happening. We're now seeing this sort of thing spread to other countries. Can you not -- you can't shed any light on why, when, where, how, whether we're going to...
Perino: I can't comment on it at all, no.
Q: Have you heard anything about whether the target was successful, that it hit the target?
Perino: I'm not going to comment in any way on this; I'm not able to comment on that.
Q: You're not even able to say that there has been some decision taken by the administration that 'If you guys can't clean up your act, we will clean it up for you'?
Perino: I'm not going to comment on the reports about this, no, I'm not. Anybody else?
Q: Can you comment on Syria's protest?
Perino: I'm not going to comment on it at all. This could be a really short briefing.
Q: Has anybody from the White House spoken to anybody from Syria?
Perino: I don't know. I don't know.
Q: Let me ask you this one: You have another government making claims. At some point, you either have to confirm or deny the claims they're making, no?
Perino: Jim, all I can tell you is that I am not able to comment on reports about this reported incident, and I'm not going to do so. You can come up here and try to beat it out of me, but I will not be commenting on this in any way, shape or form today. Or tomorrow.
Q: What about another agency, nobody -- if it comes, it's going to come from here, and so it's not going to -- nothing is going to come out of this?
Perino: I don't believe anybody is commenting on this at all.
Q: Dana, why can't you comment? Is it a reason for national security, or is it political? I mean, why --
Perino: To give you an answer to that would be commenting in some way on it, and I'm not going to do it.
Q: But, I mean, Dana, you can't give us anything? I mean, this is a major issue --
Perino: Nothing.
Q: This is a major issue --
Perino: I understand the reports are serious, but it's not something I'm going to comment on in any way.
And with that, the questioning moved elsewhere.
— James Gerstenzang
Photo: Mourners in the Syrian village where U.S. commandos reportedly staged a raid. Credit: Hussein Malla / Associated Press
Remember all that chatter eight years ago when the letter "W" went missing from computer keyboards, and the other reports of transition shenanigans, when the Clintonistas turned over the White House to the Bushies?
By one government account, they did $15,000 in damage and left some quarters resembling a fraternity house as the sun came up.
With eight days to go until election day, President Bush's White House has reached out to representatives of John McCain and Barack Obama to begin working on the transition to a new administration.
If anyone is being assigned keyboard duty, they're keeping it quiet.
"We have a very aggressive and thought-out transition plan that we are already working through," White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said today.
She added:
We have been in contact with both of the major party candidates, identified people who would get security clearances, so that on Nov. 5, they can hit the ground running and make sure that they get all the information that they need.
When Sarah Palin suggested that as president of the Senate, she could get in there and mix it up with the senators, the reaction was quick -- and most of it along lines suggesting she should take a quick course in government and the Constitution.
Wait a minute. Maybe she was on to something.
In an elegant (meaning short -- barely 440 words) Op-Ed in today's New York Times, Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee, tells us why, although Palin was "roundly mocked for her claim," the Republican vice presidential nominee was nonetheless "probably right."
The vice president is really more of a legislative post than a job in the executive branch -- the office in the West Wing of the White House notwithstanding.
And as a member of the legislative branch, the vice president, in exercising executive power, "raises important constitutional questions related to the separation of powers."
Having wrapped that up, he says Congress should "pass a law to prohibit the vice president from exercising executive power."
He continues:
Extensive vice presidential involvement in the executive branch -- the role enjoyed by Dick Cheney and Al Gore -- is not only unconstitutional, but also a bad idea.
But that's something Cheney's critics have been saying for eight years.
James Gerstenzang and Johanna Neuman are reporters in The Times' Washington bureau. Between the two of them, they have covered the White House, diplomacy, military affairs, the environment, international economics, trade and Congress. They have both spent time in Crawford, Texas.
