Opinion: Bush on when the presidency’s full weight will hit Obama

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After eight years, countless crises and news conferences, President George W. Bush on Monday held his last session with the media. He called it ‘the ultimate exit interview.’

He’s got a final Cabinet meeting today and a couple of other events. Thursday night is his farewell address, which we’ll have here. One final weekend at Camp David. And then the Barack Obama inauguration next Tuesday morning and back to Crawford, Texas.

What will he do the first morning he’s not president? See below. There’s a video down there too.

--Andrew Malcolm

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In case you didn’t feel like reading the entire transcript Monday at The Ticket, we combed through it for some select, often revealing, quotes. Here they are:

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Suzanne. Finally got your name right, after how many years? Six years?

Q: Eight years. (Laughter)

THE PRESIDENT: Eight years. You used to be known as Suzanne. Now you’re ‘Suz-ahn.’

Q: ‘Suz-ahn.’ Thank you. (Laughter)

THE PRESIDENT: I’m ‘Gahge.’ (Laughter) ...

THE PRESIDENT: In terms of the economy, look, I inherited a recession, I am ending on a recession. In the meantime, there were 52 months of uninterrupted job growth. And I defended tax cuts when I campaigned, I helped implement tax cuts when I was president, and I will defend them after my presidency as the right course of action. And there’s a fundamental philosophical debate about tax cuts. Who best can spend your money, the government or you? And I have always sided with the people on that issue. ...

You know, presidents can try to avoid hard decisions and therefore avoid controversy. That’s just not my nature. I’m the kind of person that, you know, is willing to take on hard tasks, and in times of war, people get emotional; I understand that. Never really, you know, spent that ...

... much time, frankly, worrying about the loud voices. I, of course, hear them, but they didn’t affect my policy, nor did they affect -- affect how I made decisions.

You know, the -- President-elect Obama will find this too. He’ll get in the Oval Office and there will be a lot of people that are real critical and harsh, and he’ll be disappointed at times by the tone of the rhetoric. And he’s going to have to do what he thinks is right, Jim.

And if you don’t, then I don’t see how you can live with yourself. I don’t see how I can get back home in Texas and look in the mirror and be proud of what I see if I allowed the loud voices, the loud critics, to prevent me from doing what I thought was necessary to protect this country. ...

I wasn’t kidding when I said Wall Street got drunk and we got the hangover. ...

(On his mistakes) Clearly putting a ‘Mission Accomplished’ on an aircraft carrier was a mistake. It sent the wrong message. We were trying to say something differently, but nevertheless, it conveyed a different message. Obviously, some of my rhetoric has been a mistake.

I’ve thought long and hard about Katrina -- you know, could I have done something differently, like land Air Force One either in New Orleans or Baton Rouge. The problem with that and -- is that law enforcement would have been pulled away from the mission. And then your questions, I suspect, would have been, how could you possibly have flown Air Force One into Baton Rouge, and police officers that were needed to expedite traffic out of New Orleans were taken off the task to look after you?

I believe that running the Social Security idea right after the ’04 elections was a mistake. I should have argued for immigration reform. And the reason why is, is that -- you know, one of the lessons I learned as governor of Texas, by the way, is legislative branches tend to be risk-adverse. In other words, sometimes legislatures have the tendency to ask, why should I take on a hard task when a crisis is not imminent? And the crisis was not imminent for Social Security as far as many members of Congress was concerned. ...

I disagree with this assessment that, you know, people view America in a dim light. I just don’t agree with that. And I understand that Gitmo has created controversies. But when it came time for those countries that were criticizing America to take some of those -- some of those detainees, they weren’t willing to help out. And so, you know, I just disagree with the assessment. ...

And in terms of the decisions that I had made to protect the homeland, I wouldn’t worry about popularity. What I would worry about is the Constitution of the United States and putting plans in place that makes it easier to find out what the enemy is thinking, because all these debates will matter not if there’s another attack on the homeland. The question won’t be, you know, were you critical of this plan or not; the question is going to be, why didn’t you do something?

Do you remember what it was like right after September the 11th around here? In press conferences and opinion pieces and in stories -- that sometimes were news stories and sometimes opinion pieces -- people were saying, how come they didn’t see it, how come they didn’t connect the dots? Do you remember what the environment was like in Washington? I do. ...

(On when a new president feels the full weight of the job): He will feel the effects the minute he walks in the Oval Office. At least, that’s when I felt. I don’t know when he’s going -- he may feel it the minute he’s -- gets sworn in. And the minute I got sworn in, I started thinking about the speech. (Laughter)

And so -- but he’s a better speech-maker than me, so he’ll be able to -- he’ll be able to -- I don’t know how he’s going to feel. All I know is he’s going to feel it. There will be a moment when he feels it. ...

I don’t believe that President-elect Obama will be full of self-pity. He will find -- you know, your -- the people that don’t like you, the critics, they’re pretty predictable.

Sometimes the biggest disappointments will come from your so-called friends. And there will be disappointments, I promise you. He’ll be disappointed. On the other hand, the job is so exciting and so profound that the disappointments will be clearly, you know, a minor irritant. ...

I am -- consider myself fortunate to have a front-row seat on what is going to be an historic moment for the country.

President-elect Obama’s election does speak volumes about how far this country has come when it comes to racial relations. But there’s still work to do. There’s always going to be work to do to deal with people’s hearts. ...

You never escape the presidency. It travels with you everywhere you go. And there’s not a moment where you don’t think about being president -- unless you’re riding mountain bikes as hard as you possibly can, trying to forget for the moment.

And so I wake up in Crawford Tuesday morning -- I mean, Wednesday morning, and I suspect I’ll make Laura coffee and go get it for her. And it’s going to be a different feeling. And I can’t -- it’s kind of like -- I’ll report back after I feel it.’

Photo credits: Eric Draper / The White House