George W. Bush

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RUNNING WITH PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH

What running does:
First, it helps me sleep at night. Second, it keeps me disciplined. For example, I'm a person who believes in punctuality. That's a discipline. I expect the White House staff to be on time and sharp and to exercise. And in my case, running helps me keep that discipline.

Running also breaks up my day and allows me to recharge my batteries. Running also enables me to set goals and push myself toward those goals. In essence, it keeps me young. A good run adds a little bounce to my step. I get a certain amount of self-esteem from it. Plus, I just look and feel better. . . .

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Source

DALLAS — As the U.S. Gulf Coast battled a massive oil spill, former President George W. Bush told the American Wind Energy Association conference here today, "It's in our economic interests that we diversify away from oil." "It's in our environmental interest," the onetime Midland oilman added. "And, finally, it's in our national security interest." Bush, speaking at the Dallas Convention Center, said he believes that his grandchildren "will be driving electric cars, powered primarily by renewable sources of energy." “I fully believe plug-in hybrids will be a transition to electric cars,” he said. Hybrids are combination gasoline-electric vehicles.Plug-in hybrids can be recharged using standard electric outlets.

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Runner's World

I was distraught after my dad was defeated in 1992, so I decided I was going to set a little project for myself. I wanted to run the White Rock Marathon in Dallas, so I began training intensely for it. I gave myself a month to train for it, and pushed myself incredibly hard as this was after-election therapy. But I got sick, and it was really a foolish attempt on my part. So I set my sights on Houston, which gave me some more time to train. I ran it in 3:44. I ran the first mile in 8:30 and the last mile in 8:30. It was one of the great experiences of my life. I learned that running can make you feel 10 years younger the day of the race and 10 years older the day after the race. I also learned not to be so compulsive.

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RealClearWorld

Engaging Hezbollah is not a new idea, nor would it be a reflection of a softer U.S. foreign policy. In 2005, President George W. Bush carefully alluded to the possibility that the U.S. would accept a political role for Hezbollah, providing that certain conditions were met, stating, "We view Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, and I would hope that Hezbollah would prove that they're not by laying down arms and not threatening peace".

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Cheney went on to reiterate the position he first outlined in the 2000 campaign -- that same-sex marriage should be left to the states to decide. He noted, however, that Bush has endorsed a constitutional amendment preventing the states from recognizing such marriages.

Washington Post

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 NYTIMES:

February 18, 2009
Aides Say No Pardon for Libby Irked Cheney

By JIM RUTENBERG and JO BECKER
WASHINGTON — Dick Cheney spent his final days as vice president making a furious last-ditch effort to secure a pardon for his onetime chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., leaving him at odds with former President George W. Bush on a matter of personal loyalty as the two moved on to private life, according to several former officials.

The officials said Tuesday that Mr. Cheney’s lobbying campaign on behalf of Mr. Libby was far more intense than previously known, with the vice president bringing it up in countless one-on-one conversations with the president. They said Mr. Bush was unyielding to the end, already frustrated by a deluge of last-minute pardon requests from other quarters.

The dispute underscored the raw feelings of Mr. Cheney and other supporters of Mr. Libby, who believed that he was mistreated by prosecutors and ill served by a president who, in their view, failed to return Mr. Libby’s loyalty and sacrifice.

And it points up the distance said to have grown between the two men as their worldviews, once largely in sync, seemed increasingly to diverge in their second term as Mr. Bush took a less hawkish stance.

For Mr. Cheney, the failure to win a pardon was a stinging loss that led him to offer a rare public rebuke of Mr. Bush’s judgment, saying of Mr. Libby in an interview with The Weekly Standard last month that “I strongly believe that he deserved a presidential pardon,” and that “I disagree with President Bush’s decision.”

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It was Bush administration policy not to grant California and other states a waiver.

The Bush administration’s environmental agency director, Stephen L. Johnson, echoed the automakers’ claims in denying California’s application, ignoring the near-unanimous advice of agency lawyers and scientists that the waiver be granted.

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 Source:

MEMORANDUM FOR
THE SECRETARY OF STATE

THE ADMINISTRATOR OF THE UNITED STATES AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

SUBJECT: Mexico City Policy and Assistance for Voluntary Population Planning

The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2151b(f)(1)), prohibits nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that receive Federal funds from using those funds "to pay for the performance of abortions as a method of family planning, or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions." The August 1984 announcement by President Reagan of what has become known as the "Mexico City Policy" directed the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to expand this limitation and withhold USAID funds from NGOs that use non-USAID funds to engage in a wide range of activities, including providing advice, counseling, or information regarding abortion, or lobbying a foreign government to legalize or make abortion available. The Mexico City Policy was in effect from 1985 until 1993, when it was rescinded by President Clinton. President George W. Bush reinstated the policy in 2001, implementing it through conditions in USAID grant awards, and subsequently extended the policy to "voluntary population planning" assistance provided by the Department of State.

These excessively broad conditions on grants and assistance awards are unwarranted. Moreover, they have undermined efforts to promote safe and effective voluntary family planning programs in foreign nations. Accordingly, I hereby revoke the Presidential memorandum of January 22, 2001, for the Administrator of USAID (Restoration of the Mexico City Policy), the Presidential memorandum of March 28, 2001, for the Administrator of USAID (Restoration of the Mexico City Policy), and the Presidential memorandum of August 29, 2003, for the Secretary of State (Assistance for Voluntary Population Planning). In addition, I direct the Secretary of State and the Administrator of USAID to take the following actions with respect to conditions in voluntary population planning assistance and USAID grants that were imposed pursuant to either the 2001 or 2003 memoranda and that are not required by the Foreign Assistance Act or any other law: (1) immediately waive such conditions in any current grants, and (2) notify current grantees, as soon as possible, that these conditions have been waived. I further direct that the Department of State and USAID immediately cease imposing these conditions in any future grants.

This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

The Secretary of State is authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.

BARACK OBAMA

THE WHITE HOUSE, January 23, 2009.

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thinkprogress

Though Bush wouldn’t reexamine Iraq, he happily defended other failures from his presidency, including his short-lived nomination of then-White House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, whom he said “absolutely” would have made an “excellent” justice:

 

Asked whether he believes Harriet Miers “would have been excellent on the court,” the president quickly responded, “Absolutely. Absolutely, no question in my mind . . . and there’s no doubt in my mind that my dear friend, Harriet Miers, would have had the same judicial philosophy 20 years after I went home, and had the intellectual firepower to do the job.” […] His regret about the Miers case, he told us, was that “this really, really good person got chucked out there and, man, the lions tore her up.”

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From CNN:

G. BUSH: But the -- my biggest worry was is that a financial system that had a kind of a series of collapses to it could have thrown this country into a -- into the Great Depression, as they warned. And I wasn't going to let that happen to the working people.

KING: Oh...

G. BUSH: And so I'm confident that we have taken steps to begin to help heal the system. And credit spreads are down and credit is beginning to move.

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RCP

Asked about the significance of Republican strongholds like Indiana and Virginia voting Democratic for the first time in 44 years, President Bush credited Barack Obama with running a good campaign, saying he "energized pockets of people and had an organization that was capable of following up to get them out to vote."

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G8 approves Plan to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions

In a statement Tuesday on climate change, President Bush and the other G-8 leaders said they would work with other countries to "consider and adopt" the 50-percent reductions as part of the new United Nations treaty to be negotiated in Copenhagen at the end of 2009. The leaders made it clear in their statement that they expected developing countries such as China and India, whose economies are also major polluters, to play a role in reducing emissions.