Bush defends legacy in final press conference
The president, in what he calls 'the ultimate exit interview,' acknowledges some mistakes in action and rhetoric but maintains that he made the difficult choices necessary to defend the nation.
Reporting from Washington — President Bush, delivering the final and most introspective press conference of his two terms in the White House, today acknowledged several mistakes and disappointments -- yet voiced a defiant insistence that he had made the choices necessary to defend the nation from threats that still remain.
"This is the ultimate exit interview," Bush said.
He spoke of the historic swearing-in of his successor, President-elect Barack Obama, next week as a signal of how far the nation has come in race relations, lavishing the Democrat with best wishes and predicting that he would find strength in the office from a loving family "a 45-second commute" from the Oval Office.
"I consider myself fortunate to have a front-row seat for what is going to be a historic moment," said Bush, who will hand off the presidency Jan. 20.
Bush, who has endured years of criticism in the media, opened this final session in the West Wing of the White House with praise for the working press.
"We have been through a lot together," the 43rd president said. "Through it all, I have respected you. Sometimes I didn't like the stories you wrote." Then, with a self-effacing joke about his occasional lapses in diction, Bush said: "Sometimes I felt you mis-underestimated me."
Asked about his most strident critics, Bush said, "You know, most people I see when I move around the country, they're not angry, they're not hostile . . . they're civil." As for the others, he said, "I don't know why they get angry. . . . Presidents can try to avoid hard decisions and therefore avoid controversy. . . . That's just not my nature.
"In times of war, people get emotional," Bush said. "I've never spent a lot of time listening to the loud voices."
His own voice rising, Bush said it would be wrong "if I allowed the loud voices to prevent me from doing what is necessary to protect this country."
Bush -- who during interviews in his final months in office has confessed some regrets -- offered a recap this morning.
"Clearly, putting 'Mission Accomplished' on an aircraft carrier was a mistake," he said of the banner draped across an aircraft carrier in the Pacific, where he landed in a fighter jet weeks after the invasion of Iraq to declare major military action completed.
"Obviously some of my rhetoric was a mistake," said Bush, who previously has voiced regret over threatening to find Osama bin Laden "dead or alive" and challenging America's enemies to "Bring it on."
