what was bush's hand? i'm arguing it was not really a hand conducive to domestic policy making on a heroic scale. what character? what specifically. well, he won election with a very respectable 54% of the vote. but his party lost seats in congress. so he faced an opposition-controlled house and senate. and one that as governor sent knew knew pointed out was controlled by democrats by substantial margins. there was no perception that he had a mandate coming out of this election. certainly not among congressional democrats. that was a function of a number of things, partly a function of the campaign itself. that was partly a function of the fact that running after two terms by a president of your own party presents a whole variety of problems. now, in terms of the problems bush confronted, i think less appreciated as an important factor is that he faced a considerably more formidable congress and democratic party than his immediate republican predecessors had. this was a democratic party that was more ideol

to george bush by a kind of personal fealty. bush, a man of extraordinary personal qualities -- charismatic, friendly, very much present when people talked to him, people from his closest aides to the lowliest campaign worker. bush, unique, i think, in the annals of the modern presidency and, indeed, in the annals of washington, had built this relation to the people that worked with him that was ferociously loyal and the problem, of course, is that that does not necessarily get you very far. bush's staff did not write books about him, did not leak about him, did not do all the things that the reagan staff did against ronald reagan, who was a stronger and more decisive and more charismatic leader but was quite distant and aloof from his staff. his staff eventually sort of took revenge against him in large measure. but bush's staff -- and i think that the quote you just read reflects it -- loved him in a way that is very rare in washington among washington staffs. i think they thought and bush thought that their love for him was r

bush. afterwards, mrs. bush looked at me. she said i don't believe that s.o.b. broke my table. it was absolutely phenomenal. what kind of a communicator was george bush? he was constantly compared to president reagan and criticized for not being the grand communicator that reagan was. that is true. his style was low key and personal and in depth. i have from my oral transcript. i remember when the president was vice president and him looking at me one day and saying how does president reagan do that? president bush just couldn't do that nor did he want to do that. he had a very different approach. he hated sound bytes. there were a few speeches he delivered well. i'm sure those were not his shining moment. what was his shining moment was giving him note cards. you give him note cards with talking points and he would take off. he was fabulous. he would relay it to the audience. he did not need a speech. a speech was almost an impediment to him. we learned early on if he made a speech, he was better at smaller groups. if he had a large group, and we learned no teleprompter. make

i don't think as a society we produce george bush and barbara bushes anymore. they are almost from a time and place we don't have any longer. i think that is a shame. i think the country and world would be a better place if we have a new generation of george and barbara bushes. thank you. >> ladies and gentlemen, being the clean-up hitter today, i take everything back i said in my oral history. we thank you all for being here. good day. >> don't you dare! >> first of all, i would like to add my thanks to the miller center for supporting and putting together not only this oral history project, but this symposium today. as a member of the board of directors of the george bush library foundation we are grateful to support this effort. we think it is a fitting tribute to the history, the fabric, that surrounds a guy who and his wife who meant a lot to a number of us who had the great pleasure of serving with him. i'm probably the only person -- i think i can say this without anyone contravening me. i think i'm probably one of the people on the face of the earth whe

bush. c-span: paul brace, co-author of "follow the leader," what impact has opinion polling had on the modern presidency? >> guest: well, in our book we try to trace the evolution of the office since the advent of modern regular approval polling. that begins, of course, with harry truman's administration. and we trace what we believe is a change in the office, attributable to polling, up through the bush administration. take, for instance, harry truman's opinion about the polls. in his own diary, he talks--asks what moses would have done if he'd taken a poll before going into egypt. and he says it's leadership that matters, not the opinion of the moment. and we compare and contrast that with insider accounts of the bush administration, not to single out mr. bush, but he's the last point in this evolutionary process to date, where he and john sununu, upon getting into the white house, plotted a comparative approval chart for mr. bush vs. other presidents and strategized about policy and acti

bush administration look at all these guys they played very important roles in the bush administration they don't seem to be particularly humbled from all the massive failures that they that they were responsible for so i think it be a lot more the same a part of it might be a little more balance because we're running out of money pretty quickly i don't think they'd be able to stage an invasion of a place like iran or as we just simply can't pay for it at this point but the same kind of you know blunt uncompromising and frankly pretty foolish rhetoric i think that would that would make a return pretty quickly and do you expect these guys to to encourage romney to be to be tougher than that obama has been in terms of the war as a foreign policy i think romney one of his recurring themes is that obama's apologize for america i mean the fact that it's completely false has really dissuade him from doing that but for basically from the moment that he really started this campaign in earnest he has very consciously and very consistently painted himself as someone who will not apologize for am

in his bush 41 oral history. i think sutter was more liberal than those involved in the selection process anticipated. or as governor sununu put it, wit slightly more pitt, to this day, anytime i go to a conservative meeting, 15 people come up to me and hit me with a sutter two by four across the forehead about bush's second supreme court nominee, thornburgh uttered a blandered truism, i think clarence is a solid conservatively oriented vote. president bush's supreme court appointments once on the bench occupied positions closer to the left and right of the spectrum than did their appointing president. sutter's nomination was the direct result of the bork debacle less sons, namely, don't appoint a scholar jurist who boasts opinions to his name. especially to the court swing seat. with his quiet persona, credenti credentials, paper trail and few decisions on hot-button issues on federal litigation, sutter represented the i pit mi of the stealth nominee. yet his movement away from a conservative state cost record i

administration and bush president bush wasn't exactly popular so why surround yourself with these guys from an intimate administration that wasn't so popular. you know i think they believe to a large extent that the policies failed not because they were the wrong policies but like all true ideologues because they didn't commit to them enough so it wasn't just you know the iraq war wasn't just a bad idea they didn't prosecute aggressive enough they didn't have enough troops they weren't quite as on compromising as they should have been and i think they can explain away if you take that sort of mindset you can explain away almost any kind of failure you know so in this understanding of the end i don't agree that this is the way they see it bush was unpopular not because the policies and souls were crazy or flawed but because he edged away from them in the second term i mean if you really go if you go to people in real true neo conservative believers they talk about the second term of the bush presidency as this you know concept where all of a sudden they're trying to be multilateral an a

all of a sudden, this guy named george bush. in 1954, it was the last time the senate had been in those hands except for the six-year stint. we started out arguing about nickels and dimes. whether or not we would increase the minimum wage. it was $4.10 or $4.15. early on, the president was tested and dealing with the question of increasing the minimum wage and what impact that would have on jobs and the economy and small businesses. we talked about practiarental l. we have the chinese issues. because of the president's background, he had tremendous issue in that issue and was what i would describe has more than expert. we dealt with the fsx fighter. there was something that was called civil rights legislation. but correct me if i'm wrong, it started out on an effort to try to deal with a decision of the supreme court and the question of where burden of proof was going to lie in the beginning. it then became a huge thing called civil rights legislation. we vetoed it three times. and we kept vetoing it until congress got it right.

bush jr i got an m.b.a. dick cheney's got an m.b.a. we're going to have the m.b.a. business be a presidency and we're going to run this country like a business oh no you know the last thing you know. so why would florida say let's let's privatized this stuff and let's do it in secret and stood in secret and not not even tell the people i don't get here to answer that is neil aspirate he's the host of the conservative radio show truth for america and author of the book conscientious conscientious equity he'll welcome back to the program. tom thanks for having me so why does government republican governor rick scott hate democracy . well i think that's a huge exaggeration let's face it what happened here is that you had the florida legislature wanting to privatized the prisons makes perfect since save the florida taxpayer forty million dollars then you have an activist judge with a political agenda erecting barriers to this decision so the legislature is kind of going around this to try to come up with new laws to be able to save the florida taxpayers forty million do

into in bush's policies and obama's. push bush's policy was to kidnap people. whatever. put them one time. or some other. for some information. to kill. killing them all over the world. another is the targeting drone killing of anwar locky an american born cleric u.s. drone strikes during obama's first two years in office exceeded the total carried out during bush's tenure president obama described the walking as the leader of external operations for al qaeda in the arabian peninsula human rights groups which voiced international opposition against bush counterterrorism policies quickly condemned the killing journalist jeremy scahill says obama's policies have drifted far from his political roots a president mccain doing the exact same thing that president obama is doing would have been denounced by a lot of liberals and so we're at one of those dangerous moments in u.s. history and we saw it a bit with clinton in the ninety's where a democrat who campaigned on a pledge to change you know the country in the world has actually pushed a right wing agenda further forward th

second to him was bush. but obama is the worst. >> 68%. >> bob: is it about obama or sor it about electorate? among the democrats, very strongly -- >> about that poll. take a look at it. what does it tell you? politics is getting more partisan. >> bob: that is a very right assessment. this is reflection is what is happening. both in terms of legislative in terms of the dialogue. >> kimberly: basically you say the president of the dmc instead of the president of the united states. >> bob: but you have to keep in mind this is between republicans and democrats. you don't have independents in here yet. >> i don't think obama is polarizing but i think he is the worst president in the history of the world. if anybody disagrees with me, i will hit them. what is really polarizing in politics is the race card. that is why you are seeing polarization. nobody likes to be called a racist. that angers a lot of people. when you tie the race card with class warfare you really have something. >> bob:. >> bob: it's about, do

bush or george h.w. bush? >> they both carried florida. they carried it in the primaries and general election. they have a pretty good connection with the state of florida. and i think they were damn good presidents as well. but no, it doesn't bother me a bit. i think what the challenge we face is to take reagan principles and apply them to the 21st century. if we are going to be the party that wins we have to be forward leaning that's focused on the future not reminiscing about the past. ronald reagan if he was a candidate today wouldn't be talking about the good old days. he'd be talking about timeless principles and how they apply to the world we're in today and going forward. and i think it's great to pay tribute to ronald reagan. he was one of the greatest presidents ever. >>> ahead, a scary moment for australia's leader. plus what happened on that tarmac in arizona? governor jan brewer on her exchange with the president.

bush never did.nd there's a footnote in my, to a treasury document that explains that. >> it hasn't always been this way. bruce bartlett, your new book is "the benefit and the burden." thank you very much for union g i joining us tonight. >> thank you. >>> coming up, today mitt romney said he would consider putting newt gingrich in the vice presidential slot on his ticket, which is very bad news for chris christie and my next guest, governor tim pawlenty. >>> but up next, a rare moment of bipartisanship on capitol hill today as gabby giffords made her resignation official. [ woman ] we take it a day at a time. that's how it is with alzheimer's disease. she needs help from me. and her medication. the exelon patch -- it releases medication continuously for twenty-four hours. she uses one exelon patch daily for the treatment of mild to moderate alzheimer's symptoms. [ female announcer ] it cannot change the course of the disease. hospitalization and rarely death have been reported in patients who wore m

as far as their anti-terrorism policy is bush would detain the suspects torture them prosecute them president obama just kills them doesn't have to go into all that detention trouble less certainly i think there's some facts to support that perception and i said candidate obama you know said all the right things about justice and american values and closing guantanamo and doing away with military commissions and upholding the rule of law and then once he gets in office you know he didn't just embrace the bush policies he kissed him on the lips and ran with them and has advanced them further than president bush ever did like killing an american with a drone strike in yemen the bonior. correct which is just. astounding that an american president can make a unilateral decision that an american saying it was a really bad guy he deserved it well of all it bad guys need to die there are a lot of other people i could put on that list but an american citizen for an american president to make the unilateral decision that a civilian agency the cia. would go to another country and launch an op

bush never did.nd there's a footnote in my, to a treasury document that explains that. >> it hasn't always been this way. bruce bartlett, your new book is "the benefit and the burden." thank you very much for joining us tonight. >> thank you. >>> coming up, today mitt romney said he would consider putting newt gingrich in the vice presidential slot on his ticket, which is very bad news for chris christie and my next guest, governor tim pawlenty. >>> but up next, a rare moment of bipartisanship on capitol hill today as gabby giffords made her resignation official. hey kev, how about a bike ride? huh? you're not my dad ahhhhh!!! hey honey, back feels better, little dancing tonight, you and me? hey boy, you wanna go for a walk? dr. scholl's pro inserts with shock guard technology relieve different types of lower body pain by treating at the source so you're a whole new you. where is everybody? that's not your dad. go pro with dr. scholl's. car insurance companies say they'll save you by switching, you'd

bush four years later many civil rights advocates who once cheered yes we can.

bush isn't the only one that wanted jeb bush to run.d his kid brother to run this year. mrs. bush said his work would make him good president. is he going to run? jeb bush said he will not run but not ruled out 2016. >> turning into cupcake gate. an after cupcake was confiscated but the tsa is particular sticking by the story. the woman was carrying cupcake in the jar. icing was considered a jell. to foe soe they took it away. woman said the icing was not that thick and it turned out to be harmless. so t did the tsa go too far. go to greta and tell us, whose side are you on this on. tsa or the cupcake. >> and kate gosselin landed a new role. she will be hitting the high seas. she will host a royal caribbean cruise. you can join us and tickets range in cost from $2-5,000 through sale in august. >> and grandmother is football champion. 87-year-old woman won her fantasy football league. she has been known as a big sports fan and he has a big trophy. she out played all other opponents, so granny really knows her stuff. there you have it. >>

bush. and he said governor, if kitty dukakis were raped and murdered, would you be in favor of the death penalty for the perpetrators? dukakis, take it one step at a time. that was the question that bernie shaw decided to ask. and then there was, at that time there was a moderator and three panelists. they had a meeting, the three panelists and bernie, the day of the debate, kind of went over the questions, how they're going to do things and whatever. it's a long involved story, but the three other panelists, margaret warner who was then with, i think was with "newsweek." of course, now with "the pbs newshour." andrea mitchell who was with abc news, and and compton who was with abc news. the three panelists, three women said to bernie, wait a minute, we think that question. they tried to document out of it. at least not use her name. that they thought, and bernie was adamant. he asked the question. and i, and doing some reporting, old-fashioned reporting about this, beating and how it all c

and even fewer appointments than both bush 41 and bush 43.s in fave of recess appointments when w. made sam fox ambassador to belgium in 2007. the democrats on the senate foreign relations committee grilled this guy, fox, about $50,000 he donated to the anti-john kerry swift voters campaign during 2004. so bush withdrew the nominee's name and waited until congress went home before he sent fox to brussels. slick move, right? limbaugh made his views about that appointment very clear in a 2007 interview with dick cheney. we have the audio of that interview, thanks to our friends at media matters. >> the recess appointment of sam fox. the democrats say they're going to investigate this, going to look into this. this is the kind of move that garners a lot of support from the people in the country. this shows the administration willing to engage these people and not allow them to get away with this kind of, well, my term, you don't have to accept it, stanilinist behavior from t people in the committee. >> you're dead on, rush. the president has the

said we don't torture so president bush says we don't torture who are you to say that we do and we've got all this information that was collected that you're not using you need to get in there and use it and that was when i felt that our commitment to full fair and open trials had diminished and i submitted my resignation what would you say to those who claim the difference between president obama and president bush as far as their anti-terrorism policy is bush would did tell the suspects torture them prosecute them president obama just kills them doesn't have to go into all that detention trouble less certainly i think there's some. facts to support that perception and i said candidate obama you know said all the right things about justice and american values and closing guantanamo and doing away with military commissions and upholding the rule of law and then once he gets in office you know he didn't just embrace the bush policies he kissed him on the lips and ran with them and has advanced them further than president bush ever did by killing an american with a drone strike in yemen

bush but more so. more moderate than anything any of the other republicans have, more moderate than huntsman, santorum, gingrich, in this group, he's a moderate but it's more extreme than bush did. you have to have how it's getting paid for. when bush offered up the tax we had a surplus, the way you were paying for, paying down a surplus. we have deficits now, this tax cut and romney team said this, will have to come out of cuts to government spending. government spending obviously tends to benefit low income americans and middle income americans, you're transferring a bunch of money from the bottom half of the income distribution to pay for the top half, 20, 10 and 1%. not just bush but more so in the raw numbers on the tax cut side, given how you pay for it it's more aggressive than it looks. >> ezra, let's say we were to implement the tax plan, what kind of cuts would we have to make to the budget to pencil out? >> bush's tax cuts were $4 trillion or ten years romney's 2-3. you're talking about cuts

first here's president bush. >> we have a question right here. here. >> how has national debt personally affected each of your lives, and if it hasn't, how can you honestly find a cure for the economic problems of the common people if you have no experience in what's ailing them. >> i think the national debt affects everybody. obviously it has a lot to do with interest rates. >> she's saying you. >> on a personal basis, how has it affected you? >> has it affected you personally. >> i'm sure it has. i love my grandchildren. >> how? >> i want to think they're going to be able to afford an education. i think that's an important part of being a parent. i don't want to get it wrong. are you suggesting if somebody has mean has the national debt doesn't affect them? i'm not sure -- help me with the question and i'll try to answer it. >> in fairness, the woman in the audience probably meant, how are you affected by the recession as opposed to the national debt. but the response there from president bush was not exactly "i feel your pain" stuff. whatever