GWB Gives His Final Presidential Press Conference
George W. Bush gave his last ever press conference as President of the United States this morning and in an effort to leave office as positively as possible, lightened up a bit in the press corps conference room. Thruout the course of his last press conference this morning, GWB admitted that there were mistakes in his presidency as well as jokingly tried to curry favor of the assembled news reporters. It was the last sight of him behind the Seal of the office of President of the United States that we will ever see from the White House Press Corps Conference Room:
President Bush admitted mistakes but defended his accomplishments in the final White House news conference of his presidency Monday. “Clearly, putting a ‘Mission Accomplished’ [banner] on an aircraft carrier was a mistake,” Bush said about how his administration handled the fall of Baghdad to U.S. troops. “It sent the wrong message.” He termed other aspects of the U.S. invasion of Iraq “disappointments,” including the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. “I don’t know if you want to call those mistakes or not, but they were — things didn’t go according to plan, let’s put it that way,” Bush said. Admitting another mistake, Bush said that he should have pursued a comprehensive immigration overhaul after the 2004 election, instead of Social Security reform. He said that Congress did not have the political willpower to tackle Social Security at the time because the program was not facing an “imminent” funding crisis. But Bush said plenty went right during his eight years in office, including the economy for most of his term. “I inherited a recession, I’m ending on a recession. In the meantime, there were 52 months of uninterrupted job growth,” he said. “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.” Bush also said that despite harsh criticism at the time, the federal government responded well to Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans, Louisiana, in 2005. “Don’t tell me the federal response was slow when there was 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed,” he said Monday. “Could things have been done better? Absolutely. Absolutely. But when I hear people say the federal response was slow, then what are they going to say to those chopper drivers or the 30,000 that got pulled off the roofs?” he asked. Bush was steadfast that his administration did the right things in protecting the homeland from terrorists, even though critics said individual freedoms were compromised by administration policies. “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 make it easier to find out what the enemy is thinking,” he said. The 43rd president says he doesn’t buy allegations that America’s image overseas has been tarnished during his terms, even if his popularity has suffered. “My view is that most people around the world, they respect America. And some of them don’t like me — I understand that — some of the writers and the, you know, opiners and all that. That’s fine. That’s part of the deal. But I’m more concerned about the country and — and how people view the United States of America. They view us as strong, compassionate people who care deeply about the universality of freedom.” Bush said that as a “Type A” personality, he’ll want to keep active after he turns the White House keys over to President-elect Barack Obama next Tuesday. “I just can’t envision myself, you know, the big straw hat and a Hawaiian shirt sitting on some beach,” he said.
That he would still defend the response from the US government after the detestation of Hurricane Katrina is just sickening. At this point, manning up and admitting that – under his leadership – the government failed the people of Louisiana would go far in repairing his image, I think. To contend that the response was “not slow” is just idiotic … but I really don’t want to get into my personal beliefs on the matter for fear of going off on a tangent about his other leadership failings. Instead, I think it’s a better idea to look ahead toward a more hopeful future full of promise and opportunity. Our country is facing the worst economic climate since the Great Depression and will not be getting better any time soon BUT we are fortunate to have have new leadership on the way that, I’m sure, will work tooth and nail to get our country back on track again. I know things will not change over night when we swear in our new President but the hope that he brings to the office will go a long way to help steady the country thru the tough times ahead. In just 8 days, President-elect Barak Obama will become our 44th President of the United States of America … IMHO, the future looks brighter than ever.
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Tags: George W. Bush
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January 12th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Hey Trent, this is so unrelated I’m almost embarrassed (peace out W), but did you ever watch / post about Dr. Horrible’s Sing-long Blog? I just watched it last night for the first time and then had to watch “Once More, With Feeling” (again). It was a great night :)
January 12th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Good Riddance!!!!!!
Welcome Obama!!!!
January 12th, 2009 at 10:14 am
I’m Sorry, did that over-grown pothead say that he started during a ression and that we’ve had months of uninterupted job groth????? What fucking planet is he living on?????
January 12th, 2009 at 10:24 am
The man is what he’s always been…an absolute failure.
@Angel511J:
I loved Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog so much that I got a t-shirt.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:34 am
From where? :)
January 12th, 2009 at 10:35 am
At last! Thank you, Trent, for being the only gossip site to have some significant to say this morning.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:41 am
Ding dong the douche is (almost) gone!
January 12th, 2009 at 10:49 am
mo, i totally agree with you.
i was in europe this summer and visited 4 different countries, met many people from many diverse backgrounds, and the overwhelming opinion was that people do like and respect this country. and to the surprise of me and i’m sure most who read this blog, they very much liked bush. many people told me how lucky i am to be american, but i already know that. so for those of you who are ashamed and embarrassed to be an american, perhaps you’ll trade places with some of the people i met this summer who would be thrilled to be a US citizen. i’m not saying everything he did was right, because i don’t think it was, but he did protect this country and keep us safe. idk why so many people hate him (i know i’ll get a lot of slack for that comment).
and for everyone who thinks obama is the answer to all of our problems, i guess time will tell.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:54 am
@Angel511J:
There was a link on the official blog when the series first came out. You can check there-just do a search for Dr. Horrible’s…Blog.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Thank you Mo and Christine. It is alot easier to blame Bush for everything than to do even a hint of research as to why we got in this economic mess to begin with. People are quick to point out the negative aspects of Bush’s run (and I’m not denying that), but they soon forget the fact that we have not gotten attacked once since 9/11 and that our economy has only been doom and gloom in the past few months.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:09 am
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT 8 DAYS BITCHES 8 DAYS ITS ALMOST OVER THANK YOU JESUS THANK YOU
January 12th, 2009 at 11:15 am
THANK F**KING GOD THAT TERRORIST IS OUT OF YOUR WHITEHOUSE!! not that it matters, he’s already put the world onto a path of destruction with reminders of his stupidity from him and his band of political terrorists all around the globe everywhere, so he really won’t be 100% ever gone from our lives…I wonder how much money they were able to steal and launder for all their friends and family before leaving….thanks Bush for screwing the world and your country up!
January 12th, 2009 at 11:16 am
I also agree with Christine, Mo & Peezy. An economy is destined to have ups and downs, and one person does not cause that, although it’s easy to blame the guy on top. Under Bush’s term I was able to save money w/ lower taxes, receive some assistance with student loans/low interest rates & buy my first home. Whether you agree with Bush’s policies or not (and I understand a lot don’t), you should respect the position and what he has given up in his life to try to make this country that he loves better.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:18 am
And let me ask, what have you done to help the country? If you haven’t done anything, maybe you should think before you criticize.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:25 am
“Wall Street got drunk, we got the hangover” -GWB, 1/12/09
This press conference was full of WTF and LOL moments (by LOL, I mean “he’s a f-ing idiot”). He never answered a question, he simply beat around it. I will not miss this turd at all.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:41 am
I cannot wait for inauguration day! President elect Obama gives me great hope for the future!
January 12th, 2009 at 11:54 am
I live in Mississippi–and the Hurricane Katrina thing actually hits home for me. My brother in law that lived on the MS Gulf Coast lost EVERYTHING they had–their home, family possessions, everything. Look at the MS Gulf Coast today, it’s not completely recovered but it’s a hell of a lot better than Louisiana. The government of LA failed its citizens more than G-Dub. Trust me, those idiots in the LA governor’s office couldn’t find their asses with a map and a flashlight.
I’m not a huge fan of GDub, but people who live on the other side of the country need to put up or shut up. What did ya’ll do except watch the news and condemn? I’m getting sick of armchair corresponders who don’t know what you’re talking about.
January 12th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
haha to JNo… it doesn’t matter what Trent has done to improve the world. This guy is the PRESIDENT, it’s his freaking JOB to do that, and instead he’s screwed it all up…
MO: how about…. allowing illegal & secret wiretapping on innocent citizens, starting a war for false pretenses that has killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and for which we’re still paying $10 billion per month, taken environmental protection back 30 years, made the whole world hate us by dropping out of Kyoto & Antiballistic Missile & Ozone Protection treaties, totally dropped the ball on Katrina and still hasn’t rebuilt the city, ignored warnings about Osama Bin Laden before 9/11, appointed the free-market economists who oversaw the collapse of the financial system, took his eye off the ball in Aghanistan and now terrorists are running amok there, allowed our military to become dangerously overstretched, turned a huge budget surplus into a huge budget deficit, doubled our trade deficit, allowed energy company CEOs to write national energy/environmental pollicies, imprisoned people in Gitmo without every charging them of a crime, creating major tax cuts for the top 0.1% of the country while the rest of us got a measly $300…..
Shall I continue?
Hey Bushy, don’t let the door hit you in the @ss on the way out!
January 12th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
mo, again i agree
lauren-why don’t you do your own research instead of spewing what CNN and MSNBC and all your other left-wing media outlets feed you
January 12th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Lauren – first, I wasn’t asking Trent what he has done (he has done a lot to help fight discrimination actually), I was posing that question to everyone. Second, the country was a better place when EVERYONE believed that it was their job to help make the country better, rather than believing it was only 1 person’s job. If every citizen would put forth some effort to better the country, rather than waiting on someone else to and complaining about it, I think everyone would be surprised at how much better we would all be.
January 12th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
* christine… those are FACTS. Granted, as Stephen Colbert put it, “Reality has a distinct left-wing bias.” Sorry bout that. What don’t YOU do some research instead of dismissing reality?
* JNo: point well taken, and I agree. (I do community service, give money to causes I care about, and volunteer for political campaigns every election cycle. So I feel pretty justified in complaining about Bush f*cking things up, especially the things that I actively work to improve.)
* OK I’m peacing out, I hate it when people take over the comments section in personal arguments….
January 12th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Amen, JNo. The President is only one man, and I have seen firsthand that it is, without a doubt, the most difficult job in the world. The office deserves our respect no matter its occupant.
It’s time we focus on the positive and learn from the negative, but more importantly, that every American feels a responsibility for the direction of this country.
January 12th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Bush has made a lot of mistakes but the economy is not one of them. One of the biggest reasons for the recession is that the banks gave out loans/mortgages to too many people that would not be able to follow through and pay them back. Becasue these people could not pay the mortgages they lost their homes and the banks lost the money. The banks felt like they deserved that money (even though they chose to take the risky sub prime mortgages) and the houses (both democrat run) gave them money. Has this money helped…no. Wouldn’t the money be better off put into the economy…yes. None of this was instigated by Bush.
And in general democrats are the ones that spend government money and republicans are the ones that are thrifty (why I consider myself socially liberal and monetarily conservative). Obama has no plans that will help the economy all he wants to do is increase the deficit on all his
“great” new plans. He said as much in the debates. People need to learn more about their party.
January 12th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Oh aso, if the economy is Bushs’ fault then why are many other countries in the world also struggling? He certainly can’t be blamed for all their mistakes too.
January 12th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
I hate Bush with the greatest passion. And I now hate him EVEN MORE now that he can’t admit his enormous shortcomings as president. See ya Bush-no one is sorry to see you go.
January 12th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
posts were deleted?
January 12th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
@H – a single person was posting multiple posts, some inflamatory, under different names … they were weeded out by the spam filter and I had them deleted. People are free to post comments but cannot flood posts with multiple posts and cannot refer to others as “fuckers”
January 12th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Damn. All i am going to say is, Bye bye Bush, you shall be missed…not.
January 12th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Even though I’m a Democrat and have been since I was able to understand the differences between both parties (since I was 10 actually, I’m 18 now), I sympathize with Bush. I mean, I don’t think he really asked for 9/11 to happen, despite everyone’s weird ass theories. The attack screwed up his entire plan because suddenly everything that happened was tangled in with Operation Saving Freedom. I think Bush would have been a more well liked presidency had he not had the misfortune of being in office during the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history. And some of you need to read up on your American history before declaring him the worst. There have been some real fuck ups in our past (most notably in the mid to late 1800s).
January 12th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Here, here, Lauren.
Yes GWB is only one man, but he is a man with a lot of power, and with that comes heavy responsibility. Everything re: economy is a foreign language to me, so I don’t dump the blame on him for that, but leading a war under false pretenses and the lack of response to Hurricane Katrina are unforgivable.
I don’t understand the praise that he kept the country safe. Tell that to the many Muslim-Americans who have had to live in fear and have had their civil liberties violated in the name of “security.” We are supposedly the banner of democracy yet he stole the 2000 election and had illegal wiretapping and torture.
It’s not just Bush — it’s his whole administration. Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, Ashcroft, Cheney, Scooter Libby (who just took the fall for many)… Obama is no miracle worker, but he seems intelligent, has a moral backbone, and is aware that we have a Constitution.
January 12th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Here Here! ITA TRENT!
January 12th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
i forgot to mention re: keeping the country safe – his presidency did not start after Sept. 11, 2001.
January 12th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
I read some of the comments, and I don’t know where you went in Europe where they actually liked Bush, but in Paris, Vienna and parts of Germany they applauded the fact there was a chance to elect Obama and that Bush was on his way out. Admitting his mistakes and disappointments came way too late. Its nice that he semi-acknowledged his shortcomings, but it will never make up for the complete disaster that was his administration.
January 12th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
I agree we can blame him for all the ills. But it’s worth taking a look at the person. This is an analysis of him that was sad and eye opening:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-01-12/why-bush-loves-violence/
January 12th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
*oops*
I agree we _can’t_ blame him for all the ills.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
*Note to self*
I MUST stop reading Trents political posts (and the comments that follow). It’s the reason I’ve boycotted his blog for 2 months. I just started getting my feet wet again because I do enjoy reading and missed his CELEBRITY posts.
January 13th, 2009 at 6:33 am
I’d like to be proud to be an American again. I’m looking forward to being led by someone who respects our Constitution, our laws, and our tradition of nonpreemptive war. Best of luck to Obama trying to undo the disaster Bush has made of so many things on so many fronts. W, don’t let the door hit you on your delusional butt on the way out!
January 13th, 2009 at 10:56 am
this is exactly why I rarely read this blog anymore!
January 13th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
I live in New Orleans and was here for Hurricane Katrina, and I can say firsthand that it was the local and state government that was incompetent, not the Bush administration.
January 15th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
First of all the gov does not owe those people anything and its just stupid to blame the gov for their shortcomming. I also think it is stupid that you support Obama. The worst thing that ever happend to this country!!!!!!!!
Peace!