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Presidential plans

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Written by Mickey McLean

November 27, 8:49 AM

In his final Thanksgiving in office, President George W. Bush will spend the day with family at Camp David. The AP reports that the president was in a reflective mood as he shared what he was thankful for this year:

He gave thanks to troops and volunteers, to teachers and pastors, to all the American people. Then he gave thanks for his wife and twin daughters—”two Thanksgiving miracles who we were blessed with 27 years ago”—and that his mother, former first lady Barbara Bush, was doing well after being hospitalized.

“Most of all,” he said, “I thank the American people for the tremendous privilege of serving as the president.”

For President-elect Barack Obama, he plans to spend the day in Chicago, where he’ll “have a whole bunch of people over to the house” and squeeze in some Christmas shopping. Michelle Obama said she won’t be cooking for the 60 or so friends and family, explaining that she gets “an out” this time since her husband ran for president.

Topic: Newsworthy, WorldMagBlog

Keywords: barack-obama, Barbara Bush, george-w.-bush, Michelle Obama, Thanksgiving

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back to top10 Comments to “Presidential plans”

BY Sawgunner 11.27.08 AT 9:39 AM

How will W be judged by the largely liberal historian community? By avg Americans?? I wonder if his book-signing tour will draw the crowds Clinton did on his?
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BY donna j 11.27.08 AT 11:09 AM

I’m looking forward to hearing “the rest of the story” from President Bush once he leaves office. He was not our most communicative president, to be sure, so I am hoping to learn more from him about the challenges his administration faced and how he saw it all from his vantage point, why he did some of the things he did, what he’d have done differently.

I had to laugh when a liberal friend (an immigrant) made a remark about “the mess” President-elect Obama now will have to clean up after Bush.

“Ah, but they all leave a mess behind,” I told her. “And you know what? President Obama will leave his own mess for the next one.”

Not an intentional mess, mind you. But it is, after all, a messy world and an almost impossible job, being president of the United States. They’ll all do their best and some of what they do will turn out well. A bunch of it won’t. And the world will keep throwing its messiness around. Messes everywhere. For the next president to deal with.
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BY Peter Leavitt 11.27.08 AT 11:25 AM

On Thanksgiving we might give thanks to Pres. Bush for eight years of by and large excellent service. He made his share of mistakes, as all presidents do, while standing up courageously to see an unpopular war through to probable victory, lowering taxes that helped us out of the 2001 recession, standing up on stem-cell research and abortion, appointing two first-rate Supreme Court justices, with very strong homeland security policy, keeping us free of further attacks. In my view this good and decent man, who has been savagely vilified by his opponents, will, like Pres. Truman, in the long run be viewed, after the noisome passions have cooled, by historians and the people as one of our better modern presidents. Note, how recently he and Mrs. Bush have been very gracious to the Obamas along with working hard with the Obama team to have a smooth transition.
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BY michelle 11.27.08 AT 11:34 AM

I agree with you, Peter, though I wish he had exercised more fiscal restraint with the purse strings. Maybe it’s harder when you’ve raised girls?

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BY kBells 11.27.08 AT 11:51 AM

Unfortunately, Obama now has a built in excuse. If things go badly under him people will blame it on “the mess Bush left him”.
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BY Peter Leavitt 11.27.08 AT 12:29 PM

Michelle, his lack of fiscal restraint is real and one of his greatest mistakes; another is that he should have known earlier that our military strategy against the insurgents in Iraq was not working and replaced Rumsfeld, Abazaid, and Casey.
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BY donna j 11.27.08 AT 12:33 PM

#5 KBells: So remind them of the “mess” Bush was left by Clinton — and the mess Obama will predictably leave behind for his successor as well. They all leave a mess for the next one.

It goes with the job that they spent millions of dollars begging to get, after all. So no whining from the new guy and said followers. They asked (begged) for it, they got it. Deal.
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BY Thomas 11.28.08 AT 9:47 AM

“Unfortunately, Obama now has a built in excuse. If things go badly under him people will blame it on “the mess Bush left him”. ”

Well yeah, because of course Republicans would never do that. I mean, they’d never try and say the financial crisis housing meltdown was due to “the mess Clinton left” eight years ago, would they? Would they?? :rolls eyes:
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BY donna j 11.28.08 AT 10:29 AM

But of course they would! They ALL do that.

This is the real world & politics, folks. Messes are made and left behind and inherited; blame is promptly shifted whenever and wherever it can be shifted. And so it goes.
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BY Thomas 11.28.08 AT 10:36 AM

Donna J,

And of course you are right. Which is what makes the complaint “Unfortunately, Obama now has a built in excuse” so risible. It’s as though she thinks this is a flaw unique to him.
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