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Interview Excerpts of President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush by Doro Bush
Koch for StoryCorps
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For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary November 28, 2008

Interview Excerpts of President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush by Doro Bush
Koch for StoryCorps

ÿÿWhite House News


On November 12, 2008, the President and Mrs. Bush participated in an
interview for StoryCorps, the national oral history initiative. The
interview was conducted in the White House residence by the President's
sister, Doro Bush Koch. An excerpt aired yesterday on NPR stations as a
lead-in to today's celebration of StoryCorps' National Day of Listening.
The entire interview will be archived at the American Folklife Center at
the Library of Congress. Following are excerpts from the interview:

Q How do you want to be remembered, and what are you most proud of?

THE PRESIDENT: I would like to be a person remembered as a person who,
first and foremost, did not sell his soul in order to accommodate the
political process. I came to Washington with a set of values, and I'm
leaving with the same set of values. And I darn sure wasn't going to
sacrifice those values; that I was a President that had to make tough
choices and was willing to make them. I surrounded myself with good people.
I carefully considered the advice of smart, capable people and made tough
decisions.

I'd like to be a President (known) as somebody who liberated 50 million
people and helped achieve peace; that focused on individuals rather than
process; that rallied people to serve their neighbor; that led an effort to
help relieve HIV/AIDS and malaria on places like the continent of Africa;
that helped elderly people get prescription drugs and Medicare as a part of
the basic package; that came to Washington, D.C., with a set of political
statements and worked as hard as I possibly could to do what I told the
American people I would do.

Q Laura, you have done so much for women and children around the world.
What's been your most rewarding initiative?

MRS. BUSH: Well, it's certainly been very rewarding to look at Afghanistan
and both know that the President and the United States military liberated
women there; that women and girls can be in school now; that women can walk
outside their doors without a male escort.

I worry about Afghanistan, but I will always have a special place in my
heart for the women that I've met there, both on my visits to Afghanistan
and then the many women from Afghanistan who've traveled to the United
States on scholarships or with the Afghan American Women's Council, or with
a lot of other ways that American citizens have opened their homes to women
in Afghanistan so they can be educated quickly, because they missed their
education when they were children or young women, because they weren't
allowed to learn anything.

I think that's really important. I think as we look all around the Middle
East, we'll see that women can be the ones who really lead the freedom
movement, and that American women are standing so strongly, I think, with
the women in Afghanistan and other places.

Q Mr. President, one of your education initiatives is the No Child Left
Behind. Can you reflect on that a little bit?

THE PRESIDENT: I think the No Child Left Behind Act is one of the
significant achievements of my Administration because we said loud and
clear to educators, parents, and children that we expect the best for every
child, that we believe every child can learn, and that in return for
Federal money we expect there to be an accountability system in place to
determine whether every child is learning to read, write, and add and
subtract.

This is a piece of legislation that required both Republicans and Democrats
coming together, and it is a landmark legislative achievement. But more
importantly, it focused the country's attention on the fact that we had an
achievement gap that -- you know, white kids were reading better in the 4th
grade than Latinos or African American kids. And that's unacceptable for
America. And the No Child Left Behind Act started holding people to
account, and the achievement gap is narrowing.

When you couple that with a very strong literacy initiative, which Laura
has been a part of, it begins to focus our whole system on solving problems
early, and not accepting this premise that you're just going to move people
through the system and hope for the best, and insisting upon high standards
for every single child. And I'm very proud of that accomplishment, and I
appreciate all those here in Washington and around the country that have
worked hard to see that the promise of No Child Left Behind has been
fulfilled.

Q Can you describe the influence our parents had on you?

THE PRESIDENT: I think that the gift our dad gave to all of us is
unconditional love. It is the greatest gift a father can give a child. And
it has made life so much easier in many ways, because if you have the
ultimate gift of love, then the difficulties of life can be easier handled.
And to me that is a great gift.

And he also taught me -- and I think you and Jeb and Neil and Marvin --
that you can go into politics with a set of values and you don't have to
sell your soul once you're in the political system. And you can come out
with the same set of values. And so I remember, I think it was Jeb said,
"Dad was busy in politics, but he invented the definition of quality time."
In other words, he was a great father before politics, a great father
during politics and a great father after politics.

Q What role does faith play in your day-to-day life?

THE PRESIDENT: I've been in the Bible every day since I've been the
President, and I have been affected by people's prayers a lot. I have found
that faith is comforting, faith is strengthening, faith has been
important....

I would advise politicians, however, to be careful about faith in the
public arena. ...In other words, politicians should not be judgmental
people based upon their faith. They should recognize -- as least I have
recognized I am a lowly sinner seeking redemption, and therefore have been
very careful about saying (accept) my faith or you're bad. In other words,
if you don't accept what I believe, you're a bad person.

And the greatness of America -- it really is -- is that you can worship or
not worship and be equally American. And it doesn't matter how you choose
to worship; you're equally American. And it's very important for any
President to jealously protect, guard, and strengthen that freedom.

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