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"CINDI LEIVE: Congratulations&amp;amp;#8212;I know you just had an anniversary. PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: We did. Thirtieth anniversary. CL: Are you good on remembering flowers and that kind of thing? PRESIDENT BUSH: I remembered more than a flower. Remember, I&amp;amp;#8217;m on government pay&amp;amp;#8212;I bought her a beautiful watch. It also happened to be her birthday the day before, so it&amp;amp;#8217;s like a combo deal. CL: One of the things that we wanted to talk about&amp;amp;#8230;is just the evidence on what she has accomplished as First Lady. And I&amp;amp;#8217;m interested how it&amp;amp;#8217;s been for you as a husband to see her become more and more active in so many areas, but in particular in heart disease, where her work has caused, by many estimates, a drop of 17,000 deaths a year in this country. PRESIDENT BUSH: You always want your wife to be a happy person who&amp;amp;#8217;s living a fulfilling life. At least I do. It&amp;amp;#8217;s particularly important in the life we live here in the White House. &amp;amp;#8230; Laura&amp;amp;#8217;s, I guess, job satisfaction is really high because she has come to realize that which I have realized and that is, it doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t take much to affect people&amp;amp;#8217;s lives in a positive way. We&amp;amp;#8217;ve been given a great honor to represent the country. And we have been put in a position to influence in positive ways. And she has seized this opportunity in a way that is impressive to me, and in a way that gives me great pride. This is an environment where it would be very easy to have self-pity: &amp;amp;#8220;Why have you done this to me, my husband?&amp;amp;#8221; Or, &amp;amp;#8220;Why have you made me sacrifice my privacy?&amp;amp;#8221; et cetera. Instead, Laura has seized the opportunity. And as you said, she&amp;amp;#8217;s focused on heart awareness, the [Heart Truth campaign]. That&amp;amp;#8217;s one of many projects that have got measurable results as well. So, this isn&amp;amp;#8217;t just hot air. This isn&amp;amp;#8217;t a program where we&amp;amp;#8217;re just going to go out and talk. This is a program where certain measurable results happen. And it gives her great satisfaction. And so to answer your question, I am impressed. I&amp;amp;#8217;m not surprised, because she&amp;amp;#8217;s a very accomplished woman. And she&amp;amp;#8217;s smart, she&amp;amp;#8217;s capable, she&amp;amp;#8217;s well organized. And she works hard. And she has a great compassion. It is really satisfying for me to watch and to watch her show the American people exactly the kind of person I married. She&amp;amp;#8217;s a good person. And to answer your question, I&amp;amp;#8217;m real proud of her. CL: Is it true that when you got married you promised her that she would not have to make a speech? PRESIDENT BUSH: It was. Look, she wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t a political person. She was a down-to-earth West Texas woman who was smart. And loved books. Loved children. I met her, and I was kind of from a political family. I don&amp;amp;#8217;t even know if her family were Republicans&amp;amp;#8212;they probably weren&amp;amp;#8217;t. [He&amp;amp;#8217;s right&amp;amp;#8212;Mrs. Bush was raised a Democrat.] I&amp;amp;#8217;m sure she was somewhat skeptical about marrying into a well-known Texas political family. And so I did promise her she&amp;amp;#8217;d never have to give a speech and in turn, she did. Thankfully she&amp;amp;#8217;s given a lot of speeches. And she&amp;amp;#8217;s good at it. She&amp;amp;#8217;s a very good communicator. And she&amp;amp;#8217;s great on TV. CL: I read that she had found a turning point at the moment when she gave the radio address on Afghanistan. [In November 2001 Mrs. Bush was the first person other than a president to deliver the presidential radio address, and focused on the &amp;amp;#8220;brutality&amp;amp;#8221; against women and children by the Taliban in Afghanistan.] PRESIDENT BUSH: I think that&amp;amp;#8217;s very true. And the reason why was there was a lot of feedback. There was a clear indication to her that in this case a relatively simple act can profoundly touch people&amp;amp;#8217;s lives. And that&amp;amp;#8217;s the power of being the First Lady or the president. And that&amp;amp;#8217;s what I was talking about, about being able to use the positions that we have been honored to hold in a way that can positively affect people. I&amp;amp;#8217;ll tell you another story. I gave the U.N. speech [President Bush addressed the 62nd General Assembly of the United Nations in September 2007 about human rights issues]. And in it I hit Burma pretty hard. And &amp;amp;#8230; Laura was in the audience there at the U.N., and shortly thereafter, she got an e-mail from a human rights activist on the Thai border who had read transcripts of the speech. Laura had met this person, I&amp;amp;#8217;m not exactly sure where, but [she] had met this person. I thought it was so interesting that upon the delivery of my speech, a kind and decent soul tried to help people who had been savaged by this particular administration e-mailed Laura Bush to encourage her and me to continue speaking clearly about the human condition inside Burma. Which says to me that she&amp;amp;#8217;s becoming well known among the activists who are trying to change Burma. And that they feel comfortable communicating with her. And that she&amp;amp;#8217;s been out enough so that she&amp;amp;#8217;s meeting a variety of people, one of whom happened to be on the Thai border. Anyway, I thought that was an interesting story about how her influence is spreading. She&amp;amp;#8217;s got great a passion for the malarian initiative issue. It&amp;amp;#8217;s just inexcusable that two-year-old babies are dying because of mosquito bites. I feel that way; she feels that way. And we&amp;amp;#8217;re doing something about it. And it really helps to have her lead the charge in many ways. And to serve as an inspiration for the African leaders and their First Ladies. To put a plan in place that&amp;amp;#8217;ll actually succeed. She&amp;amp;#8217;s good. She&amp;amp;#8217;s doing great. CL: I want to ask you, Mr. President, a little bit about heart disease. Obviously, you&amp;amp;#8217;re an exceptionally healthy and fit person, and many people have told me about your mountain biking that you&amp;amp;#8217;re doing now instead of running, am I right? PRESIDENT BUSH: I mountain bike on the weekends with a lot of people that work here inside the White House and some out of the White House. And then I work out four other times a week. I work out six out of seven days. CL: And does Mrs. Bush ever ride with you? PRESIDENT BUSH: No. CL: Just not interested in mountain biking? PRESIDENT BUSH: No, she&amp;amp;#8217;s not a mountain biker. This weekend we hosted Angela Merkel&amp;amp;#8212;Chancellor Merkel&amp;amp;#8212;and Professor Sauer. And they came in on a Friday evening, and I asked them at dinner, would they like to get up and go for a walk on our ranch with us? And so, Laura and me and Condi [Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice] and the Chancellor and her husband went for about an hour&amp;amp;#8212;an hour-15 walk there on the ranch. And the reason I tell you that is the exercise that we do do together is generally a walk. And, you know, it&amp;amp;#8217;s&amp;amp;#8212;she&amp;amp;#8217;s a good exerciser. CL: She told me that she lifts weights, and she had gotten really into that over the last four or five years. PRESIDENT BUSH: She has. She hurt her neck and had an operation, so she&amp;amp;#8217;s getting back into it. She&amp;amp;#8217;s got a pinched nerve that really was in pain &amp;amp;#8230; she was in pain for quite a while. And [she&amp;amp;#8217;s] not a complainer. She&amp;amp;#8217;s got a pretty high threshold for pain. &amp;amp;#8230; She&amp;amp;#8217;s courageous woman. I don&amp;amp;#8217;t want to use the word &amp;amp;#8220;tough,&amp;amp;#8221; because that&amp;amp;#8217;s the wrong connotation. CL: Tough&amp;amp;#8217;s not bad. PRESIDENT BUSH: Tough&amp;amp;#8217;s good if you&amp;amp;#8217;re a Texan, but that may not translate too well in your magazine. CL: [Laughs] No, we like tough. PRESIDENT BUSH: Tough can mean hard-edged and mean. And she&amp;amp;#8217;s not. She&amp;amp;#8217;s got a good tender heart. CL: One of the things that she had talked about in the last interview that we did with her that made a big impact on our readers was her discussion of smoking. And, certainly, for young women&amp;amp;#8212;our readers are generally women in your daughter&amp;amp;#8217;s age range&amp;amp;#8212;the single biggest contributor to heart issues for them is smoking. So, we&amp;amp;#8217;re constantly exhorting them to [quit]. PRESIDENT BUSH: Smoking, diet, lack of exercise, you&amp;amp;#8217;re right. Well, people shouldn&amp;amp;#8217;t smoke. Nor should they drink to excess. I don&amp;amp;#8217;t drink at all. Probably because I was drinking to excess, but&amp;amp;#8212;yeah, I was an ex-smoker, a bad smoker. I used to smoke. And I understand what smoking can do to you. I guess smoking is&amp;amp;#8212;people think that smoking is part of a diet program. Virginia Slims they were called. CL: That&amp;amp;#8217;s a big factor for young women. PRESIDENT BUSH: Yeah, it requires parents to share their wisdom. CL: Well, how did you manage to quit? You say you&amp;amp;#8217;re an ex-smoker. PRESIDENT BUSH: I started chewing tobacco. I just transferred one tobacco habit to the next. And then I quit chewing tobacco because it was a little gross. [Laughter] Look, tobacco and alcohol can compete with other loves. So, if you love to exercise and you smoke, you&amp;amp;#8217;ll find that smoking affects your endurance and makes it harder to work out. So, I quit both. Tobacco &amp;amp;#8230; was an addictive habit; it was hard to get off of it. CL: But you did? PRESIDENT BUSH: I did. CL: For our readers who are following tobacco&amp;amp;#8230;can you share a little bit of your thinking? I know that you recently vetoed the bill that would have included a 61-cent tax on cigarettes and presumably motivated at least some smokers to quit. [This was the State Children&amp;amp;#8217;s Health Insurance Program bill, designed to finance an expansion of children&amp;amp;#8217;s health care via a tax on cigarettes.] Can you walk us through that? PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, that was part of the issue. These people were assuming you could pay for a $35 billion expense on health care [by taxing] a product that people presumably would be using less of, and therefore the question was, where are they going to get the money to fulfill the promise they set? Secondly, a tax increase is a tax increase. You can justify any tax increase you want, I just don&amp;amp;#8217;t think we need to be raising taxes on working people, in particular. And, thirdly, the reason I vetoed the bill is because there are 500,000 people who aren&amp;amp;#8217;t getting [insurance], 500,000 children who aren&amp;amp;#8217;t getting the promise that the government made them, and so therefore, why not focus on those 500,000 before you expand the program beyond the 500,000. That&amp;amp;#8217;s why I made the decision I made. CL: So even apart from the health insurance aspect of it, you would not support a tax on cigarettes? PRESIDENT BUSH: A tax increase of any kind. Of any kind. Cigarettes just happen to be one of the opportunities that Congress is trying to give the taxpayer to pay more taxes. CL: I don&amp;amp;#8217;t know if you&amp;amp;#8217;ve had the chance to see the story that we did with Jenna in our November issue. [Jenna had written a book, Ana&amp;amp;#8217;s Story, with former Glamour photo assistant Mia Baxter.] I&amp;amp;#8217;m curious about what it was like for you to see your daughter [who always had] a lower profile, have this big sort of media moment. Were you giving her advice about how to deal with reporters and handle that exposure? PRESIDENT BUSH: No, I really didn&amp;amp;#8217;t give her any advice. But I am beaming with pride. I was concerned about it. I understand how tough the public arena can be. So, I was concerned that, you know, I was concerned about whether or not she&amp;amp;#8217;d be treated fairly. And that people would treat her with the respect she deserved. And it turns out they did. And one of the reasons why is because she earned the respect of a lot of people and how she handled herself, and I&amp;amp;#8217;m very proud of her. You&amp;amp;#8217;re only really as happy as your children are when you&amp;amp;#8217;re a parent. Our girls are happy, which makes me happy. There&amp;amp;#8217;s nothing better than having your family together sound and happy in an environment such as the White House. It&amp;amp;#8217;s just very important for the President and the First Lady to know that their children are doing well. We&amp;amp;#8217;ve got plenty of other issues to think about. And the fact that Barbara and Jenna are doing great and are happy people, and equally importantly, are good contributors, really is a source of pride to both Laura and me. I love them dearly. It&amp;amp;#8217;s really a gratifying&amp;amp;#8212;it&amp;amp;#8217;s been a gratifying year for us. CL: Any desire for either of them to go into the family business? PRESIDENT BUSH: I doubt it. [Laughter] You&amp;amp;#8217;d have to ask them, but, you know, I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t&amp;amp;#8212;my attitude is tell them you love them. And encourage them to reach out and to see life in its fullest. Live life to its fullest. Little Barbara picks up and goes down to South Africa on her own to work in a pediatric AIDS hospital. Jenna goes down to Guatemala&amp;amp;#8212;I mean, Panama. Excuse me, goes down to Panama with Mia Baxter. And sure enough she says, &amp;amp;#8220;Dad, I&amp;amp;#8217;m going to write a book on an experience I had.&amp;amp;#8221; And it is amazing to see what strong women they are. They&amp;amp;#8217;re self-starters. No way am I going to try and chart their course in life. I suspect that they&amp;amp;#8217;re&amp;amp;#8212;I don&amp;amp;#8217;t have any idea what they&amp;amp;#8217;re going to do down the road. I do know that they&amp;amp;#8217;ve got their sense of service inside their very being, and that&amp;amp;#8217;s really good. CL: I know that Jenna and Mrs. Bush are writing a book together right now. Are you allowed in the room? PRESIDENT BUSH: I probably don&amp;amp;#8217;t want to be in the room. It turns out these moments of creativity&amp;amp;#8212;if there&amp;amp;#8217;s any criticism&amp;amp;#8230;it tends to create a conflagration. So I pretty well butted out. They&amp;amp;#8217;re doing good. It&amp;amp;#8217;s going to be a neat book. &amp;amp;#8230; It&amp;amp;#8217;s fun to watch mother and daughter work together in a collaborative way. The White House upstairs is a constructive place these days. CL: Have you given Jenna any advice about marriage? You&amp;amp;#8217;re in a good position; you&amp;amp;#8217;ve been married 30 years. PRESIDENT BUSH: No, I really haven&amp;amp;#8217;t. I&amp;amp;#8217;m convinced that she loves the guy and he loves her. Only advice I had was: Are you sure you don&amp;amp;#8217;t want to elope? CL: [Laughs.] Are you serious about that? PRESIDENT BUSH: Not really. [Pauses.] No, I&amp;amp;#8217;m not serious about it. CL: My grandparents were married for 72 years, and my grandfather&amp;amp;#8217;s only piece of advice about marriage was go to bed early. He told me that&amp;amp;#8217;s what keeps the marriage strong. PRESIDENT BUSH: If that&amp;amp;#8217;s the case, we&amp;amp;#8217;re going to be married for 40 more years since I&amp;amp;#8217;ve been going to bed early these days. I&amp;amp;#8217;m teasing about the elopement, of course. It would be a lot easier. But they want to have a wedding; and they&amp;amp;#8217;re going to have a wedding. CL: In an interview that I read with Mrs. Bush, she said that she was very much looking forward someday to casting a vote for the first Republican woman to run for president. And I&amp;amp;#8217;m curious&amp;amp;#8230;. PRESIDENT BUSH: Doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t look like that&amp;amp;#8217;s going to happen this time. CL: Maybe not this time around. But I think you have some good people on the bench. And, I&amp;amp;#8217;m curious, is there somebody who you dream of being able to cast that historic vote for? PRESIDENT BUSH: Not really. I haven&amp;amp;#8217;t thought much beyond the 2008 elections. And I&amp;amp;#8217;m really not engaged in those until after the primary seasons are over. But Condi would be a natural for me to suggest because I know her well, trust her judgment. I know she&amp;amp;#8217;s a strong woman. I&amp;amp;#8217;ve said that, I don&amp;amp;#8217;t think she wants to be president, but nevertheless, if she were to think about it, I&amp;amp;#8217;d seriously want to help her. CL: We&amp;amp;#8217;re always encouraging our readers, young women, to consider public office. What would you say to them about why they should want your job? PRESIDENT BUSH: First of all, you can go into politics and not have to sacrifice your family. Politics doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t mean that you have to give up that which is important to you. You can still be a mom and be a political leader. I learned that from my dad that&amp;amp;#8212;he went into politics with a set of values and came out with the same set of values. You don&amp;amp;#8217;t have to compromise your core beliefs. Matter of fact, if you compromise your core beliefs, you&amp;amp;#8217;ll be a lousy politician as far as I&amp;amp;#8217;m concerned. Secondly, that you can make a significant difference in people&amp;amp;#8217;s lives. And if you&amp;amp;#8217;re a person motivated to the service of others, there&amp;amp;#8217;s no better way to do it. There are good ways to do it, and a good way to do it is through the political process. And third, it looks ugly to a lot of people and it can be. But it doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t have to be this way. It doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t have to be zero sum. It doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t have to be, I&amp;amp;#8217;m not going to help this person because it might not make you look too good politically. And I would hope young women out there don&amp;amp;#8217;t get discouraged by the tone of the political system today. The tone changes, can change over time. When I was the governor of Texas, the tone in Texas was great. We had Democrats and Republicans working together. Washington right now, I&amp;amp;#8217;m sure is discouraging to certain people, and I would ask them not to be discouraged by the harshness of the system. And that can change. Matter of fact, it can change because good people want to get in and change it. CL: Do you think that you will be the last Bush in the White House? PRESIDENT BUSH: I have no earthly idea. It&amp;amp;#8217;s an interesting question. There&amp;amp;#8217;s a Bush out there that would be a great president, that would be my brother Jeb, but he&amp;amp;#8217;s obviously not running in 2008. I have no idea what life will be like for him in 2012, but it&amp;amp;#8217;s hard to tell. If one of my relatives is looking for a great way to serve the country in a job that is unbelievably exciting and fulfilling, then they ought to think about running for president. I strongly suggest that they become governor, however, before they try to run. CL: I&amp;amp;#8217;m still gunning for Jenna. PRESIDENT BUSH: We&amp;amp;#8217;ll see. I don&amp;amp;#8217;t think that&amp;amp;#8217;s going to happen. But who knows? She&amp;amp;#8217;s not even 30 yet; she&amp;amp;#8217;s got plenty of time."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/magazine/2008/01/george-w-bush/5>