Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House

by Peter Baker

Bush decided to address the nation and prepared a prime-time speech. But hours before he was to go on the air, he received a call from John McCain asking him to hold a White House meeting on the rescue package. The president was furious. Negotiations were at a delicate stage, and suddenly McCain was going to swoop in to save the day? It was “a stunt,” Bush thought. Barry Jackson, his political adviser, was even blunter, calling McCain “a stupid prick.” But Bush felt he had no choice and had to convene the meeting McCain had requested. “I could see the headlines: ‘Even Bush Thinks McCain’s Idea Is a Bad One,’ ” the president noted later. He got Barack Obama on the phone to invite him as well. “McCain asked for this meeting and I think I have to give him this meeting and I need you to be here,” he told Obama. The Democratic nominee thought the president sounded almost apologetic.

McCain, speaking for the first time, offered generalities, saying the House Republicans had legitimate concerns that needed to be addressed without actually agreeing with them. To many around the table in both parties, it was clear McCain had no clue what he was doing. Bush was singularly unimpressed and leaned over to Pelosi. “I told you you’d miss me when I’m gone,” he whispered.

Bush made clear to his staff that he wanted a seamless transition, and indeed Joshua Bolten had been working for months mapping out a handover of power that would be the most cooperative ever between presidents of different parties. Bush invited Obama to the Oval Office for a long talk while Laura Bush gave Michelle Obama a tour of the residence. The White House produced more than a dozen contingency plans for Obama in case an international crisis erupted in the opening days of his administration, when he would still be short-staffed and not fully prepared. The memos envisioned all sorts of volatile scenarios, like a North Korean nuclear explosion, a cyberattack on American computer systems, a terrorist strike on American facilities overseas, and a fresh outbreak of instability in the Middle East.

The clemency process had long left a sour taste in President Bush’s mouth. His father had been heavily criticized for issuing a series of politically charged pardons in his final weeks in office, most notably to Caspar Weinberger, the former defense secretary under investigation in the Iran-contra affair. Bill Clinton had left office in scandal over his last-minute pardons of a series of sordid characters, including his half brother, Roger; his former business partner Susan McDougal; and, most notoriously, the politically connected financier Marc Rich, who had fled the country to avoid tax fraud and racketeering charges. (Among Rich’s lawyers at one point? Scooter Libby.) Bush had not forgotten being kept waiting in his motorcade after church on the morning of his own inauguration eight years earlier because Clinton was not ready to receive him for the traditional White House coffee after spending much of the previous twenty-four hours signing pardons.

The unnecessary controversies combined with the devastating misjudgments in Iraq ended up detracting from what otherwise might have been a solid record for the forty-third president. Bush logged major achievements both at home and abroad. He pushed to make education better and saw test scores rise. He helped the elderly afford prescription medicine. He lowered taxes not just for the wealthy but for the middle class and freed millions of lower-income Americans from income taxes altogether. He helped spur a domestic energy boom in both traditional and renewable sectors that dramatically reversed American dependence on foreign oil. He expanded free trade and reduced the nuclear arsenal. He helped arrest the AIDS epidemic in Africa, saving millions of lives. He put two strong conservatives on the Supreme Court. He spoke out for democracy in the Muslim world at a time when others believed it impossible, then took great satisfaction in the Arab Spring that toppled dictators after his presidency. Perhaps most important, while any number of factors were at work, he and his vice president could reasonably claim to have protected the country following September 11.