Despite the Democratic takeover of Congress and the public’s growing interest in the race to succeed him, President Bush has no intention of going quietly into the final two years of his term.
“Everybody’s trying to write the history of this administration even before it’s over,” Bush marveled Wednesday at a news conference. “There’s a lot of attitude here that says: ‘Well, you lost the Congress; therefore, you’re not going to get anything done.’ Quite the contrary,” he said. “The last two years, I’m going to work hard. I’m going to sprint to the finish. And we can get a lot done.”
It was reminiscent of Bush’s two-term predecessor, President Clinton, who at one point felt compelled to assert that he was still “relevant.”
On Wednesday, Bush it made clear that he planned to remain relevant in part by compromising with Democrats on such issues as a minimum wage increase.
“I support the proposed $2.10 increase in the minimum wage over a two-year period,” he said. “I support pairing it with targeted tax and regulatory relief to help small businesses stay competitive.”
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., sounded unenthusiastic about such a “pairing.”
“Wecan’t slow down this important legislation with other priorities unrelated to the minimum wage,” Kennedy said. “We need to pass a clean bill.”
Bush pledged to work with Democrats on a variety of other domestic issues, including trade agreements, energy initiatives, Social Security reform and a measure that would grant legal status to illegal immigrants. He declined to say how such issues would impact his legacy.
“The true history of any administration is not going to be written until long after the person is gone,” he said. “It’s just impossible for short-term history to accurately reflect what has taken place.”
Bush seemed to take a veiled swipe at liberal historians who recently panned him in a collection of essays in the Washington Post. He said most “short-term historians” have “a political preference” that preclude them from objectively assessing his tenure.
“It’s going to take a while for people to analyze mine, or any other of my predecessors’, until down the road, when they’re able to, you know, watch the long march of history and determine whether or not the decisions made during the eight years I was president have affected history in a positive way,” he said.
