the tindog coffeehouse

National Review’s Jay Nordlinger had a chance to interview President Bush about his presidency and put a whole bunch of quotes from the interview into his column.

Here are a few of the more interesting ones, but it’s worth reading the whole thing.

On the troop surge in Iraq:

“And I can’t remember the moment, but I know full well [National Security Adviser] Steve [Hadley] and I said, ‘We’re going to figure out and get to the bottom of this thing . . .’ And you’ve got to understand: With me, I’m thinking victory the whole time. And I fully understood the consequences of defeat — which are easier to explain, by the way, than the consequences of victory. And so we started to assess, and the different options started bubbling up, I guess, toward the end of the summer [’06] . . .

“The way it should work for a president on a decision this big is to make sure everybody has a chance to express themselves. I guess you could try to hastily make a decision of this magnitude and say, ‘This is the way it is.’ On the other hand, when you’re implementing a decision of this magnitude, where people’s lives would be at stake, it is important to give a lot of different stakeholders a chance to express their opinion. The president says, ‘It’s not working, we must assess, and what is it going to take to win?’

“And there were a lot of opinions during this period of time — a lot. Which is good for the president. You really don’t want homogenized decision-making. And opinions ranged from Get out, to Get out of Baghdad, step back, and hope the violence which will occur as a result of the vacuum doesn’t spill out.” Some people said, “Okay, some troops” — and eventually, “as a result of a lot of interagency working,” there were 30,000 additional troops: the surge. “Why? Because that’s what it would take to win, or to achieve the objective.”

On abortion:

“One of the principles by which I have conducted my presidency is, all life is precious, and a society, a whole society, is one that treats the most vulnerable with respect and care. And I believe the most vulnerable — one of the most vulnerable is the unborn person, unborn child.”

He also felt the need to say, “I fully understand the importance of science.”

On a “culture of life,” he said, “I’ve always said laws change once hearts change. I think there’s [now] a better appreciation of the importance of protecting life; that the debate has somewhat shifted from one of civil rights to one group of people to civil rights to the unborn.”

On popularity with other nations:

“You can get short-term popularity in the Middle East if you want, by blaming all problems on Israel. That’ll make you popular. You can be popular in certain salons of Europe if you say, ‘Okay, we’ll join the International Criminal Court.’ I could have been popular if I’d said, ‘Oh, Kyoto is the way to deal with the environmental problem.’ That would have made me liked. It would have made me wrong, however. And, ultimately, you earn people’s respect by articulating a set of principles and standing by them.

“You know, popularity comes and goes. It just does. It comes and goes for an individual or a nation. But principles are enduring.”

On principles:

“I’m comfortable that I have made principled decisions for eight years — that I was unwilling to sacrifice those principles for the sake of short-term approbation, approval, or whatever you want to call it.”

It’s refreshing to hear President Bush speak so freely without the filter of a biased media.

I must say I’ve disagreed with him on a number of things over the course of his presidency, but I’ve always respected him for acting on his principles. One of his greatest strengths (and possibly his weaknesses) is that he always fought for what he believed in, whether it was popular or not. Quite a difference from Bill Clinton, who never had a genuine conviction in his life.