They're Talking About ... Our Kid

George and Barbara Bush on the highs and lows of having a son in the White House

By Hugh Sidey Sunday, Dec. 19, 2004

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    MRS. BUSH: I think his steadfastness has. I think that's a surprise--not a surprise, but it's something to be very proud of. Let me put it that way.

    TIME: What has surprised you about Laura?

    BUSH: What surprised me was that years ago, she didn't want to give a speech, didn't want to be involved, and now she's captured the imagination and the hearts of the country. She really has.

    MRS. BUSH: Laura does not surprise me. When she came into our family, our huge family, noisy and loud, she was a reader and a gentle Southern girl, and she took to us like nothing you ever knew. Immediately she was generous and part of the family.

    TIME: What was the low point of this past term?

    MRS. BUSH: When a bunch of books all came out, filled with half-truths, like saying George's father was an alcoholic.

    BUSH: Kitty Kelley. Did you see where somebody handed her her hat the other night, the Washingtonian? [Kelley was dropped from the magazine's masthead.] I loved that.

    MRS. BUSH: Well, anyway, suddenly we found ourselves--what we thought was a nice, normal family with bumps and warts--we suddenly found ourselves as the devil.

    BUSH: Michael Moore's got to be the worst for me. I mean, he's such a slimeball and so atrocious. But I love the fact now that the Democrats are not embracing him as theirs anymore. He might not get invited to sit in Jimmy Carter's box [at the Democratic Convention] again. I wanted to get up my nerve to ask Jimmy Carter at the Clinton thing [the opening of Bill Clinton's library], "How did it feel being there with that marvelous friend of yours, Michael Moore?" and I didn't dare do it.

    MRS. BUSH: Darn.

    BUSH: You can write that if you want. Michael Moore just slandered our family and me.

    TIME: After this election, some people talk about Karl Rove as if he were the puppet master that created George W.

    MRS. BUSH: Karl is a political animal, no question about that, but George W. is not going to do something he thinks is wrong. I know that for a fact, and I saw it in action election night. They wanted George to go accept that moment, when it was 3:30 in the morning and it was clear he'd won, and he said, "Absolutely not." He said, "I'm not going to do that. It isn't right."

    TIME: How did you deal with the rest of the family while you were parenting a President through four years?

    MRS. BUSH: He's just one other member, and we all try to leave him space, because you need space when you're President.

    TIME: Let's talk about John and Abigail Adams and John Quincy.

    BUSH: It's so different. It's hard to compare because Quincy was in office so little time while his dad was still alive. I think they were close, but I don't know whether John Adams and John Quincy were as close as we are with George W.

    TIME: Here was a case in which the father reared his son to be President.

    BUSH: Not the case here at all.

    MRS. BUSH: Just wanted him to grow up.

    TIME: You've got no plan for Jeb?

    BUSH: No. And he's got plans for himself, which do not include running for public office. He's been successful, and he's knowledgeable, and he'd be a wonderful public servant at the national level. So--

    MRS. BUSH: But he won't.

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