Stories related to: George W. Bush

President Bush is flying back wistfully to Washington today after giving away the first daughter, the AP reports. “Our little girl, Jenna, married a really good guy,” the commander in chief told reporters. “The wedding was spectacular. It’s all we could have hoped for.” Click the Houston Chronicle link below to see photos of the sunset affair. More »

While Democrats sparkle in the media glare, the Republican Party is quietly crumbling off-stage, Politico reports. President Bush’s numbers are lower than Richard Nixon’s before he resigned, and the GOP is losing House seats that it has held for 20 or 30 years. “The anti-Republican mood is fairly big, and it has been overwhelming,” said Michigan's GOP chairman. More »

Two actors from TV’s “West Wing” say John McCain did indeed claim at a party that he didn't vote for George Bush in 2000. The candidate angrily denied the charge when Arianna Huffington made it earlier this week, but now Bradley Whitford and Richard Schiff are adding their voices to the mix. Days before Bush’s first inauguration, they say, the senator told a group of Hollywood liberals he’d bucked the GOP, the Washington Post reports. More »

President Bush boarded Air Force One yesterday to attend to some family business: giving away his daughter Jenna at her wedding at twilight tomorrow, near a lake on the family's Crawford, Texas, ranch. The First Daughter, who opted against a "stuffy" wedding at the White House, will be wearing Oscar de la Renta as she ties the knot with longtime boyfriend Henry Hager. More »

John McCain has had the Republican nomination locked up for three months, and while the Democrats were busily duking it out, the Arizona senator was laying the groundwork for this fall's campaign—hiring new staff and stuffing the piggybank of a once-broke candidacy. As the Wall Street Journal writes, he has also tried to define his ideological stance: a reliable conservative, but at a distance from George W. Bush. More »

President Bush’s latest maneuvering with the Federal Election Commission does nothing to fix the standoff over unacceptable nominees, New York Times editors argue. Instead, the White House has made it worse, moving to can the chairman who questioned John McCain’s “funding machinations”—and sub in a Tom DeLay ethics lawyer. With four vacancies on the six-member body—in an election year, no less—a quick fix is needed. More »

President Bush said today that he would veto the Democratic housing bill being worked on in the House of Representatives. Bush claims the bill would unfairly bail out "speculators and lenders," the Washington Post reports. "I will veto the bill that's moving through the House today if it makes it to my desk," he promised. More »

John McCain said after the 2000 election he hadn’t voted for George Bush, Arianna Huffington wrote yesterday, and the bombshell has provoked angry denials from the camp of the future GOP nominee, whom she once "admired and even loved." Firing back, the Huffington Post founder further details McCain’s “Shakespearean” fall from maverick status. More »

President Bush today expressed “heartfelt sympathy” to the victims of the Myanmar cyclone and called on the ruling junta to allow the US to offer more help, the Voice of America reports. The government has accepted $250,000 of US aid but balked at letting US Navy rescue teams assist in finding the 41,000 people who remain missing. More »

In dismissing what she called “elite opinion” and embracing the gas tax holiday, Hillary Clinton has adopted a regressive energy policy, Andrew Leonard of Salon writes. Her declaration yesterday—“I’m not going to put my lot in with economists”—smacks of George Bush’s worst moments and ignores the harsh reality that any serious plan to deal with the climate and fuel crises requires that gas prices go up, not down. More »

President Bush returned to praise Greensburg residents yesterday to mark the first anniversary of the day the Kansas town was struck by a devastating tornado that killed 11. Bush applauded the community's resilience and determination in a speech to the town's high school graduating class of just 18 students, reports the Wichita Eagle . More »

It’s not often Hillary Clinton, the Dalai Lama, and Judd Apatow find themselves on the same list. But they've all made Time's annual pick of the world’s 100 most influential people, ranging from artists and intellectuals to scientists and politicians (including George Bush and all three presidential hopefuls). A short look at the long list: More »

With less than a year left in office, President Bush refuses to let his lame-duck status keep him quiet, the Washington Post reports. He continues to push for initiatives that are unlikely to see the light of day, including Alaska oil drilling, more nuclear plants, and a Colombia free-trade deal. As the Democratic Congress continues to shrug off his efforts, “I'm perplexed about why there's no action on big issues,” Bush said. More »

The Pentagon may send 7,000 more troops to Afghanistan to make up for a NATO shortfall, administration officials say.The move would bring US troop levels there to 40,000 and require relocating American forces from Iraq, the New York Times reports. While NATO countries have promised to send about 2,000 additional troops, so far only France, which has pledged 700, has begun preparing forces. More »

George Bush is the most unpopular president in modern history with a 71% disapproval rating, a new CNN poll says. It's the first time any president has cracked the 70% mark in any CNN or Gallup poll—even Nixon remained in the mid-60s on the eve of his resignation in 1974. The previous record belonged to Harry Truman at 67%. More »

Amid rising food prices and overtaxed international reserves, President Bush proposed a new $770 million aid package today, Reuters reports. The money is part of a supplemental $70 billion measure that also includes Iraq war funding and would require a vote in Congress. More »

Five years ago today, President Bush bounded out of a fighter jet onto a deck of an aircraft carrier and, under a huge "Mission Accomplished" banner, boasted to cheering troops that major combat operations in Iraq had ended. As the war drags on into its sixth year, congressional Democrats are using the anniversary to highlight the administration's "arrogant" mishandling of Iraq, Politico reports. More »

President Bush conceded that “it’s a very slow economy” one day ahead of possibly ugly GDP numbers, the New York Times reports, and said Congress is dragging its feet on gas prices, the mortgage crisis, farm subsidies and student loans. The Democratic-controlled legislature should be “sending me sensible and effective bills,” he said, not ones "that simply look like political statements.” More »

President Bush did a star turn at his final White House correspondents dinner—showing video snippets of previous appearances and grabbing a baton to conduct the Marine Corps Band in Stars & Stripes Forever . Correspondents were way down the pecking order behind celebrities like Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Martha Stewart, and Jenny McCarthy at the annual lovefest between the White House and journalists, reports Variety . More »

Again steering clear of the R-word, President Bush said today that the tax rebates scheduled to be distributed starting next week will "give our economy a boost to help us pull out of this economic slowdown," Bloomberg reports. More »