Former President George W. Bush is finally speaking out. He has decided to follow the Cheney approach and defend the indefensible. But he is hiding behind his lawyers.
Former president George W. Bush is stepping back into the public arena to defend his decision to allow harsh interrogation of some detainees.
The former president addressed the Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan Thursday with wide-ranging remarks on his presidency, his retirement and decisions he made while in office, the Detroit Free Press reports.
He defended his decision to allow harsh interrogation of the terrorist who ordered the 9/11 attacks, saying it was cleared by his lawyers to prevent what his advisers believed was another, imminent attack.
"I made a decision within the law to get information so I can say, I've done what it takes to do my duty to protect the American people," he told the largely sympathetic audience. "I can tell you, the information gained saved lives."
But he does make some interesting admonitions on the economic mess he left behind.
In his first major speech on his presidency since leaving office, he also acknowledged that he had abandoned his free-market principles to bail out the U.S. financial industry, but says he did so because he was told that the nation otherwise would fall into a depression.
The Associated Press reports that the 43rd president blamed "a lack of responsible regulation" in the lending industry for the recession and condemned the practices of some financial institutions, like Fannie Mae.
He's also paling around with ex-President, and fellow criminal, Bill Clinton. They have a lot in
common.
Former President George W. Bush hardly misses it at all. “Free at last,” he proclaimed before the same crowd at the Metro Toronto Convention Center. “I like being in Texas, and I do not miss the spotlight.”
But that was practically where the differences stopped as the two former presidents appeared for the first time on a stage together to discuss national and international policy. Each earned more than an estimated $150,000 for the appearance.
Some 6,000 people — or their corporate employers — paid from $200 to $2,500 to attend the event, a rare chance to see two former presidents, who served in succession, square off from opposite sides of the political spectrum.
What they got instead, while no less historic, was a glimpse of the strange-bedfellows-for-the-moment friendship between the two men, once bitter rivals.
Mr. Clinton made it clear from the start that he would avoid any major clashes with Mr. Bush, telling the crowd that the agreed-upon moderator, Frank McKenna, the former Canadian ambassador to the United States, would try to meet their expectations by turning the convention hall into a gladiators’ coliseum, but “we’ll do our best to thwart them.”
And as they settled into overstuffed chairs, Mr. Bush and Mr. Clinton became something of an ex-presidents’ support group, avoiding direct critiques of each other, or, for that matter, their future club member, President Obama (“I want you to understand that anything I say is not to be critical of my successor,” Mr. Bush said, “there are plenty of critics in American society.”)
