A: The best thing to do is to educate every child and to challenge the soft bigotry of low expectations. We can have affirmative programs that enhance people’s chance to access the middle class without quotas and without pitting race against race. We were the first state to put a rule in place that the top 10% of each high school class could go to a state university. I call it affirmative access. This is going to enhance the ability of state universities to attract minorities. The pool of applicants must be increased for small-business ownership. I don’t mind measuring, I don’t mind a scorecard.
Yes, racism exists. I’m not going to be making policy based on guilt. The fundamental question in certain neighborhoods is, how do we break a sense that the system isn’t meant for me? You need mentoring programs. Part of it has to do with there isn’t the entrepreneurial system being passed from one generation to the next.
A: Yes, we need to move ahead. I hope I can convince Mr. Putin and the Europeans. I talked to [Russian Foreign Minister Igor] Ivanov about it, and I talked to him point-blank. I said here we are still trying to get out of a cold war mind-set. Please tell Mr. Putin I am willing to think differently. [Ivanov] talked about the new threats of outlaw nations, those are his words.
A: I know it comes across that way. I don’t think it’s fair. This will be an administration of people well suited to their jobs. I’m secure enough that I want smart people around me. I’m comfortable with people who have high intellects.
Q: So how do you assure folks you’re smart enough to be President?
A: I’m confident of my intellect. I wouldn’t be running if I wasn’t. My job will not be to out-think everybody in my administration. My job will be to assemble an administration full of very capable and bright people.
Q: So getting the smartest people to tell you what to do.
A: No, no, no. Not tell me what to do. Make recommendations. Plus, I’m not going to have a group of people who say the same thing.
Q: So what happens when they disagree?
A: These people don’t decide for me. I’m going to have to decide. I will overrule my advisers. I’ve done that before. My job is to get good thinkers and get the best out of them.
A: It was a death of a thousand cuts, and it took a thousand to defeat him. He couldn’t get his base intact. And the cause of that was breaking the “read my lips” tax pledge.
Q: But didn’t his compromise on taxes help set groundwork for the recovery?
A: Some economists say it helped. I think the lesson is not to give a Shermanesque pledge during a campaign.
Q: But having made it, was he right to compromise later?
A: I would have advised him not to have done it, as political advice.
Q: But that’s making a policy for political reasons.
A: As I said, that would have been my political advice. There were other reasons [besides tax policy that] he lost. Perot. Third, there was the beginning of a generational change. Fourth, he did not wisely spend political capital earned from Desert Storm on domestic politics. Fifth, his campaign wasn’t designed well. And part of the reason he lost was history. He was at the end of a very long run.
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The above quotations are from Columns and news articles in Time magazine.
Click here for other excerpts from Columns and news articles in Time magazine. Click here for other excerpts by George W. Bush. Click here for a profile of George W. Bush.
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