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Bush on Obama: 'This guy has no clue'.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Former President George W. Bush "seemed to feel considerable unease" with John McCain as the Republican presidential nominee, according to ex-speechwriter Matt Latimer in his tell-all memoir on his days in the White House.

In Latimer's new book, "Speech-less: Tales of a White House Survivor," set to hit bookstores on September 22, he reveals Bush's reactions to the economic collapse, the presidential campaign, and other memorable events. GQ published an excerpt from the memoir in its October issue.

Latimer said Bush liked Mitt Romney best and that he was "clearly not impressed with the McCain operation." Latimer said the former president wanted to appear with McCain at a campaign event in Phoenix, but after he was told the then-Republican nominee couldn't get enough people to show up, he called it a "cruel hoax."

"'He couldn't get 500 people? I could get that many people to turn out in Crawford.' He shook his head. 'This is a five-spiral crash, boys.'"

Bush presumed Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee, according to Latimer, and was extremely critical of Barack Obama. Latimer said Bush was "ticked off" after one of Obama's speeches and he said the future president wasn't "remotely qualified" for the challenges of the job.

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George and Jeb Bush are the only sons of a president to make it to the governor's mansion.

(CNN) - For some families, like the Kennedys, the Bushes and the Roosevelts, politics runs in the blood. But as history shows, coming from a powerful political family doesn't mean a free ride to the top.

"It does help, and it hurts. It's a two-edged sword," said Doug Wead, a presidential historian and former adviser to President George H.W. Bush. "It initially helps the candidate with name recognition and more importantly with fundraising ... but many vote against the child as well."

The children of political families inherit a treasure chest of contacts, campaign workers and often endorsements, but the benefits have their limits.

Only two presidential sons have followed their fathers to the White House (John Quincy Adams and George W. Bush), and just one presidential family - the Bushes - has sent sons to the governor's mansion (Jeb Bush in Florida and George Bush in Texas).

"I conclude that a brand name - a famous family name - is typically worth one step up on the political ladder," said Stephen Hess, a senior fellow emeritus in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, who has researched and written about political dynasties dating back to colonial times. "They get one step up - and they are on their own."

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The White House responded Thursday to recent comments by former President George W. Bush.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – A day after former President George W. Bush seemed to criticize the Obama administration for departing from a number of his anti-terrorism policies, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs fired back.

Asked about Bush's remarks during Thursday's press briefing Gibbs had a simple response. "We won," Gibbs told reporters.

In a vigorous defense of his own national security policies during a speech in Pennsylvania Wednesday, Bush appeared to take issue with the new administration's early decision to close the detention center in Guantanamo Bay and ban the use of aggressive interrogation techniques.

"I told you I'm not going to criticize my successor," Bush said, according to a report by the Washington Times. "I'll just tell you that there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat and I don't believe that persuasion isn't going to work. Therapy isn't going to cause terrorists to change their mind."

Gibbs said Thursday that the American people had made their own decision about battling terror.

"I think we've had a debate about individual policies. We had that debate in particular – we kept score last November and we won," Gibbs said.
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Some congressional Democrats are calling for an investigation into CIA interrogation techniques.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - An independent commission is needed to determine who authorized the use of abusive interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists, a leading advocate of such a panel said Sunday.

"I want to know who was it who made the decisions that we will violate our own laws; we'll violate our own treaties; we will even violate our own Constitution," Sen. Patrick Leahy told CBS' "Face the Nation."

"That we don't know," said Leahy, D-Vermont, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "We don't know what that chain of command was."

Former President George Bush repeatedly denied that his administration authorized the torture of prisoners in U.S. custody. But a set of legal opinions released earlier in this month documented the Bush administration's justification for coercive interrogation techniques including waterboarding, which has been considered torture since the Spanish Inquisition.

A Senate Armed Services Committee report released last week showed that top Bush administration officials gave the CIA approval to use waterboarding as early as 2002. And in 2003, a meeting that included then-Vice President Dick Cheney, CIA Director George Tenet, Attorney General John Ashcroft and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice reaffirmed the use of coercive tactics, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The releases have fueled calls for investigations of former administration and led to arguments from Bush's defenders - including Cheney - that the tactics produced information that saved American lives.

Leahy first proposed the idea of a nonpartisan "commission of inquiry" in March. He said Sunday that he was not "out for some kind of vengeance," but added, "I'd like to read the page before we turn it."

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(CNN) - Former President George W. Bush will make his first domestic post-presidency speech on May 28 in Benton Harbor, Michigan, his spokesman, Rob Saliterman, said Wednesday.

Bush will be speaking to members of the Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan. The event will be closed to the media.

Separately, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also will address the economic club on April 30.

Bush delivered remarks in Calgary, Canada, on Tuesday. His spokesman declined to comment on how much Bush was paid, but said the speech was not a fundraiser for the former president's foundation.

A Lebanese student in Beirut attends a December rally to support the shoe-throwing Iraqi journalist.

(CNN) - They've sung his praises on social networking pages, calling him a "hero," "the greatest man of our time," "a legend." They've said he deserves to be knighted and should be decorated with medals. They've cried out for his amnesty and have even proposed serving time for him.

The man many hundreds of thousands of Facebook users honor is no other than Muntadhar al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison for hurling his shoes at then-U.S. President George W. Bush.

The double-whammy size 10 shoe toss, neither of which hit Bush, took place in December at a news conference in Baghdad, Iraq. In many traditional Middle East circles, throwing shoes at someone is considered a grave insult.

To do this to an American president surrounded by Secret Service agents, no less, was as shocking to riveted viewers who watched the footage later as it was to the president himself.

"First of all, it's got to be one of the most weird moments of my presidency," Bush said later. "Here I am getting ready to answer questions from the free press in a democratic Iraq, and a guy stands up and throws his shoe. ... I'm not angry with the system. I believe that a free society is emerging, and a free society is necessary for our own security and peace."

Expressing their own freedom on Facebook, a worldwide fan base rose up to laud al-Zaidi's actions. They formed hundreds of fan pages and groups, big and small, serious and light. One is even called the "Shoe-Throwing Appreciation Society."

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TV reporter Muntadher al-Zaidi, shown in a file photo, was jailed after throwing his shoes at President Bush.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) - Muntadher al-Zaidi, the man seen as a hero in some circles for throwing his shoes at then-U.S. President George W. Bush, was sentenced to three years in prison Thursday by an Iraqi court.

Al-Zaidi threw his shoes at Bush during a news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in December in Baghdad.

Neither shoe hit the president, and other people in the room quickly knocked al-Zaidi to the ground before security officials arrested him.

Family members and journalists were cleared from the courtroom before Thursday's verdict.

After news of the verdict reached family members, al-Zaidi's brother appeared close to fainting. Other family members were seen crying and shouting curses about al-Maliki and Bush.

Al-Zaidi was a journalist who worked for the television network al-Baghdadia. The network also called for his release shortly after the incident.

He explained his actions during an hourlong appearance last month in the Central Criminal Court of Iraq. Asked whether anyone pushed or motivated him, al-Zaidi said he was spurred by the "violations that are committed against the Iraqi people."

In the Middle East, throwing shoes at someone is traditionally a sign of contempt.

Al-Zaidi's angry gesture touched a defiant nerve throughout the Arab and Muslim world. He is regarded by many people as a hero, and demonstrators took to the streets in the Arab world and called for his release shortly after the incident.

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The president issued guidance Monday about the use of so-called presidential signing statements during his administration.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – In the latest of a series of moves intended to limit or reverse the policies of his predecessor, President Obama quietly issued a memorandum Monday that will likely limit the impact of the many legislative signing statements that became a bit of a trademark during former President George W. Bush’s tenure.

In the two-page memo, Obama makes the case both for and against presidential signing statements, the presidential practice of laying out constitutional and other legal concerns about a piece of legislation at the time the chief executive signs a bill into law.

“Constitutional signing statements should not be used to suggest that the President will disregard statutory requirements on the basis of policy disagreements,” Obama wrote in the memo.

“At the same time, such signing statements serve a legitimate function in our system, at least when based on well-founded constitutional objections. In appropriately limited circumstances, they represent an exercise of the President’s constitutional obligation to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and they promote a healthy dialogue between the executive branch and the Congress.”

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Attorney General Eric Holder says the government can fight terrorism while also honoring the Constitution.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The Obama administration Monday released nine previously secret internal Justice Department memos and opinions defining the legal limits of government power in combating terrorism.

The Bush administration had refused to make the documents public, rejecting demands from congressional Democrats.

The release ends a tug-of-war over copies of controversial legal guidance from the post-9/11 period that advocated greatly expanded executive power to combat terrorism.

Among the documents from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) is a 2001 memo declaring that in terrorism cases the military may conduct searches in the United States without a warrant if approved by the president.

"We conclude that the president has ample constitutional and statutory authority to deploy the military against international or foreign terrorists operating within the United States," wrote John Yoo, then a deputy assistant attorney general. "We further believe that the use of such military force generally is consistent with constitutional standards, and that it need not follow the exact procedures that govern law enforcement operations." Read the memo

The October 23, 2001, memo was sent to then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales. Gonzales later became Bush's attorney general.

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Before laying out his administration's plans for the U.S. military in Iraq Friday, the President called former President George W. Bush. (Photo Credit: Getty Images/File)

(CNN) – President Barack Obama called former President Bush on this morning to tell him about his plan to withdraw troops from Iraq, the White House said Friday.

Obama called the former president “as a courtesy” right before his speech at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, according to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

Obama also called Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki from Air Force One to brief him on his plan to withdraw most troops from that country by the end of August 2010. The preident also “sought and received” an agreement from the prime minister that he would receive Christopher Hill as the next U.S. ambassador to Iraq.

On Friday, Obama released his plan to end combat operation in Iraq by August 31, 2010.

Former detainees pray near Kaubul in 2005 following their release from U.S. custody at Bagram Air Base.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – The Obama administration told a federal court late Friday it will maintain the Bush administration's position that battlefield detainees held without charges by the United States in Afghanistan are not entitled to constitutional rights to challenge their detention.

"Having considered the matter, the government adheres to its previously articulated position," said a Justice Department document filed in federal court in Washington.

In a controversial 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court last year ruled that detainees held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay had a right under the constitution to challenge their continued detention. However, the court did not say whether it applied to prisoners in other locations abroad, including Afghanistan.

Five prisoners held at Bagram Air Base, backed by human rights groups, have gone to court to claim the same rights as the men detained in Guantanamo Bay.

The new administration, which was given a month by a federal judge to declare whether the government wants to change its position, has now indicated it will continue to argue that it is against its security interests to release enemy combatants in a war zone.

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TV reporter Muntadhar al-Zaidi, shown in a file photo, appeared in court to loud applause and cheers.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) - Muntadher al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist on trial for throwing his shoes last year at then-President George W. Bush, said the former American leader's "bloodless and soulless smile" and his joking banter provoked him.

Al-Zaidi threw both of his shoes at Bush during a December news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Baghdad. Neither shoe hit the president, and other people in the room quickly knocked al-Zaidi to the ground before security officials arrested him.

He explained his actions in an hour-long appearance on Thursday at the Central Criminal Court of Iraq. Asked if anyone pushed or motivated him to do this, al-Zaidi said he was spurred on by the "violations that are committed against the Iraqi people."

"I could only see Bush and feel the blood of the innocents flow under his feet, as he was smiling that smile - as if he had come to bid farewell to Iraq and with the last support and more than 1 million martyrs," al-Zaidi said. "At that moment, I felt this is the man who killed our nation ... the main murderer and the main person responsible for killing our nation."

Speaking in his first public appearance since his arrest two months ago, al-Zaidi told the court he "got emotional and threw the shoe at him" and "the second one was involuntary."

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Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki tried to block one of the shoes thrown at President Bush in December during Bush's visit to Baghdad.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) - The Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at former President George W. Bush will be tried in two weeks, a spokesman for Iraq's Higher Judicial Council judge told CNN.

Muntadhar al-Zaidi faces charges of assaulting a foreign head of state on an official visit to Iraq. The trial is scheduled to begin on February 19, the spokesman for Judge Abdul Sattar al-Beeraqdar said.

Al-Zaidi has been detained for nearly two months and his appearance in court will mark the first time he has been seen in public since his arrest.

Al-Zaidi threw both of his shoes at Bush in mid-December during a news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Baghdad. Neither shoe hit the president, and others in the room quickly knocked Al-Zaidi to the ground before security officials arrested him.

By tradition, throwing a shoe is the most insulting act in the Arab world.

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This monument to the shoe thrown at former Pres. George W. Bush was taken down one day after being unveiled in the Tikrit region of Iraq.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) - The monument commemorating the journalist who hurled his shoes at President Bush was taken down a day after it was erected, local officials in Tikrit told CNN.

A huge sculpture of the footwear hurled at President Bush last year during a trip to Iraq has been unveiled at the Tikrit Orphanage complex during a Thursday ceremony.

Assisted by kids at the home, sculptor Laith al-Amiri erected a brown replica of one of the shoes hurled last month by journalist Muntadhir al-Zaidi during a press conference in Baghdad at Bush and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

But officials from Salaheddin province told CNN that the monument was removed after a request from the central government, which has charges pending against al-Zaidi - now in an Iraqi jail.

After the request was made, Iraqi police visited the location to make sure that the shoe monument was removed.

"We will not allow anyone to use the government facilities and buildings for political motives," said Abdullah Jabara, Salaheddin deputy governor.

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Nasrallah says Bush administration worked with its Arab allies to change the realities in Gaza.

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) - Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the administration of former President George W. Bush worked with its Arab allies to try and change the "realities" in Gaza before Barack Obama took office.

In a wide-ranging speech on Thursday marking "Freedom Day" - a celebration of the release of Hezbollah prisoners from Israeli custody - Nasrallah said the Bush administration worked with its Arab allies "in order to take advantage of the short time of Bush's term and before (Barack) Obama takes office in order to change the realities" in Gaza.

There were no U.S. forces involved in the 22-day Israeli military operation in Gaza; the United States is a key supporter of Israel.

Israel launched the operation on December 27 with the stated aim of ending rocket attacks on southern Israel. Last week, both Israel and Gaza's Hamas leadership agreed to a temporary cease-fire that took effect after Israeli forces withdrew from the Palestinian territory.

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Iraqi orphans helped a sculptor create this monument to the shoe thrown at former President Bush last month during a visit to Baghdad.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) - For the war-beaten orphans of the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit, this big old shoe fits right in their hearts.

A huge sculpture of the footwear hurled at President Bush last year during a trip to Iraq has been unveiled at the Tikrit Orphanage complex during a ceremony.

Assisted by kids at the home, sculptor Laith al-Amiri erected a brown replica of one of the shoes hurled last month by journalist Muntadhir al-Zaidi during a press conference in Baghdad at Bush and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Al-Zaidi was jailed for his actions, and a trial is pending. But his angry gesture touched a defiant nerve throughout the Arab and Muslim world. He is regarded by many people as a hero and demonstrators last month took to the streets in the Arab world and called for his release.

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Former Vice President Cheney told a conservative magazine that his aide Scooter Libby, pictured on the right, should have received a pardon from former President George W. Bush.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - George Bush should have pardoned I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Dick Cheney said after stepping down as vice president this week.

"He was the victim of a serious miscarriage of justice, and I strongly believe that he deserved a presidential pardon. Obviously, I disagree with President Bush's decision," Cheney told Stephen F. Hayes of the Weekly Standard, a leading conservative Washington magazine.

Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, was convicted of obstructing a federal investigation into the revelation that Valerie Plame Wilson was a CIA agent.

He was sentenced to 30 months in prison and fined $250,000. Bush commuted the sentence, which he called "excessive," so that Libby served no jail time.

But he did not pardon Libby, much to the aggravation of many influential conservatives.

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Bush followed presidential tradition, leaving a note for his successor.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - President Barack Obama began his first full day in office with a moment of solitude in the Oval Office, reading a note from his predecessor.

Obama arrived in the Oval Office at 8:35 a.m., according to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. The president spent 10 minutes alone in the office, reading a note left for him in the desk by outgoing President George W. Bush. The note had been placed in an envelope marked "To: .44, From: .43".

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel met with the president at 8:45 a.m. to discuss the daily schedule. First lady Michelle Obama joined her husband in the Oval Office at 9:10 a.m., shortly before the first couple departed for the National Prayer Service at the Washington National Cathedral.

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Before leaving the White House to return to Texas, Former President George W. Bush left a letter on the desk in the Oval Office for his successor President Barack Obama. (Photo Credit: White House photo)

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