Eight years in White House enough, Bush’s wife says

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Eight years in the White House is
enough and it is right to limit presidents to a pair of
four-year terms, first lady Laura Bush said on Friday.

“I think that’s plenty. Eight years is a long time,”
President George W. Bush’s wife told the BBC in an interview,
on the anniversary of Bush’s second inauguration. A
constitutional amendment ratified in 1951 limits U.S.
presidents to two terms in office.

Mrs. Bush also agreed with her interviewer it was
dispiriting to see al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden resurface in
an audiotape this week. She said she worried about her husband
on his travels.

“I worry about him, of course. I don’t think there’s anyone
who’s been married to a president that doesn’t worry a little
bit,” she said.

Mrs. Bush, who has said on several occasions that Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice would make a great president, said in
the interview she did not now believe Rice would run.

“I think Condi’s fully decided she’s not going to run. In
fact, every time I endorse her, she probably gets a lot of
letters from people who are ‘Condinistas,’ as they call them.
So she’s going to make me start answering those letters,
probably,” Mrs. Bush said.

Bush on Thursday ruled out his wife running for a Senate
seat from their home state of Texas. “Never,” he told a crowd.

Mrs. Bush strayed only a little bit from that position. “It
is unlikely, absolutely unlikely,” she said.

She said the presidency had been about what she expected
and that she had seen Bush’s parents experience the weight of
the job when Bush’s father was president.

As for divisions within the country over the Iraq war, she
acknowledged that “many people are very, very sincerely
anti-war” while adding: “Everyone is anti-war. The president is
anti-war. No one wants war. But no one wanted what happened on
September 11 either,” she said.