WASHINGTON (AP) - So how will it end?
President Bush is down to his final 100 days in office as of
Sunday. Don't expect a quiet fade into the Texas night.
The bleakest economic downturn in decades has changed the
dynamic drastically, keeping Bush and his financial team in
activist mode to the end.
While the powerful heads of the Treasury Department and the
Federal Reserve keep making radical moves, no one elected them.
Bush is the one charged with reassuring the nation that an abysmal
economic period will give way to better days, even if he is long
gone from Washington by the time that happens.
The president will keep speaking about the economy, calling
world leaders about it, meeting with business owners, perhaps
attending an overseas summit. His final act will be overseeing the
$700 billion buyout of devalued assets from banks, in hopes that
credit will start flowing to an anxious, weary country.
"It looks like I'm going to have a lot of work to do between
today and when the new president takes office," Bush said this
past week.
The scope of the credit crisis is so vast that it will likely
overshadow anything else Bush does before he leaves office on Jan.
20.
"We will stand together in addressing this threat to our
prosperity. We will do what it takes to resolve this crisis. And
the world's economy will emerge stronger as a result," the
president said Saturday in the Rose Garden after meeting with
finance ministers from the world's economic powers.
People are panicked about their retirement accounts and the
markets are reeling. Behind the daily drumbeat of bleak economic
news, Bush leaves behind a national debt that has soared from less
than $6 trillion when he took office to more than $10 trillion now.
That staggering bill will fall on future generations to pay.
Beyond the financial mess, there is a daunting list of
unfinished items for a president who has a history of making bold
promises. But hope and time are diminishing.
Before his presidency ended, Bush wanted a Mideast peace deal
built around the outlines of Palestinian state. That is unlikely.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert resigned in a corruption
scandal, negotiations stalled and the same issues that have divided
the parties for decades seem as irreconcilable as ever.
The ambitious priority of pushing an international effort to rid
North Korea of its nuclear arms has made late progress, but the
communist country has a spotty record of following through on its
pledges. After North Korea relented on nuclear inspection demands,
the U.S. on Saturday erased the North from a terrorism blacklist.
Bush's diplomats acknowledge the challenge of verifying any
claims from what one official calls "the most secret and opaque
regime in the entire world."
Perhaps most notably, the United States and Iraq still are
without an agreement governing the presence of U.S. forces after
Dec. 31, when the U.N. mandate runs out. The two sides are hung up
legal jurisdiction for U.S. troops and contractors, and a timeline
for U.S. withdrawal.
On top of that, White House staff members are devoting valuable
amounts of time to pave the way for the next president. The
transition between administrations, always a complicated endeavor,
is the first in the post-Sept. 11 world. And it comes with the U.S.
at war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bush has made clear to those who work for him that he wants a
smooth transition to the next president. In terms of the sheer time
and energy involved, Bush counselor Ed Gillespie said, "I suspect
the last 100 days are going to feel more like the first 100 days
than any of us would have hoped."
The last days of an administration can be filled with desires to
wrap up issues, if not desperation.
Michael Green, Bush's former senior adviser on Asia, said he
expects no dramatic gestures or concessions from the White House in
the pursuit of final deals. He said challenges such as the nuclear
threats in North Korea and Iran will be passed on in the best
possible position, keeping diplomatic efforts intact.
"My sense is they're not going for a last-minute grab at glory
that would put the next administration in a bad position," said
Green, an analyst for the Center for Strategic and International
Studies, a Washington think tank.
Meanwhile, just when all his clout was supposed to be gone, Bush
has earned scored some recent victories.
He signed a civil nuclear cooperation deal with India and won
approval for oil drilling off the U.S. coastlines, both of which
have lasting implications. The White House holds dim hopes that
Congress could take up trade deals with Colombia and South Korea if
it holds a lame-duck session after the election.
In what has already been his busiest year of foreign travel as
president, Bush has at least one more trip left. He plans to go to
Peru in November for the annual summit of leaders of Pacific Rim
nations.
There is always the possibility of a trip the White House never
announce in advance for security reasons, such as a final visit by
Bush to Iraq.
Bush also is expected to do a final review of pardons and
commutations. His predecessor, Bill Clinton, pardoned 140 people in
the closing hours of his presidency. Don't expect Bush to do that.
Gillespie said the president will likely make those decisions
"well in advance of leaving office."
It was not so long ago that Bush, after almost eight long years
and diminishing public approval, might have seemed on a path for a
quiet exit. But then came Russia's war with Georgia, more Gulf
Coast hurricanes and the worst financial crisis since the stock
market crash of 1929.
Now Bush is out in front of the cameras a lot, talking about
what it will take set up the financial rescue program effectively.
"There will be a desire to work every day on this bailout,
because they will want to have everything set before the next guy
comes in," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax
Reform. A conservative friend of the administration but a critic of
the taxpayer-funded $700 billion plan, Norquist said: "If you
chose to give the treasury secretary billions of dollars to play
with, why would you want to hand it over to the next guy?"
The election is in 23 days. Said Gillespie of Bush: "People
will not have any doubt that just because he's at the end of a
second term, he's not letting up at all."

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)