Has Bush Given Up on Immigration?

But he did say some surprising things about Russia. In a separate story, Holland reports: "President George W. Bush said on Monday a lot of tensions exist between the West and Russia and voiced skepticism about Russia's path to democracy under President Vladimir Putin. . . .

"Bush said he still is close to Putin personally but said 'it's a very complex relationship' between the U.S. and Russian governments.

"'He thinks they've got a democracy emerging there in Russia. Obviously there's a lot of suspicion about that, and I look forward to continuing to talk to him as to why he thinks his country is on the path to democracy. It looks like at times it's not to me,' he said."

More from the interview transcript: "It looks like some of the decisions he has made aren't leading the country to democracy. He, on the other hand, says it's a special kind of democracy that we in the West don't understand, and therefore I'd be willing to listen more about why he thinks that what he's doing is democratic in nature. But, yes, it's -- there's some positives and some negatives. Some positives in Russia is there's a middle class beginning to develop that is gaining purchasing power, which will help their economy.

"Obviously, some of the negatives are the different changes of rule of law, the diminution of a free press; just some of the decisions he's made have sent mixed signals to the West and mixed signals to me."

Reuters also reports Bush "said on Monday that extremists trying to topple Lebanon's government 'need to be reined in.' . . .

"Bush, deeply distrustful of Syria's role in Lebanon, stopped short of accusing Damascus of being involved in the conflict. Syria has denied accusations that it had links to the Fatah al-Islam group battling the Lebanese army.

"'I don't know about this particular incident. I'll be guarded on making accusations until I get better information, but I will tell you there's no doubt that Syria was deeply involved in Lebanon. There's no question they're still involved in Lebanon,' he said."

And Reuters also reports Bush "said on Monday he wants an American to succeed Paul Wolfowitz as president of the World Bank, playing down speculation he might turn to departing British Prime Minister Tony Blair for the job."

Bush's Legacy

Bush told Holland that "if you're doing big things, it takes a while for history to be able to fully analyze your presidency. There's no such thing as accurate short-term history of a President."

Yet that didn't stop him from offering thoughts of his own on his legacy: "I hope it is that George Bush fought the war, he laid out a strategy for America and her allies to ultimately defeat these ideologues; he recognized the nature of the enemy, he spoke clearly about the nature of the enemy; he went on the offense in order to protect his own country; he put in place a variety of measures to help deal with this threat, and he had great faith in the capacity of liberty to ultimately conquer this ideology."

Nonresponsive

It's exchanges like this that show how averse Bush is to actually engaging the arguments of his critics.