I want you to hear something interesting. I'm the first former president to be able to share the post-presidency with both my parents.

And those who served in my cabinet, some of whom honored me by flying down on the airplane today, Margaret Spellings, Secretary of Education, Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General. I wanna thank a fabulous staff of people. I was truly blessed to have people, uhh, work with me, people who came to Washington, D.C., not to serve George Bush, not to serve a political party, but they came because they wanted to serve the United States of America, and they did a fabulous job, and I be — will be forever grateful.

No matter whether you not or you agreed with my decisions or not, one thing they have to agree with, is that we have not been attacked in the last seven years.

One of the things I did was spend time meeting with the families of the fallen. I want you to know that the Comforter-in-Chief was always the person who got comforted in those meetings.

The first day I met Tony Blair, almost exactly eight years ago, he was in his second term as Prime Minister and I was just starting out. After our first meeting, a reporter asked if we'd found anything in common, and I jokingly replied that we both used Colgate toothpaste.

Uhh, through it all, it's been, uhh — I, I have, umm, respected you. Umm, sometimes didn't like the stories that you wrote or reported on. Sometimes you, umm, misunderestimated me. But, always the relationship I have felt has been professional. And, uhh, I appreciate it.

He is, uhh — you know, I've had a — my third conversation with him, and, uhh, I, I, I, I generally mean what I say, I, I — wish him all the very best. I've found him to be a very smart and engaging person.

In terms of the economy, look, I inherited a recession, I am ending on a recession.... Now, obviously these are very difficult economic times. When people analyze the situation, there will be — this problem started before my presidency, it obviously took place during my presidency. The question facing a President is not when the problem started, but what did you do about it when you recognized the problem.

And the other thing is, when I get out of here, I'm getting off the stage. I believe there ought to be, you know, one person in the klieg lights at a time, and I've had my time in the klieg lights. You know, I'm confident, you know, you'll catch me opining on occasion, but I wish him all the best. ...The stakes are high. There is an enemy that still is out there. You know, people can maybe try to write that off as, you know, he's trying to set something up. I'm telling you there's an enemy that would like to attack America, Americans, again. There just is. That's the reality of the world. And I wish him all the very best. ...I wasn't kidding when I said Wall Street got drunk and we got the hangover. And — but nevertheless, President-Elect Obama will find the problems and the situations surrounding problems sometimes cause people to have to make decisions that they, you know, weren't initially comfortable with. And there was such a decision when it came to Wall Street. I mean, I had a lot of people — when I went out to Midland that time — say, what the heck are you doing? Those people up East caused the problem. I said, I know, but if we hadn't worked to fix the problem, your situation would be worse. And — anyway, I really do wish him all the best.

There have been disappointments. Abu Gareb obviously was a huge disappointment during the presidency. Umm. Not havin' weapons of mass destruction was a significant disappointment. I don't know if you wanna call those mistakes or not, but they were — things didn't go according to plan, let's put it that way.

I've thought long and hard about Katrina — you know, could I have done something differently, like land Air Force One either in New Orleans or Baton Rouge. The problem with that and — is that law enforcement would have been pulled away from the mission. And then your questions, I suspect, would have been, how could you possibly have flown Air Force One into Baton Rouge, and police officers that were needed to expedite traffic out of New Orleans were taken off the task to look after you?

I remember the 1964 elections. My dad happened to be running for the United State Senate then and, you know, got landslided with the Johnson landslide in the state of Texas.

My view is is that, most people around the world, they respect America. And some of 'em doesn't like me, I understand that — some of the writers and the, you know, opiners and all that. That's fine. That's part of the deal.

Hamas, obviously, if they're interested in a sustainable cease-fire, needs to stop arming. And then, of course, countries contingent to the Gaza need to work to stop the smuggling. And it's a difficult — difficult task. I mean, there's tunnels and, you know, great opportunities for people who want to continue to try to disrupt democracy to provide the weapons to do so.

I believe that runnin' the Social Security idea right after the '04 elections was a mistake. I should've — should've argued for immigration reform. And the reason why is, is that — you know, one of the lessons I learned as governor of Texas, by the way, is legislative branches tend to be risk-adverse. In other words, sometimes legislatures have the tendency to ask, why should I take on a hard task when the crisis is not eminent? And, umm, the crisis was not eminent for Social Security as far as many members of Congress was concerned.