REPORTER: Mr. President, you maybe saw that your former colleague from the National Governors Association, Mike Huckabee —
DUBYA: You're trying to get me in the race, Mike.
REPORTER: No, sir.
DUBYA: You're tryin' — you're tryin' to drag me in the race. I know — what's your advice? Should I do it?
REPORTER: Do it.
DUBYA: Go do it?
REPORTER: Go for it.
DUBYA: I plan on havin' some press conferences next year, and I suspect next year the questions will be even more plentiful about getting me to be the, uhh, Opiner-in-Chief. Yeah, go ahead, Mike.

It's what I do during my presidency. I go around spreading good will and talking about the importance of spreading freedom and peace.

I spoke to President Musharraf right before I came over here to visit with President Sarkozy. And my message was that we believe strongly in elections, and that you ought to have elections soon, and you need to take off your uniform. You can't be the President and the head of the military at the same time.

One of the things in a complex environment like the presidency is you got to surround your people — surround the President, or surround myself with people whose judgment you trust. And I listen to my cabinet secretaries, and I bring them in the Oval Office. They've got access to me. They've got to be able to come in and say, here's what I believe. The temptation of politics is for somebody to walk in when you're not looking so good — and walk in the Oval Office and say, man, you're looking beautiful — when you're not. You got to have cabinet secretaries who can walk in and say, here's what's on my mind. And I bet you if I ask [Transportation Secretary] Mary [Peters] and she gives me the reason why she's for it, I bet you I support it.

My job is a decision-making job. And as a result, I make a lot of decisions.

Now, I will tell you that there's an interesting relationship between the President and the Congress. The President has got the right to initiate spending bills — and they do.

REPORTER: You spoke very soberly and seriously in your statement about how you weighed different legal questions in coming to your decision on that commutation. But one issue that you did not address was the issue of the morality of your most senior advisors leaking the name of a confidential intelligence operator. Now that the case is over — it's not something you've ever spoken to — can you say whether you're at all disappointed in the behavior of those senior advisors? And have you communicated that disappointment to them in any way?
DUBYA: Michael, I — first of all, the Scooter Libby decision was, I thought, a fair and balanced decision. Secondly, I haven't spent a lot of time talking about the testimony that people throughout my administration were forced to give as a result of the special prosecutor. I didn't ask them during the time and I haven't asked them since. I'm aware of the fact that perhaps somebody in the administration did disclose the name of that person, and I've often thought about what would have happened had that person come forth and said, I did it. Would we have had this, you know, endless hours of investigation and a lot of money being spent on this matter? But it's been a tough issue for a lot of people in the White House, and it's run its course and now we're going to move on.

I'm sure most people here in South America don't understand the United States has doubled our bilateral aid to countries in Central and South America since I've been the President. It's gone from $800 million to $1.6 billion last year. And I say that not to just brag about dollars, but it's a starting point for people to understand this nation is committed to this prospect: A prosperous neighborhood is in the interests of the United States. A peaceful neighborhood is in our interests.