George W. Bush's candid 'Today' sitdown: First reactions

On &quot;The Today Show,&quot; George W. Bush says his decision to stop drinking changed his life.

(Image credit: Screen shot/ today.com)

last updated 8 January 2015

The video: This morning, "The Today Show" aired excerpts from Matt Lauer's exclusive interview with George W. Bush, timed to coincide with former president's imminent memoir, Decision Points. (View clips below.) Bush discusses how his decision not to pardon Scooter Libby (the aide at the center of the Valerie Plame scandal) strained his friendship with Dick Cheney to a near-breaking point, and talks about the transformative power of sobriety, telling Lauer "I'm convinced that... had I not quit drinking, I wouldn't be sitting here as a former president."

The reaction: We already knew Cheney was upset about the Libby non-pardon, says FireDogLake. "It would have been nice" if Lauer had pushed further and asked Bush whether he made that decision so that "Libby won't ever reveal Bush's own role in exposing Valerie Plame's identity." As for Bush's comments on sobriety, says Stanton Peel at Psychology Today, his claim to be a habitual tippler, but not a "knee-walkin' drunk", will set off alarm bells for 12 steppers everywhere: "There is no such thing as being only a partial drunk." Is Bush "still in denial"? Watch excerpts from the interview: