Bush woos Democrats

last updated 8 January 2015

Williamsburg, Va.

For the first time since 2001, President Bush last week addressed the House Democrats’ annual retreat in Williamsburg. Calling himself “the head of the Republic Party”—a joking reference to his habit of dropping the “ic” from the Democratic Party’s official name—Bush asked the House majority to help him put Medicare and Social Security on a sound financial footing. He also talked up his plan to send 21,500 additional troops to Iraq, and acknowledged the war was “sapping our souls.”