Going...Going...

Mr. Bush enjoyed a high approval rating of 90 percent -- the highest of any president -- following the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

Mr. Bush edged out his father for that highest rating. George H.W. Bush received an 88 percent approval rating in 1991 amid the success of the first Gulf War.

  CBS

We do love our wars.

President Bush will leave office as one of the most unpopular departing presidents in history, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll showing Mr. Bush's final approval rating at 22 percent.

Seventy-three percent say they disapprove of the way Mr. Bush has handled his job as president over the last eight years.

Mr. Bush's final approval rating is the lowest final rating for an outgoing president since Gallup began asking about presidential approval more than 70 years ago.

Down from Harry Truman’s record of 32 percent approval.

Good thing he doesn’t care about polls.

Rice was greeted by thunderous applause as she appeared in the building's C Street lobby to thank the staff in optimistic oratory that echoed President George W. Bush's 2005 Inauguration speech in which he said he would fight for freedom in every nation with the "ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."

Rice said her own story — the first black woman to serve as secretary of state — showed how far the United States has come in making its ethnic, religious and racial diversity a catalyst for social progress.

  TPM

And she herself has been so active in her lifetime in the cause of social progress and racial diversity, so we know how important that is to her. Feeling the need to funnel some of that "first black American" - how far we've come feeling sweeping the nation toward yourself, Condi?

MR. LEHRER: The president has also said that he made some mistakes in the last eight years. Did you make any?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, make mistakes - I can think of places where I underestimated things. For example, talking about Iraq, the extent of which the Iraqi population had been beaten down by Saddam Hussein was greater than I anticipated.

[...]

MR. LEHRER: One more general scope here, Mr. Vice President. What do you make of a current suggestion that you have been in fact the most powerful vice president in history, but in one of the most failed presidencies in history?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: I don't buy that.
MR. LEHRER: You don't buy that?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: No, I think the argument that this is a failed presidency is just dead wrong. I think we'll hear that from some of our critics, but when I look back at what we've been able to do - we dealt with big issues.

[...]

We ended up inheriting a situation that has been very challenging, but we've been very successful at it. And when you look at what we've been able to do, both in terms of our activities overseas as well as our operations that allowed us to block any further attack against the United States here at home, I think those are great successes and I think there aren't many administrations that can point to successes on that scale.

[...]

MR. LEHRER: So it doesn't trouble you at all to be leaving office next week with the overwhelming disapproval of the majority of the people, as measured by the polls? It doesn't bother you, personally?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: I don't buy that.

  PBS

I was expecting, “So what?”

MR. LEHRER: Some people have suggested back to the changed Dick Cheney thing was that the four heart attacks, the bypasses et cetera also had an effect on you, personally, at some level. Do you buy that?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. Jim, I had my first heart attack before I ever ran for office. I was 37 years old in 1978 - a candidate for Congress, as a matter of fact - in the middle of it. My entire time in elected office, over the last, what, 30 years now, has been after the onset of coronary artery disease. Whatever effect it was going to have, it had before that first election. So I just don't buy that. I mean, people are - want to go out and analyze and you live with it.
MR. LEHRER: Oh, sure.
VICE PRES. CHENEY: You've had a very active career since the onset of coronary artery disease. The technology is amazing; the doctors are fantastic. They've stayed ahead of the disease, from my standpoint. I'm not 68 - soon to be 68 years old.
And I've been extraordinarily fortunate that I've been able to go live a very active, stressful life. And I don't believe that my heart disease changed me for the worst.

No, Dick, I don’t believe that, either. You began that way.

MR. LEHRER: Finally, did you enjoy being vice president of the United States?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: I loved it. It's been a great job. It's been, obviously, a tremendous challenge. I'd spent 25 years in government when I left the Defense Department back in '93, decided I'd go spend the rest of my career in the private sector, and then the president tapped me to come be his running mate.

Well, not exactly. Dick tapped himself. But….

So what?