Eight years in White House enough - Bush's wife
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-01-21 09:11

Eight years in the White House is enough and it is right to limit presidents to a pair of four-year terms, first lady Laura Bush said on Friday.

U.S. President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush walk toward Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington January 20, 2006. [Reuters]

"I think that's plenty. Eight years is a long time," President George W. Bush's wife told the BBC in an interview, on the anniversary of Bush's second inauguration. A constitutional amendment ratified in 1951 limits U.S. presidents to two terms in office.

Mrs. Bush also agreed with her interviewer it was dispiriting to see al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden resurface in an audiotape this week. She said she worried about her husband on his travels.

"I worry about him, of course. I don't think there's anyone who's been married to a president that doesn't worry a little bit," she said.

Mrs. Bush, who has said on several occasions that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would make a great president, said in the interview she did not now believe Rice would run.

"I think Condi's fully decided she's not going to run. In fact, every time I endorse her, she probably gets a lot of letters from people who are 'Condinistas,' as they call them. So she's going to make me start answering those letters, probably," Mrs. Bush said.

Bush on Thursday ruled out his wife running for a Senate seat from their home state of Texas. "Never," he told a crowd.

Mrs. Bush strayed only a little bit from that position. "It is unlikely, absolutely unlikely," she said.

She said the presidency had been about what she expected and that she had seen Bush's parents experience the weight of the job when Bush's father was president.

As for divisions within the country over the Iraq war, she acknowledged that "many people are very, very sincerely anti-war" while adding: "Everyone is anti-war. The president is anti-war. No one wants war. But no one wanted what happened on September 11 either," she said.