President George W. Bush on Wednesday put a brave face on the US elections, ruefully taking blame for the 'thumping' his Republicans took but saving one of his sharpest barbs for his political guru.
After a strained start, Bush struck a relaxed, reflective and wry tone though most of a 44-minute White House press conference one day after weathering what was arguably the worst defeat of his political life.
"I thought we were going to do fine yesterday. Shows what I know. But I thought we were going to be fine in the election," Bush shrugged. "Goes to show I should not try punditry."
Bush offered a colourful campaign post-mortem, telling reporters: "If you look at race by race, it was close. The cumulative effect, however, was not too close. It was a thumping."
"I'm obviously disappointed with the outcome of the election and, as the head of the Republican Party, I share a large part of the responsibility," said the president, now officially a less influential "lame duck" leader in the last two years of his mandate.
Bush drew gales of laughter when asked who was winning his book-reading contest with his long-time political strategist Karl Rove and he replied: "I'm losing. I obviously was working harder on the campaign than he was."
"He's a faster reader," the president added quickly. Rove, the architect of his White House race victories in 2000 and 2004, did not crack a smile.
Bush repudiated his own campaign attacks on opposition Democrats as content to let terrorists attack the United States, and signalled that he did not bear any grudges against those who called him "incompetent" or "dangerous."
"This isn't my first rodeo," he said. "I understand when campaigns end and I know when governing begins, and I'm going to work with people of both parties."
That observation came days after Bush whipped Republican faithful into a pre-election frenzy with charges that "terrorists win and America loses" if Democrats win the US Congress and accusations that Democrats were not as interested in preventing terrorist attacks on the United States as he was.
"People say unfortunate things at times. But if you hold grudges in this line of work, you're never going to get anything done. And my intention is to get some things done," he said.
"They care about the security of this country like I do," said Bush. "No leader in Washington is going to walk away from protecting the country. We have different views on how to do that, but their spirit is such that they want to protect America. That's what I believe."
Perhaps the tensest exchange came when one reporter rephrased his campaign-trail attacks to mean that Democrats would be "about being happy that America gets attacked before responding" -- visibly angering Bush.
"No, I didn't say, 'happy,'" said Bush, who curtly cut off the reporter's efforts to follow up and moved on to the next question.
In his opening statement, the president also played off his frequent stump speech charge that overconfident Democrats were already measuring their new congressional offices and planning how to decorate them.
Referring to all-but-anointed Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Bush quipped: "In my first act of bipartisan outreach since the election, I shared with her the names of some Republican interior decorators who can help her pick out the new drapes in her new offices."