MR. YANG: President and Mrs. Bush were remarkably relaxed and personal when I sat down with them in the Map Room here at the White House.
(Begin videotaped segment.)
MR. YANG: Despite the pressures and strains of 9/11, two wars, plummeting popularity ratings, and now the financial crisis, President and Mrs. Bush say life in the White House has brought them closer together.
PRESIDENT BUSH: No question, it's a pressure cooker here in the White House. But nevertheless, when you've got two people that love each other, the pressure tends to make you -- you know, brings you together more than not.
MRS. BUSH: It's like you're on the same team and on the same side, so any differences that you might have with each other -- and our differences are things like he doesn't hang up his towels or something -- are minimized. They really are.
MR. YANG: There have been difficult times, such as the night Mr. Bush gave the order to invade Iraq.
PRESIDENT BUSH: I remember going out to the South Lawn and walking by myself and with Spot the dog following me.
MR. YANG: By himself, but with his wife watching over him.
MRS. BUSH: It was just for me, looking out the window and seeing George walk on the grounds with Spot, and I knew what he was struggling with. And I didn't need to say anything. I mean, he knew I was here with him.
MR. YANG: Sort of living above the shop, as it were, you probably see each other more now than you had before.
MRS. BUSH: We do see each other a lot because we're so close. And I like to look out of my dressing room window and look down on the Rose Garden and over straight into the Oval Office. I'm always reminded that he's just right there, which is actually very encouraging for me.
MR. YANG: A view Barbara Bush pointed out to Hillary Clinton, who told Laura Bush, who's now told Michelle Obama.
PRESIDENT BUSH: I went up to see Laura and Michelle Obama and our girls and the Obama girls, and I was struck by how nurturing our girls were to the Obama girls and how much fun they predicted the girls will have. And it's going to happen.
MR. YANG: Now they prepare for what Mrs. Bush calls "the afterlife," in a new home in the Preston Hollow section of Dallas.
PRESIDENT BUSH: It's literally like a fellow running 100 miles an hour and going five. She's got this great idyllic vision of me kind of with the little apron.
MRS. BUSH: Yeah, exactly, with the new barbecue tools.
PRESIDENT BUSH: It says "Barney's Dad" on it, you know, flipping burgers.
MRS. BUSH: (Laughs.)
PRESIDENT BUSH: Is that what you want, me to cook burgers?
MRS. BUSH: Exactly. Exactly.