Obama Calls Bush A 'Good Man Who Loves His Family And His Country'

January 17, 2009 10:37 a.m. EST

Miami, FL (AHN) - President-elect Barack Obama said in an interview with CNN's "The Situation Room," that he thought President George W. Bush was " a good man who loves his family and his country," and that Bush made the best decisions he could at times under some very difficult circumstances."

Obama also praised Bush for helping with a smooth transition over the last couple of months.

Despite his kind words, Obama stressed that he still has strong disagreements with many choices the Bush administration made over the last eight years.

"That does not detract from my assessment that over the last several years, we have made a series of bad choices and we are now going to be inheriting the consequences of a lot of those bad choices," Obama told CNN's John King in a Saturday interview.

Obama also told King that the $350 billion the Senate approved recently to help stimulate the economy will come with specific conditions.

"There's nothing wrong with us placing some conditions, making sure that the money's not going to executive compensation, making sure you're not seeing big dividend payoffs to shareholders and making sure that money is being left so that we can get credit flowing again, not just for individual homeowners who are losing their homes, but also small businesses who are the lifeblood of this economy," Obama told King.