Bush held his last presser yesterday. I missed it live but Creature posted a video with the highlights. CNN reports Bush admitted to some mistakes. This was the most important one in his mind.
"Clearly putting a 'Mission Accomplished' (banner) on an aircraft carrier was a mistake," Bush said. "It sent the wrong message."
Only because it became the internationally recognized shorthand for epic fail and will likely remain the longest running joke to the end of time. Bush is also sorry for some of the other dumb stuff he said. He didn't elaborate, but "bring 'em on" springs immediately to mind. Further, in retrospect he thinks he should have squandered his political capital on pushing immigration reform instead of trying to destroy Social Security.
Ignoring Katrina was not a mistake in his mind. He distills it down to how awfully distracting it would have been if he had toured the devastation personally. He's probably right about that, but apparently fails to grasp the difference between making a personal appearance and ignoring it altogether while being photographed at fundraisers strumming the guitar.
Also not a mistake was authorizing torture. In fact, he brags about it.
They, and by they I suppose he means himself, Cheney and their closest sycophants, may believe they tortured a lot of "actionable intelligence" out of Mr. Mastermind, but the consensus of those who were involved deems the information to have been useless. I'd also think that we'll never be able to hold the man to account because the evidence is tainted by torture. But I don't suppose Bush will ever torture his 'beautiful mind' with that reality.
(Cross-posted at The Impolitic.)
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