Seeya Later, Decisionator

I've got a new piece up at The Guardian's Comment is free, "Goodnight Bush," about Bush's presser this morning and saying goodbye to an era:

It's a weird habit that Bush has, when questioned about his legacy or the mistakes he and his administration may have made, to be simultaneously both tenaciously defensive of his decision-making and also talk about catastrophes and disasters and failures as things that just sort of magically happened – to the country, to him – without any sense that his role was to influence whether these things happened in the first place, no less to plan for their possibility. Even after eight years, after 9/11 and the impact of Katrina and the economic crisis, he still regards the presidency as a primarily reactive, rather than a proactive, position.

And he mightily defends his reactions – though he did allow this morning that maybe there were a few minor hiccups along the way: "Clearly, putting a 'mission accomplished' on [an] aircraft carrier was a mistake. It sent the wrong message. We were trying to say something differently, but, nevertheless, it conveyed a different message. ... I've thought long and hard about Katrina; you know, could I have done something differently, like land Air Force One either in New Orleans or Baton Rouge."

Rarely is the question asked, is our presidents learning? I believe the answer is: Not really.

Read the whole thing here.