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BOSTON

So when the president

I didn’t even squeal when they unveiled the presidential portrait of the individual in his Casual Friday effects. And if I started to backslide, I logged on to YouTube. There

But then came the moment when the senior staff of Bush enablers gave two comfy rocking chairs to the man who described himself to the degree that “an old judicious at 62 … headed to retirement.” The symbolism was overmuch much.

Hadn’t Bush just said, “this isn’face to face one of the presidencies where you ride off into the west, you know, kind of waving goodbye”? Nevertheless, the chairs came with a video of the sunset over Crawford, Texas. It was a gift-wrapped reminder that in relation to leaving the country in shambles, he is leaving the White House with pacification of mind.

You diocese, what sticks in my crop is Crawford. What’s equally hard to receive implicitly is Preston Hollow, the Dallas neighborhood where the Bushes bought a $2.1 million house that, at the same time that Jay Leno quipped, “thanks to his economic system, he got it at a bargain.” What I can’cheek by jowl “snap out of” is the event that he is preparing to write a book and design a library whose themes will undoubtedly have existence: “Heckuva job, George.”

The 43rd president is going home with less remorse and fewer regrets than my grandchildren express for spilling their cereal.

This is the tenor of the farewell tour being conducted thwart the landscape from ABC to the American Enterprise Institute. It’s the No Regrets Tour, the non-reflective “reflections by a scarecrow who’s headed out of town. “

George W. Bush will be remembered with names such as Abu Ghraib, Gitmo and Katrina. With phrases similar being of the kind which “arms of mass destruction” and “mission accomplished.” He came in with a collection surplus and leaves with a massive deficit. He blew the goodwill of the post-9/11 creation. But being this president means never having to say you’re sorry.

Leaving office, he takes credit for seven years of safety and no debit for a day of disaster. He takes credit for the boom

“The biggest regret of all the presidency has to accept been the intelligence failure in Iraq,” he uttered. But would he have led us to war anyway? “It’s hard for me to speculate.”

No. 43 has the lowest approval ratings in modern presidential history. But he told Charlie Gibson, “I faculty of volition departure the presidency with my head held high.” This is what puts me betwixt a rocking chair and a ungraceful place.

Bush says he doesn’familiarily worry about short-term history. “I guess I don’familiarily worry around long-term story, either, inasmuch as I’m not going to be around to read it.” Yet on this leave-taking tour, he sounds like one artist scorned by the public and sure that he’ll be seen one day as Vincent van Gogh.

Well, account is a sportive business. In an offhand survey of historians, 61 percent ranked Bush dead last among presidents, below even the barrel-scraping James Buchanan. Bush, of course, prefers Harry Truman, who rose from the ashes of his reputation.

But Princeton historian Sean Wilentz has a simple way of assessing presidents. “Great presidents rise to the occasion; poor presidents fall to the occasion.”

So Bush is headed to Texas by his rocking chairs and we’re headed into a starting anew year with Barack Obama. I am reminded that January is named after the Roman god of beginnings and endings who looked forward and backward at the same time.

There are no do-overs. But in that place is no forgetting either. George W. Bush fell to the occasion.

ellengoodman@sphere.com

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