Bush Confirms He's Worst President Ever

No matter how many press conferences he holds, or how many times he decides to 'address the nation' over the next eight days it won't erase the fact that George W. Bush will go down in history as our worst president EVER.

He took a budget surplus and turned it into the biggest deficit in our nation's history.

He took his eye off the ball, which resulted in the country suffering a major terrorist attack on September 11.

He then took his eye off the ball AGAIN and lied to the nation to take us to war with Iraq.

He poisoned our water and polluted the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.

He was slow to respond to the Katrina disaster, costing many their lives.

And on his watch we have fallen into a near-depression level economy.

For maybe the first time in his presidency, Bush did admit to a few mistakes:

A wistful and introspective President Bush devoted a valedictory news conference yesterday to a robust defense of his "good, strong record," going further than he has gone before in conceding errors -- but making it clear that he has few major regrets about his handling of Iraq, Hurricane Katrina and the other major events of his eight years in office.

The tone of the news conference -- the "ultimate exit interview," as Bush jokingly called it -- was in keeping with a stream of recent speeches and interviews that appeared to be aimed at spinning his record setting the record straight after years of relentless pounding from critics in the media, the Democratic Party and elsewhere. But Bush, seemingly freed to speak his mind as his tenure draws to a close, offered a bit more nuance and soul-searching than he usually does in such settings, pounding the lectern for emphasis at certain points and bantering with some of the reporters with whom he has sparred.

He has no shame ...

Asked about mistakes he had made while in office -- a question that once famously stumped him -- Bush rattled off several examples, saying that he regretted his decision to focus on Social Security reform after the 2004 elections, a drive that proved unsuccessful, instead of first addressing immigration issues.

Bush also said hanging a "Mission Accomplished" sign on an aircraft carrier after the toppling of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003 was a "mistake." He described the scandal surrounding the treatment of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq as a "huge disappointment," as he did the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in that country, which the administration had claimed, based on faulty intelligence.

But there were limits to Bush's contrition. "I have thought long and hard about Katrina," Bush told reporters gathered in the White House briefing room for his 47th full-scale news conference. "You know, could I have done something differently, like land Air Force One either in New Orleans or Baton Rouge?"

Bush's answer suggested that he would not have done much different in responding to a crisis that even some of his former aides said damaged his standing with the American people. (The White House itself criticized the response in a report in February 2006.) Asked later about what more should be done to help New Orleans, the president circled back to rebut the idea that the initial federal response to the natural disaster was slow.

Good grief ...

Throughout the 47-minute session, the president's fundamental point was that he had done the best he could under trying circumstances -- two wars, a natural disaster and the biggest economic calamity since the Great Depression [all of which he caused] -- and that history will be the final judge. "I don't think you can possibly get the full breadth of an administration until time has passed," Bush said at one point.

And when history gets a look at THIS administration we can all expect to receive a "we're so sorry you had to live through this" card in the mail!