Unbelievable -- well, not really

Now we know. Having finished his book about his presidency, and waiting until after the election to release it, George Bush perhaps was giving a teaser-preview this week.

Speaking to a trade conference in Chicago, he said the following:

"I would like to be remembered as a guy who had a set of priorities, and was willing to live by those priorities. In terms of accomplishments, my biggest accomplishment is that I kept the country safe amidst a real danger."

Well, yes, we didn't have another 9/11 -- but then one could argue that 9/11 did actually happen on his watch, with evidence that he and his advisers ignored clear warnings in August that an attack was highly likely. And his policies and failures seriously eroded our security worldwide.

As to his biggest failure?

Not privatizing social security.

That's what he really thinks, huh? His biggest failure was not that he allowed the financial system to implode, leading to the biggest failure in 75 years, or that he bungled the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from the start, but that he failed to privatize social security -- he failed to jeopardize seniors' life savings to the volatility of the financial markets. We can only cringe in horror at the thought: suppose he had succeeded and our seniors' lost everything like so many private investors did?

No wonder we were left in a mess for Obama to deal with. This was the thinking of his predecessor -- and Dubya apparently learned nothing, has no second thoughts.

Ralph