George W. Bush the wise and somber presidential veteran.

Spare me. But as Bush prepares to leave office, he's trying to strike that sort of tone. I suppose it's easier to pontificate about the office of the presidency than to say, "Boy, did I screw up, I'm outta here." So at a press conference on Monday morning--probably his final as president--Bush discussed the burdens of presidential leadership and noted there will come a moment next Tuesday when Barack Obama, after taking the oath of office and watching the parade, settles into the Oval Office and says to himself, "Oh, my." (Maybe he will add, "Is this my beautiful house?")

But being president is really not that bad, Bush said. According to Fox News, he remarked: "Disappointments will be clearly a minority irritant." (Was that a Freudian slip? Or just another Bushism? According to the official transcript of the press conference, Bush actually said, "minor irritant.")

But the most surprising (I suppose) element of his non-mea-culpa is his insistence that he is unpopular because he did the right thing. For instance, he said that it would have been wrong for him to back the Kyoto global warming treaty just to be popular. Of course. But that doesn't mean trashing it was the correct thing to do. Bush seems to believe that popular disgust with some of his actions is a signal that he made the hard and right choice. See Iraq.

On Fox News Sunday, Bush had this telling exchange with Brit Hume: