Mr.Bush sends his regrets

I saw yesterday the bloviators on Fox were whining that President Obama wasn't sharing the glory with Bush for the killing of bin Laden by inviting him to the Ground Zero event tomorrow. As it turns out, Obama did invite his predecessor to share the limelight but Mr. Bush sent his regrets. The official statement said Bush prefers to avoid the public stage post-presidency and certainly, that's been true enough. We've seen little of him and he hasn't engaged in the sort of Obama bashing that many of the former Bush administration cronies *cough* Cheney *cough* have delighted in.

Of course, many of us feel like Bush deserves more blame than glory, but inviting him was the correct and gracious to do. And while I suspect a big part of the reason Bush declined was he knew he would look very small standing next to the man who actually got bin Laden, it was gracious of him to leave the moment to President Obama alone.

In related news, Nancy Pelosi also showed her graciousness this week:

"House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said she called former President George W. Bush on Tuesday to congratulate him on the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden."


“'I wanted him to know the appreciation that many of us have in a bipartisan way ... that his role was important,' she said."

Admit I choked a little bit on that line, but -- classy. This is what it looks like when politicians act like adults. The GOPers on Capitol Hill could take a lesson from this, but they probably won't.

[Thanks to The Week for kindly linking in.]