A sociopathic sort of contrition.

There's some buzz about the Preznit finally acknowledging "missteps and mistakes" in Iraq. Even a casual look at his feigned contrition quickly reveals, though, that there's no there, there…

Saying "Bring it on." Kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal to people. That I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner. You know, "Wanted dead or alive," that kind of talk.

OK, fair so far. But what was the lesson? What's the principle error? The basic dishonesty of "Mission Accomplished"? Or that "dead or alive" meant "sooner or later (maybe)." Perhaps George has finally realized that the hubris of "Bring it on" communicated a callous disregard for the lives of the troops he dispatched into harms way?

But no, it wasn't anything he said at all, was it?

I think in certain parts of the world it was misinterpreted. And so I learned -- I learned from that.

Yes, he learned. He learned it was their fault, because they just don't understand.

Of course, in the context of the tragedy that is Iraq, or any war, for that matter, George Bush's rhetorical overreach is a relatively minor concern. His blame-shifting reveals his complete lack of genuine contrition. Rather, we have another eample of of a sociopathic self-absorption that says absolutely nothing about anything that Bush has learned, or about anything he sincerely regrets.

He wasn't through, though. There's something that looms even larger than George's rhetorical excesses...

And, you know, I think the biggest mistake that's happened so far, at least from our country's involvement in Iraq, is Abu Ghraib.

That sounds like a place where the Preznit and I could find some exceedingly rare common ground. There's so much to regret, so many errors to confess, surrounding Abu Ghraib, from the lack of properly trained MP's to the assignment of NCOs with civilian records of prisoner abuse to the jailing of innocents, to the horror of the psychological and physical torture suffered by the prisoners to the evasion of responsibility by virtually the entire chain of command above the rank of Staff Sergeant. Where to begin? Oh...

We've been paying for that for a long period of time.

Ah, there it is. He regrets the price we've paid. The royal we, no doubt, because in the end, it's always all about George, and it's never his fault.

One more reason