Memoirs of the immemorial

LGM makes this catch, from a forthcoming interview plugging Dubya's memoir:

MATT LAUER: You say you told Laura at the time it was the worst moment of your presidency?

GEORGE W. BUSH: Yes. My record was strong, I felt, when it came to race relations and giving people a chance. And it was a disgusting moment.

That worst moment being when Kanye West's saying that Bush didn't care about black people.

No, really.

As Kaufmann writes, "According to the man himself, then, Bush placed more importance on whether people perceived him to be racist than what happened to actual black people in the city of New Orleans." Q.E.D., motherfucker.

What may be most revealing about this is that 9/11 wasn't the answer. Very likely, Bush has warm memories of 9/11. It was exciting and presidential! People liked him! He was a wartime leader!

Also in the memoirs, Bush confesses to war crimes, which of course will lead to his being ... praised in the usual quarters.

The former president defends his handling of some of the most intense controversies of his presidency, acknowledging at one point that he personally approved the waterboarding, or simulated drowning, of alleged Sept. 11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a practice that the CIA has since forsworn and both President Obama and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. have described as torture barred by international law.

"Damn right," Bush said he told the CIA when they sought his permission.

Ooh. He tough. Because it takes a tough guy to order someone strapped to a board and treated like a victim of the NKVD. On this scale, Stalin was the greatest leader ever.