I don’t miss him in the sense that I wish he were still president. If he were, we might be at war with Iran and North Korea by now, and perhaps Portugal. Neither do I miss the endless debates over waterboarding and the Iraq war – bad memories that have returned to the news as Bush has re-emerged into public view this week to launch his book.

Rather, I miss him because in the end he was willing to toss aside his ideological orthodoxy when the national interest required it – a trait conspicuously absent among his fellow conservatives these last two years…

By Tea Party doctrine, that’s heresy. But Bush, in “Decision Points,” doesn’t back off at all from his defense of the auto industry rescue and the federal ownership of financial companies – even though those positions today would make him a pariah in his own party.