Poor W.  It's almost painful seeing him come to the realization that he's been taken for a ride. All these years he thought he was The Decider.  Turns out he was just a patsy.

Not surprisingly, the New York Times reports, "White House Views on Past 8 Years Diverge."

Mr. Bush defends his decisions as necessary to keep the nation safe, yet sounds reflective, even chastened.... Mr. Cheney, by contrast, is unbowed, defiant to the end.

Cheney, of course, wants us all to know, if we didn't already, beyond any shadow of doubt, that he was the one in the driver's seat all along.  In a series of incendiary exit interviews he has admitted to an explicit role in the Vallery Plame leak, and personally authorized waterboarding.  It was his crew that made foreign policy after 9/11, and it was his people that profited from the dirty little wars they started.

Cheney told The Washington Times: “I feel very good about what we did.  If I was faced with those circumstances again, I’d do exactly the same thing.”

Was there really ever any doubt?