but I appreciate that Bush can admit to his failings.

2004 seems like it is bucking to be the year of "wardrobe malfunctions" -- of deep, insincere, inadequate regret for "what happened out there". Not much mention of being sorry "for what I did". It's all 3rd person regret --- must have been cosmic rays, foreign object damage or a glitch or something.

I don't see Bush's grotesque monkeyshines as admitting to his failings in any serious way. If he had any sense of his responsibility for the thousands of deaths and maimings trailing in the wake of his deception or fuzzy-headed WMD delusion, I can not see how he could make light in this way. Rather, I think we have somebody who thinks "Well, shucks, things are going pretty OK for George and my buds. This is just one small thing". I think it was Lewis Lapham who insightfully painted an hyperbolic picture of Bush, having just burned down his prep school dormitory with a prank gone awry, offering a contrite half smile to the headmaster as the headmaster delivers an obligatory verbal spanking. George waits patiently for the tirade to conclude. George can afford a half smile. He knows he's not getting expelled. His Dad is the school's biggest donor.

So George promises not to ever burn down the dormitory again. And he can afford a few jokes about the dormitory with his buddies. "I mean, what's a little dormitory? Everything else is going peachy."