George Bush showed incredible grace in how he left office. He set the standard for turning over the presidency to a new person. I read that the Bushes, last summer, began moving belongings to Texas to eliminate the spectacle of moving vans backing up to the White House as new moving vans arrived. All they had left was suitcases, basically.

Bush took some shots during Obama’s speech, but afterwards, showed only cordiality and respect for his successor.

The transition is something Bush could control.

He gets a lot of blame for Katrina, but only deserves some; the local and state governments in Louisiana deserve the lion’s share of the blame.

The economic collapse–I’m not sure who to blame for that, though we always want to assign blame to someone. The whole “American way of life” perhaps deserves the blame there, for our greed, lack of discipline, lax regulation, and spirit of “I want it all now.” So, though the collapse happened on Bush’s watch, and his policies contributed to it, this thing was a long time coming, and circumstances beyond our borders contributed mightily to it.

But Bush could control the transition. And what we saw was extraordinary class.

As opposed to the left-wing nuts who lined the route with “Arrest Bush” signs. On Morning Joe this morning, Mike Barnacle said, “The left doesn’t do graciousness well.” That was really an interesting observation.

(But lest you mistake me: there are still plenty of things for which George Bush deserves blame. And he did, indeed, occupy the office where the buck stops.)