In his final days, the 43rd President is not talking Nixon-like to the pictures of his predecessors on the White House walls. But he seems to be wandering the corridors searching for a legacy while simultaneously burnishing his failures to give them at least a thin patina of success. Maybe that’s why the Obamas can’t move into Blair House—because 43 is crossing the street at night to look for lost legacies.

Bush’s audience is not the present. A super-majority of Americans disdain his performance and can’t wait for the curtain to descend. His fellow partisans largely blame or even scorn him. A generation of proud “Reagan Republicans” will not be succeeded by even a few years’ worth of self proclaimed “Bush Republicans.”

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