"I wasn't gonna punch back because, again, I think the office of the presidency is precious."

George Bush, speaking to Rush Limbaugh — transcript, audio — consistently expressed the idea that a President should handle himself with dignity and concentrate on doing what he thinks is right:

RUSH: ... What's it like to sit in the Oval Office, or wherever you happen to be as president and believe the people are tired of you, and do you want to do anything about that?

PRESIDENT BUSH: ... [Y]ou know, sometimes if you're president and people are tired of you, you just have to soldier on....

RUSH: ... In my lifetime, I don't recall a political party ever opposing their own country at war, seeking a defeat as the Democrats were. I mean Harry Reid was out there, Mr. President, "This war is lost."

PRESIDENT BUSH: ... You can disagree with the policy, disagree with whether we should work to establish democracy in Iraq after we liberated it, but to condemn soldiers heading into mission to a lost cause is just, you know, is inexcusable, as far as I was concerned.

RUSH: Why didn't you do more about it? Why didn't you comment more about it at the time?...

PRESIDENT BUSH: ... I do believe in the institution of the presidency, and I didn't think it was right then, I still don't think it's right to engage in name-calling if you're the president of the United States. I was focused on the mission... I still feel very strongly that's the way a president ought to conduct himself.

RUSH: Well, some of the people in your administration, Karl Rove, have said in hindsight that they think -- maybe Karl is speaking for himself, certainly other people in the administration -- should have done more to defend you and the administration against these attacks....

PRESIDENT BUSH: That's right. Now, Karl feels that way. I read his book and recommend it, he'll be happy from me to hear. And, yeah, I mean Karl felt like we shoulda punched back harder. I can't remember if he was referring to I shoulda punched back harder or we shoulda punched back harder. I wasn't gonna punch back because, again, I think the office of the presidency is precious. It's an institution that needs to be strengthened and getting into a verbal mud fight with people, in my judgment, demeans the office. And so I chose not to do that....

... You know, and eventually the truth wins out, and this book is an attempt to set the record straight from my perspective.

RUSH: Is that your faith speaking, "the truth will out"?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Do I think that? Yeah, I do. 

I'm hearing the Sermon on the Mount in that: "But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also." And:

Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you....

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 2But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Obviously, the phrase "punch back harder"— which Bush introduces — is a reference to Obama, so there is an implied attack on Obama for fighting like a politician while he is President. And yet, Obama too resists defending himself as much as some people would like.

ADDED: After Bush is off the line, Rush comments:

I try to put myself in his shoes, try to imagine myself president of the United States, and in my mind, I'm doing everything I'm doing for the benefit of this country.  If it's a terror attack that I'm responding to with military policy, it's to keep the country safe.  If I'm coming up with an economic policy, Social Security reform, it is to benefit the people of this country.  And to have that maligned, be personally maligned, I could not -- if I were inclined not to sully the office and not respond to it personally, I would not silence my administration.  I would turn 'em loose.  It's too serious.  It matters too much.  I would make sure the people that voted for me understood that they had a leader, but he was hell-bent on not sullying the office of the presidency.  He told me that I can't tell you how many times, and to this day it's tough for me to understand, even now.  We've got an economy unlike any since the Great Depression.  He's being blamed for it.  The Democrat Party and the media are blaming him and he's content to let long-term history be the judge of this.  Now, I know that his faith in God is what gives him the comfort and the confidence to do this, but I would not be able to stand mute about it like he is.

"'Krush' (Karl-as-Rush) was the palest simulacrum of a Rush Limbaugh."

Writes Tunku Varadarajan about Rove's guest-hosting on yesterday's show.

Oh, but no one can step in and imitate Rush. With the exception of Mark Steyn, all of Rush's guest-hosts mostly make you think about how much better Rush is and: When is Rush coming back? (Steyn does his own thing, and it's brilliant. I prefer him to Rush.)

It would have been foolish for Rove to go all bombastic and over-confident on his first radio show, so Varadarajan's criticism is lame:

Rove, by comparison [to Rush], is a lightweight. What we learned today is that he does not have the voice for radio. By that I mean not just that his timbre is too thin, his tenor too brittle, but also that he has little oratorical or rhetorical structure, and no apparent ability to cast a spell over listeners. 

Ha. He's from Austin, Texas. He sounds like a character from the movie "Slacker." I found that charming ... disarming. Rush gets a lot of his oratorical power from his self-conception as an outsider — actively excluded from the power-elite in Washington. Rove is the opposite — so self-restraint is good.

Reading his weekly column in The Wall Street Journal, one was already aware of the modesty of his mind. In fact, his column has done much to baffle many Americans: How on earth did this man become the dark genius of the liberal imagination? Listening to him riff on the radio, one was filled with retrospective alarm: Was this the mastermind in the Bush White House?

Oh, Tunku! Do you really imagine the President, in his confidential, private conversations, listening to a Limbaugh-like blowhard overwhelming him with a big rant? Try to imagine why Rove's style works in the context in which he was highly successful. Gentleness and friendly, quiet, sound advice... is it really such a puzzle?

"Among the dozens of giant bouquets of white roses, the famous faces lit by the glow of hundreds of candles included those of..."

"... former Bush White House weasel Karl Rove; former presidential hopeful and Law & Order star Fred Thompson; former Kansas City Royals slugger George Brett; Fox News talker Sean Hannity; former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani; New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft; former Clinton White House weasel James Carville and his wife, GOP analyst Mary Matalin; and golfer Tom Watson, among others."

Aw, come on! You reused "weasel." Can't you think of some other loathsome animal?

"We have a temperamental WASP in the White House."

Writes Andrew Sullivan.

IN THE COMMENTS: I wrote:

At first I thought Sullivan's sentence was missing a word, that he was referring to the past and meant to write "We have had..." So, we used to have a "temperamental WASP" in the WH, but now we don't and people need to understand that somehow. Then I decided what he meant was "temperamental" not in the sense of moody and unpredictable, but as the adjectival form of "temperament." So, Obama has the temperament of a WASP. I guess you're allowed to have a big old stereotype about white people. And he's applying that stereotype to Obama.

John Stodder wrote:

For the record, I think Karl Rove was the first guy to compare Obama to the WASP stereotype of the sarcastic guy at the country club, leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette and making comments about everyone else at the party. I always thought that was the oddest perception, but it's turned out to be very apt.

Correct! ("He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by.")

Karl Rove says "[Bush] was set on Cheney for vice president, and I thought it was a bad idea."

So I guess he wasn't Bush's Brain.

"For about 30 to 35 minutes I laid out the reasons why he shouldn't pick Dick Cheney"...

... his age and health, [his] close association with Bush's father...

"[Bush] prodded and poked at me, and disagreed," Rove said....

"I can't be concerned with the politics of it," Rove said Bush later told him, noting he needed a "good partner," and Cheney was that man.

"It really was his first presidential decision...."

"Karl Rove (KarlRove) is now following your tweets on Twitter."

Would that enthuse you? If so, you're a nitwit — a twitwit. "Karl Rove is following 96071 people." 116120 people are following him. Be impressed if you're one of the elite 20049 who follow him without being followed. If you want to be impressed with yourself. It's not recommended. Not in the twitterverse anyway.

"He's a serial exaggerator. If I was being unkind I would say he's a liar, but it's a habit he ought to drop."

"You should not exaggerate and lie like this when you are the vice president of the United States," said Karl Rove. Funnily, the headlines say Rove called Biden a liar. And really, I guess he did... if he was being unkind.