White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and national security adviser Steve Hadley somehow got it into their heads that insisting George W. Bush is a hands-on and pro-active leader is a wise legacy-building move.

This must be that famed strategery.

If Bush was an informed and judicious decision-maker then, the economy/Iraq/torture/Katrina/politicization of the Justice Department/you-know-the-litany are all entirely on his shoulders and not those of any aides. Well, all of that was on his shoulders anyway, but unlike most previous presidents, assigning culpability might have legal implications.

And here’s how Hadley deals with that new-found responsibility, from The Washington Post:

Hadley also gave little ground to criticism of the administration’s detention and interrogation policies, saying there is a balance to be struck between protecting the country and being transparent about what the government is doing to fight terrorism.

“I think the balance that you can strike now, after you have not been attacked for seven years, may be a little bit different than the balance that you would strike in the immediate year after the attack when you don’t know who the enemy is,” Hadley said. “You’ve got to be careful about that kind of second-guessing, because it’s hard to re-create the environment in which those decisions were made in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.”

Tell it to the judge.