Petty & Manipulative To The Very End

Believe it or not, I have been willing to give George Bush credit where it is due.

So props to him for trying to salvage his environmental legacy in the 11th hour by creating an immense Pacific Ocean refuge. And in the service of not totally dumping on The Decider, I have been skeptical of suggestions that the Obama family was not able to stay at the Blair House in the two week run-up to the inauguration because of pettiness of the White House's part.

Well, I may have been wrong. It now appears that the president-elect and his brood had to stay elsewhere because the administration used a one-night stay at Blair by former Australian PM John Howard, a chip off of the old Bush-Cheney block, as a pretext to turn down the Obamas.