Jan. 9 (Bloomberg) -- There they stood, a breathing Mount Rushmore, or perhaps just the ghosts of Inaugurals past, present and to come.

The three-person former presidents’ club came to the Oval Office at the invitation of its soon-to-be-member, President George W. Bush, and show unity in a time of crisis. The gathering looked more awkward than convivial. Jimmy Carter stood off to the side. Bill Clinton, ready as ever to fill any silence, extolled the virtues of the yellow rug beneath their feet.

Bush has tried to have a gracious transition, which is why it’s hard to understand why he refused to grant a small request by Barack Obama and his wife to check in a few days early at Blair House, the 119-room complex within the security perimeter of the White House, so their girls could start school.

The State Department had no planned visits from foreign heads of state. There are more than 100 other ceremonial rooms, should there be receptions. And there was only one overnight guest, a former -- yes, former -- prime minister of Australia, John Howard, attending a one-hour event at the White House.

Howard wouldn’t have had to move to the Embassy Suites but to the Aussie Embassy, at worst. Surely he wouldn’t have minded making room for the president-elect. There would have been no need to share a bath. Blair House has 35.

If not for the Obamas, Bush could have said yes for the sake of the taxpayers. The middle of Washington is in gridlock as the Secret Service has built a bunker around the hotel the Obamas moved into at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars in security.

Legacy Project

Bush might have been too preoccupied making an omelet out of the eggs broken during his eight years to calculate the consequences of closing Blair House. He’s embarked on a massive legacy project, displayed on a White House Web site in a 52-page book called “Highlights of Accomplishments and Results.”

Each chapter ends with a box of factoids headed “Did You Know?” and the book lists his top 100 achievements. It pictures Bush atop the pile of rubble at Ground Zero with a bullhorn. There’s no picture of him in a flight suit aboard the aircraft carrier with the banner “Mission Accomplished.”

Bush has given more exit interviews than any president in memory. If only he’d given as much thought to his exit strategy for Iraq. He told ABC television he deeply regretted U.S. intelligence failures, without mentioning he had sent his vice president to camp out at CIA headquarters until the professionals packaged the intel the way he wanted it.

‘Slam Dunk’ Tenet

He doesn’t explain why former CIA Director George “Slam Dunk” Tenet deserved the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Asked in another interview, “Which moments from the last eight years do you revisit most often?” he brought up “the compassion, love and determination of the families to make sure that the commander-in-chief hears their stories and knows their pride.”

Then he launched into a passionate description of another moment: “I think about throwing out that pitch at the World Series in 2001. My heart was racing when I got to the mound. Didn’t want to bounce it. Didn’t want to let the fans down,” he said. “I never felt that anxious any other time during my presidency, curiously enough.”

That’s more than curious. It’s painful that he puts himself at the center of the families’ grieving and that he felt more nervous on the pitcher’s mound than in the situation room starting a war.

‘Free Society’

The legacy project can put a gloss on any event, just as flying footwear from an Arab journalist is a symbol of the “free society” he created in Iraq, and Hamas is another pillar in his crusade to spread democracy.

The Taliban in Afghanistan are stronger under a corrupt, opium-soaked government, and no telling what will happen when the troops are withdrawn from Iraq. But it’s all part of the success described with phrases like “Established the Freedom Agenda to Spread Hope Through Liberty” and “Set a Bright Course for America’s Future.”

With glasses that rose-colored, you realize how Bush could see bodies floating in the streets of New Orleans and proclaim that his disaster chief was doing a heckuva job. And how his mother, visiting a shelter in Houston, said those with one black trash bag of belongings were “underprivileged anyway” so living there was “working very well for them.” Stuff happens.

You’d never know from the book that Bush had watched as Iraq burned, its antiquities were stolen and hospitals were stripped bare.

‘Out of Nowhere’?

Bush’s biggest claim is that he kept us safe, but only if you don’t count 9/11, which he says “came out of nowhere.” That ignores the warning in his hands a month earlier -- “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” -- and reports that young Arabs were learning how to fly airplanes but not to land them.

On the economy, he touts a record of prosperity. But the crowing only works if he’s talking about before Lehman Brothers and other banks tanked in the fall, partly because he refused to regulate a raft of new and risky financial instruments.

The Congressional Budget Office projects the deficit will more than double to at least $1.18 trillion this year and that unemployment will top 9 percent next year.

Consumer confidence is at its lowest point since the measurement started. The Dow Jones average, which rose above 14,000 in 2007, now stands at about 8,700.

In 2001, there were no U.S. deaths in Iraq. By lunchtime with the presidents on Wednesday, more than 4,200 had died.

Bush may be trying to emulate Ronald Reagan, who left office to mixed reviews but with enough hagiography for an airport to bear his name. Bush may be hoping one day to return to the capital, landing at an airport renamed in his honor. That will take quite a legacy project.

(Margaret Carlson, author of “Anyone Can Grow Up: How George Bush and I Made It to the White House” and former White House correspondent for Time magazine, is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Margaret Carlson in Washington at mcarlson3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 9, 2009 00:01 EST