President Bush, the ultimate conviction politician, showed that his elongated time as a lame duck president with the lowest ratings in history has given him a chance to reflect on his contributions to the world.

Talking to the Times on board Air Force One, the president bemoaned his image as a warmonger suggesting that "in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric".  

Yet it is the reality of his policies, not his rhetoric, which will be his most enduring legacy. 

Nowhere is this more disturbing than the US descent into barbarism. Extraordinary rendition, Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, waterboarding – over the last seven years a new lexicon has emerged that illustrates how "fighting terror" has warped America's moral compass.

Alex Gibney's documentary of this descent, Taxi to the Dark Side, is a well balanced and researched indictment of the failure of the Bush administration's "command responsibility" and its tragic consequences "on the ground". 

America's Trip To The Dark Side