And as usual, he was pretty darn classy about it, too. He refused to criticize Obama outright, but did criticize his policies.

Former President George W. Bush fired a salvo at President Obama on Wednesday, asserting his administration’s interrogation policies were within the law, declaring the private sector — not government — will fix the economy and rejecting the nationalization of health care.

“I know it’s going to be the private sector that leads this country out of the current economic times we’re in,” the former president said to applause from members of a local business group. “You can spend your money better than the government can spend your money.”

Repeatedly in his hourlong speech and question-and-answer session, Mr. Bush said he would not directly criticize the new president, who has moved to take over financial institutions and several large corporations. Several times, however, he took direct aim at Obama policies as he defended his own during eight years in office.

“Government does not create wealth. The major role for the government is to create an environment where people take risks to expand the job rate in the United States,” he said to huge cheers.

Mr. Bush weighed in on some of the most pressing issues of the day: the election in Iran, the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba, and his administration’s interrogation policies of terrorists held there and elsewhere. The former president has not commented on Mr. Obama’s decision to ban “enhanced interrogation techniques” such as waterboarding, which the current president has called “off course” and “based on fear.”

“The way I decided to address the problem was twofold: One, use every technique and tool within the law to bring terrorists to justice before they strike again,” he said, adding that the country needs to stay on offense, not defense. On Guantanamo, which while in office Mr. Bush said he wanted to close, the former president was diplomatic.

“I told you I’m not going to criticize my successor,” he said. “I’ll just tell you that there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat and I don’t believe that — persuasion isn’t going to work. Therapy isn’t going to cause terrorists to change their mind.”

The first part of his argument made me wince a little, because come on — Bush wasn’t exactly the most fiscally responsible president we’ve ever had. Still, I do think he does believe in the free market and I certainly don’t think Bush ever wanted government to control our lives.

Now, his statements on Gitmo were right on in my book. And what a zinger! Therapy isn’t going to cause terrorists change their minds. LOVE. IT. And God love him for speaking the truth. Someone besides Dick Cheney needs to, because Bush is absolutely right — the vast majority of the men at Gitmo, if not all of them, would kill Americans at the drop of a hat if given the opportunity. Releasing them into the United States and making our interrogation techniques less harsh does not make us safer; it puts us more at risk.

Obama’s been blaming Bush for every problem in the world since the day he took office, regardless of how gracious and classy Bush has been since leaving office. It’s about time he stood up for himself, something he repeatedly declined to do while actually in office. I hope he keeps making statements like this, and I hope he gets the guts to keep on swinging.