At this moment, Former President George H.W. Bush is formally endorsing John McCain.

He emphasizes that he isn’t trying to tell any other candidate what to do, obviously a reference to Mike Huckabee.

I waited in vain for him to say, “Not gonna tell him what to do. Wouldn’t be prudent. Na ga da. Naaaa gaaa daaaa.”

UPDATE: McCain says the endorsement “will help enormously as we seek to unite the party.” (Really? Was George H.W. Bush a representative of the kind of Republican who had a major beef with McCain?)

“I’d be honored to have George W. Bush’s support, his endorsement, under any circumstances… having said that, any candidate is going to have different views on specific issues. I am particularly proud of this president’s decisions in the war on Iraq. The surge has worked, and the Democratic candidates opposed it. We should start this presidential debate with them admitting they were wrong. If we had done what they wanted to do, al-Qaeda would have won in Iraq.”

Bush: “I think the criticism on conservative and not conservative is absurd.”

He reads a bit from the Reagan diaries, one entry August 10, 1982, reacting to some criticism from Richard Vigurie’s, “he uses crocodile tears for ink.”

Bush: “If you’ve been around the track, you hear these criticisms… He’ll do just fine with the base of the Republican Party.”

McCain on Bush: “This man is greeted with respect and admiration by all Republicans… I hope I can measure up to the honorable service that President Bush has rendered this country.”