Rediscover Communication

Hypocrisy:

1. The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.
2. An act or instance of such falseness.

I am a little confused about what you meant, but I think it may just be a semantic thing. Hipocrisy is not doing something that you later regret, or trying to steer others from that same course. Hipocrisy would be currently (in a continuously ongoing sense) doing something that is wrong and speaking against it to somebody else who is doing the same thing. If I understand correctly, your anger is directed at the fact that Bush tried or used pot at some point and that makes him now a hypocrite for saying it is/was wrong. First, he would only be a hypocrite if the general assumption is that smoking pot is universally wrong. Whether it is or is not wrong, most people reading this would be hypocrites themselves for calling bush a hypocrite in this way. By calling him a hypocrite, you are implicitly agreeing with the premise that pot use is wrong. The "pot" calls the kettle black, to use a horrible pun. :) For instance, say that I am a pathological liar. Lying has destroyed my friendships, my marriage, my business, essentially my whole life. I would not be a hypocrite for saying to someone "Don't do what I did. Belive me, it will destroy your life." I would be a hypocrite for saying "I'm telling you the truth" while conning old people out of their savings. This may seem to be a fine line, but it is not when you sit and really ponder it for a moment. Also, a moments ponderance will make us all realize that we are all hypocrites in our own special ways. The three fingers point right back at us.
Second, I don't even think he is going so far as to say that it was WRONG, as he does not want kids to get into it merely because "the president did it, so it must be ok". This is very prudent, I think. Our civilization is awash in hero-worship. Rock stars and supermodels and sports heroes and movie stars all do whatever they may feel like, regardless of any objective morality (of any kind, not even Judeochristian morality), and say that these things are good. And young people follow blindly along. Entire industries are founded on this idea. He realizes that the presidency is a prestigious position, and is being as careful as possible to maintain its ideals, in spite of the fact that he may have missed them in the past.

So I don't think the president is a hypocrite. I think he truly believes that he was wrong to smoke pot, which fills the complaint that you had that he could admit no mistakes. He is just admitting one here. This is not hypocrisy, this is age and experience talking.
I actually gained a lot of respect from the released transcripts of the conversations. For a person to be in private life as they are in public life is refreshingly transparent. He is not primped and polished for the press here, he is just chatting with a friend, and he comes across the same as during an interview. I would aspire to speak my mind so directly.