Was it CJH who said that he thought Bertie was the canniest of them all?
The timing couldn't have been better for him to step down and start carving his place in Irish history - the boom had not yet been seen to stop, he had reached that famous retirement age as well as the 10-years-as-Taoiseach point, Tony Blair had also stepped down in high-profile style and he probably does want very much to spend more time with his growing family. It was a fantastic career move.
On the one hand, its challenging to reign in an economy in full-swing because no one wants to rain on the parade and the tax-take from all the economic activity is hard to do without.
On the other hand, it seems there have been some very notable excesses engaged in and there was little structure or long-term policy imposed on the boom in a way that would make its benefits last as long as they could.
We should never forget that the country got the government it voted for and when things were good, they could do very little wrong.
Bertie is not delusional, he is a managing his legacy in a way he hopes is very clever. It may come unstuck if the dip gets really bad and decisions that are directly attributable to him (should they exist) are suddenly highlighted as being bad ones.