Bush was an honorable man, with integrity. His mistake was to trust Sen. George Mitchell, a lying deceitful DemocRAT and Senate leader. Bush relied on promises the DemocRATS never meant to keep.
You can only postulate this if you also postulate he was dumb as a box of rocks to believe what the Democrats told him. I think he knew exactly what would happen, but for public consumption apparently "believed" the Democrat deal to placate his voters - didn't work. The voters saw through the bullsh!t. You actually think that Bush BELIEVED that the Democrats would cut spending if he signed the tax increase? Does anyone really believe that a Washington insider was that naïve?
I really have a hard time believing Bush was honorable! He either lied to the American public about no new taxes or his words are meaningless. Either way, it was not honorable to for him to raise taxes.