George W. Bush

I first became aware of and interested in politics during the 1988 Presidential campaign. (There may have been an unfortunate incident of me making a classmate cry by deriding her parents' preferred candidate...) So the first President I really remember is George Bush. Whatever one might believe about his politics and policies as President, this man has led a remarkable life and one dominated by the spirit of public service which so often seems lacking nowadays in public officials who more show more often are focused on personal gain and politics for politics' sake.

This slim biography has a little bit of everything - family history, personal background, failed campaigns, funny anecdotes, fascinating behind the scenes details, and maybe most strikingly, a depth of emotion and sincerity that does credit to both subject and author. Obviously, it's not and never could be an unbiased account. But there is honesty in the pages. And while I might have rolled my eyes and wanted to skip forward through some of the author's rationalizations for his own actions, I appreciated having such a personal look at a former President who has written very little about himself.

It's refreshing - as well as sad - to read about an "old school" politician who could make friends with his rivals, informally adopt as a fifth son the man who drove him from the White House in 1992, and let go of grudges as soon as they formed. Sad because there seem to be few, if any, of this type left.

Also, I love that he celebrates his milestone birthdays by parachuting! show less

"Whatever the verdict on my presidency, I’m comfortable with the fact that I won’t be around to hear it." This book's penultimate sentence exemplifies three points of George W. Bush: His unwillingness to face criticism, his inability to learn and his egocentricity. Sheltered and pampered, nobody will shatter his delusions of being a modern Abraham Lincoln (about whom he says to have read fourteen biographies during his presidency). I have read about Abraham Lincoln too and Shrub is no show more Lincoln. He isn't even a Nixon. His place among the worst US presidents is guaranteed. This book will soon end up in the remaindered books section and join Milosevic's and Saddam Hussein's oeuvres in the libraries.

One interesting aspect is that George W. Bush now fully embraces and is fully embraced by the Bush clan. In order to revive the tarnished family name, all internal dissent is airbrushed out of existence. The whitewash and start of project "lost cause" has started with a vengeance.

Even Jon Stewart considers it impolite to call Bush a war criminal. You see, the US doesn't torture. George W. Bush said "damn right" to enhanced interrogation to break people, whereas the actual breaking was preferentially outsourced. Many of Bush's victims were innocent, kidnapped far from any war zone (El-Masri in Macedonia, Maher Arar in NYC, ...). In relation to FRAGO 242, the Guardian wrote that "US soldiers, US advisers, were standing aside and doing nothing, while members of the Wolf Brigade beat and tortured prisoners." Nixon at least acknowledged that his actions were evil. Bush fails to show any contrition, any remorse, to feel any guilt. Only he himself feels wronged from Kanye to Putin. This makes reading this book so painful. In order to keep up his cocksure facade, Bush has to airbrush out major elements of all the stories he tells. The model for this book is less the classic presidential memoir but a dictator's vanity project. Bush ridicules Kim Jong-Il's and Saddam's pomposity he is equally guilty of. This book is similar to the Lenin and Marx memorabilia one could buy after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.

Apart from his two commendable personal but (inter)nationally disastrous decisions to quit drinking and running for office, Bush selected, out of the over 300 scandals and the rather limited successes of the Bush administration, the following topics as chapters for his book: VP Dick Cheney, stem cells, 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, No child left behind, Katrina, AIDS, Iraq II: the surge, Israel-Palestine-Lebanon, financial collapse. Unfortunately, his account of these issues is not complete, fair nor balanced. Any element which might reflect badly on Dear Leader is cut out of the picture. This might be sufficient for his authoritarian fans and talk show hosts. All others should wait for an annotated edition.

For those that have already forgotten the Bush years and need a refresher about some of the events not found in this book: Bush sat around on 9/11, played air guitar and shared a cake with John McCain while Katrina loomed, he joked about searching for WMD in his office and about the execution of Saddam Hussein, he started two wars, torpedoed Global Warming initiatives, he corrupted, stuffed and disabled governmental agencies, curbed civil liberties, enabled torture, and he repeatedly lied to his citizens and to the world. And he failed to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. A miserable failure indeed. show less

The notion of this book is very interesting. A Presidential biography written by a fellow President who is also a son. Parallels to the Adams family abound. George Bush the Elder, possessing a lifetime of experience in government, is like John Adams, also a one-term President. George W. Bush and John Quincy Adams are both sons who became President. Both sons had shortcomings which can be linked to their elite birth. Both sons knew how to work an establishment, and both faced the difficulty show more of seeming out-of-touch with the average American.

Upon completion, this biography left me with conflicting emotions. First, I grew a deeper admiration of George H.W. Bush (the Elder). Obviously W genuinely admires his father, and the writing allows that to shine through. Second, I felt more strongly that W was not qualified to be an American President. He saw the Republican party as a country club of sorts and lacked any real engagement with liberalism. HW seems to have wrestled with the issues of the day. W seems just to have coasted along.

I will dwell upon the positive. Reading about HW reminds me of a time before there was such a partisan divide in our politics. HW was a decent man who wanted to emphasize what we Americans have in common instead of dividing us to gain the upper hand. W chronicles several incidents in his life where HW chose the tougher road because of his commitment to decency.

W ties HW’s decency to his start in forgoing Yale to serve in World War II. Entering (and exiting) a war with purpose united HW’s generation and cemented their broad patriotism. Most men of his generation had fought for each other in war. This provided a common ethic and a common narrative which united them in times of political discord. Unfortunately, we lack that ethic today. With W, I stand in admiration of his father – even as a Democrat. show less

One of W's predecessors had this to say about the marvelous wonder of writing (and reading): "Writing - the art of communicating thoughts to the mind, through the eye - is the great invention of the world ... great, very great in enabling us to converse with the dead, the absent, and the unborn, at all distances of time and space." That was the voice of Abraham Lincoln, and W has taken those words literally; since he seems to be writing exclusively for "the dead, the absent and the unborn." show more Certainly anyone who happened to have been alive and present during W's tenure could not possibly be expected to take seriously what W has to say in this memoir. Saddam was actively seeking nuclear weapons? This isn't re-writing history, it's de-writing history. I am not a book burner. But if ever my house is on fire, I would not hesitate to try to put out the flames by beating them with this book. show less