A Matter of Character: Inside the White House of George W. Bush

This book purports to be a biography of George W. Bush's White House years, and it certainly covers that time and covers the events that affected his presidency. The overwhelming problem is that this biography is so complementary that it's like an authorized biography done in the way that the Royal Biographers do biographies of the British kings and queens. Kessler has made George W. Bush into a Stepford President. He and his staff do no wrong and the nasty, nasty media (of which Kessler was once a member) and the obstructive Democrats are out to get this President. Because I had never read anything about George W. Bush before, I did get some information on his life and was reminded of some things I'd forgotten that he handled during show more his Presidency. Otherwise, I took the total adulation of George W. Bush and the writer's outrage at the media and the Democrats with a true grain of salt. Any other reader would be wise to do the same. show less

While not a huge fan of W, I did respect his directness and most of those he surrounded himself with. I learned he successfully brought a CEO mentality to the White House and listened intently to many sides of an issue before making a decision. However, I thought the writing was pretty poor. The first 3-4 chapters are all about the Clintons. And the last chapter was basically a summary of everything that had come before it, but it wasn't written that way; it was as if Kessler was introducing the concepts for the first time. And his transitions from paragraph to paragraph was sometimes puzzling.

Never says a bad thing about Dubya, but the good things it says are mostly true. Primarily intended to point up the (significant) contrast of Bush and Clinton.

BJC