Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush
by Robert Draper
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Book Summary Information
Author: Robert DraperEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-03-25
ISBN: 0743277295
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: Free Press
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780743277297
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Book Reviews of Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush
Book Review: The Rise and Fall of Bushworld
Summary: 4 Stars
Robert Draper does a fine job of limning the Bush rise to power, less well describing the challenges of his second term, where the book is weakest. The chapters on Bush's early days in Texas can be compared to Robert Caro's on LBJ early rise to power, and Draper is a fine ironist as well, following to a degree the wonderful Tom Wolfe school of journalistic writing.
One of the most astonishing scenes depicted is Bush's meeting with a brain trust assembled at George Schultz's home prior to Bush's decision to seek the nomination in 2000. Evidently, the boy wonder wowed the assembled wise men (and women), which leads one to serious doubts about the actual level of judgment members of this group were capable of exercising. There is perhaps more to Bush than meets the eye, but not that much, and very little remains hidden from public view. In the final analysis, Bush had no more coherent picture of the world than Jimmy Carter, but he did pick his issues and stick to them. His ability to focus is one of his strengths, but his inability to broaden his focus is a weakness.
Draper is in good form describing how events unfold as Bush and his merry band of pranksters led by "Turdblossom" Rove romp through the 2000 primaries, sharing good and bad fortune, benefitting from facing a dogmatic and annoying opponent with a habit of being his own worst enemy, and in depicting Bush's first term. Myriad details from behind the scenes delight, such as Bush's nicknames for friends and people he hardly knows alike (interestingly, no one seems to have given him a nickname), his complete lack of interest in the sensory pleasures of life (an early fondness for drinking hardly counts), and his compulsion to maintain a excessive fitness level.
Bush emerges from this account as a rather sympathetic figure, but one needs to ask why, if he inspires such loyalty from his staff, if he is such an engaging fellow in private, if he indeed possesses command of his briefings (he is memorably shown reviewing his terror matrix with the enthusiasm of a crossword puzzle fanatic) Bush is unable to translate his desirable qualities to a more engaging and inspiring public figure? In his first term, at least, he enjoyed legislative success and initial support for his foreign policy. But he abandoned his own views on nation-building and foreign intervention, and allowed a mixture of watery cabinet secretaries (Powell, Rice)to guide foreign policy, and, lacking a rigorous intellectual framework, failed to relegate neoconservative hacks to the rubbish bin while hewing to his initial Reaganesque conservative instincts.
This is a well-done book worth reading.
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