In Search of Bush by ALAN BRINKLEY = REVIEW of “The Bush Tragedy”

In Search of Bush by ALAN BRINKLEY
Published: March 2, 2008 = http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/books/review/Brinkley-t.html


With almost a year still to go in George W. Bush’s presidency, he has already become the subject of an astonishing amount of literature — on the war in Iraq, on his controversial economic and social policies, on his two contested presidential elections and on the man himself. So Jacob Weisberg, the editor of Slate, treads some familiar ground in his effort to understand the origins of Bush’s much explored psyche. His analysis is not as original or startling as he sometimes claims; his explanations of Bush’s behavior are often highly speculative; and he relies too much on such overworked clichés as the parallels between the president and Shakespeare’s Henry V. But “The Bush Tragedy” is, nevertheless, an intelligent and illuminating book. It takes much of what we already know and uses it to create a mostly persuasive account of the character and behavior of a man whom many observers have already called the most disastrous president in our history.

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Bush had a very different, but no less important, relationship with his vice president. Cheney did not share Rove’s belief in Bush’s great political gifts. Instead, Weisberg argues, he saw in the new president an easily manipulable vehicle for his own longstanding agenda. He did not strive to be Bush’s friend, but he became the president’s continual and loyal courtier. “Cheney had figured out how to play on the son’s sense of his reborn self, flattering the maturity of his judgment,” Weisberg notes. “There was no need to spell out the implicit proposition: You have the self-confidence and inner security to rely on me.” Cheney was not alone in persuading Bush (who needed little persuasion) to launch the disastrous war in Iraq, but without Cheney the conflict might never have overcome the opposition of many in the administration. Cheney was even more central to some of the other damaging actions of Bush’s presidency ...........

Worst. President. Ever.

The first catastrophic presidency. Others have been merely bad or horrible. We will never fully recover from this one.

and bush, cheney, rove, rumhead were no Ted Bundy! (famous escape artiste/rapo etc)
if brinkley wants to 'find' bush, he just check his toilet before flushing...hahahaha