[smirnoffdear]

Huffington Post

When Crown Publishing inked a deal with George W. Bush for his memoirs, the publisher knew it wasn't getting Faulkner. But the book, at least, promises "gripping, never-before-heard detail" about the former president's key decisions, offering to bring readers "aboard Air Force One on 9/11, in the hours after America's most devastating attack since Pearl Harbor; at the head of the table in the Situation Room in the moments before launching the war in Iraq," and other undisclosed and weighty locations.

Crown also got a mash-up of worn-out anecdotes from previously published memoirs written by his subordinates, from which Bush lifts quotes word for word, passing them off as his own recollections. He took equal license in lifting from nonfiction books about his presidency or newspaper or magazine articles from the time. Far from shedding light on how the president approached the crucial "decision points" of his presidency, the clip jobs illuminate something shallower and less surprising about Bush's character: He's too lazy to write his own memoir.

Bush, on his book tour, makes much of the fact that he largely wrote the book himself, guffawing that critics who suspected he didn't know how to read are now getting a comeuppance. Not only does Bush know how to read, it turns out, he knows how to Google, too. Or his assistant does. Bush notes in his acknowledgments that "[m]uch of the research for this book was conducted by the brilliant and tireless Peter Rough. Peter spent the past 18 months digging through archives, searching the internet[s], and sifting through reams of paper." Bush also collaborated on the book with his former speechwriter, Christopher Michel.

Many of Bush's literary misdemeanors exemplify pedestrian sloth, but others are higher crimes against the craft of memoir. In one prime instance, Bush relates a poignant meeting between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and a Tajik warlord on Karzai's Inauguration Day. It's the kind of scene that offers a glimpse of a hopeful future for the beleaguered nation. Witnessing such an exchange could color a president's outlook, could explain perhaps Bush's more optimistic outlook and give insight into his future decisions. Except Bush didn't witness it. Because, as he himself writes later in the book, he wasn't at Karzai's inauguration. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/1...1.html#s180908

[Cgnebksb]

Anyone really surprised? W might not ever have had a thought in the WH that didn't come from Cheney.

[Donlupedron]

Psst. I don't think he actually wrote the book.

[gkihueonhjh]

Next thing you'll tell me that Sarah Palin didn't really write either of her books.

[snislarne]

I love how The Enlightened Experts think Conservatives love George W. Bush. We didn't like his bailouts. Hated his Medicare Drug Benefit. Thought he spent waaaaaay too much money (though he was absolutely frugal compared to Dear Leader). But we stood by him on the wars and terrorism and nobody ever had any doubts about his patriotism.

Would we take Bush back over Obama? In a heartbeat.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ack-Obama.html

The Decider returns to haunt Mr Nuance as George W. Bush eclipses Barack Obama

The 43rd and 44th American presidents are a study in contrasts, but the link between them is symbiotic, argues Toby Harnden. There could have been no Obama without Bush, and only Obama's stumbles could have made Bush look good again so quickly.

Despite this publishing campaign, it is very clear that George W Bush doesn't really mind terribly what people think and say about him.

Say what you like about former President George W. Bush, but his sense of timing is impeccable. Just after his successor Barack Obama took a self-described "shellacking" at the polls, Dubya was back, mocking the current occupant of the White House by his very presence.

For the 43rd President, the return must have been sweet.

Obama was elected in large part because he was the unBush: biracial not bluebood; silky tongue, not foot-in-mouth; reflective not impetuous; cool rather than hot.

During the 2008 election campaign, Obama slammed Bush at every turn. Since then, the 44th President has almost ceaselessly blamed his predecessor for everything, even stooping to lambast Karl Rove, Bush's long-time aide, by name during the recent mid-terms campaign.

But the anti-Bush shtick soon wore thin. Two years after Obama was anointed, the halo around his head seemed distinctly tarnished. In his post-defeat interview with 60 Minutes, Obama was at his most listless and meandering, projecting all the certainty of a Hamlet on the Potomac.

Right on cue, Bush entered, stage Right, clutching a copy of his 497-page memoir Decision Points, a tome full of breezy certainty.

Did he order the waterboarding of terrorist suspects? "Damn right."

Did he ever have doubts about pre-war intelligence on Iraq? "I really didn't." Boring of Mr Nuance, Americans lapped it up.