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The Bush Tragedy
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Manufacturer: Random House
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.931092
EAN: 9781400066780
ISBN: 1400066786
Label: Random House
Manufacturer: Random House
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 304
Publication Date: 2008-01-15
Publisher: Random House
Release Date: 2008-01-15
Studio: Random House
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Editorial Reviews:
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This is the book that cracks the code of the Bush presidency. Unstintingly yet compassionately, and with no political ax to grind, Slate editor in chief Jacob Weisberg methodically and objectively examines the family and circle of advisers who played crucial parts in George W. Bush’s historic downfall.
In this revealing and defining portrait, Weisberg uncovers the “black box” from the crash of the Bush presidency. Using in-depth research, revealing analysis, and keen psychological acuity, Weisberg explores the whole Bush story. Distilling all that has been previously written about Bush into a defining portrait, he illuminates the fateful choices and key decisions that led George W., and thereby the country, into its current predicament. Weisberg gives the tragedy a historical and literary frame, comparing Bush not just to previous American leaders, but also to Shakespeare’s Prince Hal, who rises from ne’er-do-well youth to become the warrior king Henry V.
Here is the bitter and fascinating truth of the early years of the Bush dynasty, with never-before-revealed information about the conflict between the two patriarchs on George W.’s father’s side of the family–the one an upright pillar of the community, the other a rowdy playboy–and how that schism would later shape and twist the younger George Bush; his father, a hero of war, business, and Republican politics whose accomplishments George W. would attempt to copy and whose absences he would resent; his mother, Barbara, who suffered from insecurity, depression, and deep dissatisfaction with her role as housewife; and his younger brother Jeb, seen by his parents as steadier, stronger, and the son most likely to succeed.
Weisberg also anatomizes the replacement family Bush surrounded himself with in Washington, a group he thought could help him correct the mistakes he felt had destroyed his father’s presidency: Karl Rove, who led Bush astray by pursuing his own historical ambitions and transforming the president into a deeply polarizing figure; Dick Cheney, whose obsessive quest to restore presidential power and protect the country after 9/11 caused Bush and America to lose the world’s respect; and, finally, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice, who encouraged Bush’s foreign policy illusions and abetted his flight from reality.
Delving as no other biography has into Bush’s religious beliefs–which are presented as at once opportunistic and sincere–The Bush Tragedy is an essential work that is sure to become a standard reference for any future assessment. It is the most balanced and compelling account of a sitting president ever written.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Highly Biased
Comment: I'm a conservative who did not know very much about Jacob Weisberg before buying this book. I heard his take on George W. Bush's religious views and they really intrigued me. I myself am no fan of the 43rd President. I consider Bush to be a big spending liberal so am more open to leftist critiques concerning him than I would be for other politicians. And to be fair, Chapter 3 "The Gospel of George," was quite strong. I think Self-help Methodism is a solid way to describe Mr. Bush's religious perspective. That he is not a doctrinaire evangelist is quite evident and Weisberg does a good job in stating his case. He was the first I heard to do so and should be given credit for his insight.
Overall, however, The Bush Tragedy is a very poor work. I do object to the cover's claim that the author has "no political ax to grind" because he obviously does. Furthermore, he has no respect for conservatives whatsoever. I know this to be true due to an article he penned over the summer claiming that the reason people like me didn't back Obama was due to his race. This is preposterous. The real reason is that no true conservative would ever back Obama because he's a leftist. Weisberg also refers to himself as being a "liberal hawk" in these pages; although, nothing hawkish about his worldview is discernible. He admits as well to penning six books on Bush's linguistic mistakes which is not an indicator of ideological neutrality. Further, Weisberg--a journalist--suggests that the president has a language processing deficit similar to dyslexia even though the author demonstrates no evidence that he is qualified to make such a statement.
Another thing alarming about The Bush Tragedy is that Weisberg's 2008 release pretends that the Iraq War has been lost whereas the evidence has suggested otherwise for over a year. Aside from a page 218 mention, The Surge is not cited at all. It's as if it never happened. A more honest narrator would admit that the final chapter on Mr. Bush largely depends on what happens in Bagdad. History's final pages are not yet written but they are on this work...which is infinitely forgettable.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Bush Tragedy
Comment: To say that I am not a Bush supporter would be an understatement. I have endured the last eight years with gritted teeth and the knowledge that the nightmare of this administration would end on January 20, 2009, one way or another. The question had always been just how much damage to our civil liberties would be done, how far the Constitution could be bent like a pretzel before it actually broke, and how far would America's stature in the court of world public opinion sink before that date. So for me to even read this book is somewhat bemusing. I already knew the Bush/Cheney administration was a tragedy. The fiasco treatise was read daily in the press and watched on the news channels. We had elected someone who could barely speak intelligent English and we had given him the codes to the arsenals. I did not have to read a book to tell me what we American's had been living through the past eight years was a tragedy. It was like the quintessential Greek play, only it was real life. You had to laugh at times, or eat Prozac or Lexapro or whatever your flavor.
I must have read a review of this book in Newsweek that caused me to order it from Amazon.com. I remember I was intrigued by two things, the review said the author approached his subject (Bush) not as a joke, but in a serious attempt to explain the man and the reasons of the actions taken. And the author is the editor in chief of Slate magazine, a web portal that I have been known to frequent. Then there is the "Bushisms" series that the author has been associated with. Given the fact that Jacob Weisberg is said to try and write a serious work about the court jester, I decided to give it a go.
Overall the book is a fairly good read. The author takes some leaps here and there trying to tie his take on the actions of the man and pin them to what he feels is the motive behind them. Sometimes they stick, other times not so much. Weisberg does take some of his own armchair psychoanalysis a bit to far at times, pointing backwards inside the Bush family tree one and two generations as to why something was done. Then there are other times when he is able, due to his access to back door information and background, to provide some insightful revelations about the man Dubya and those around him, specifically Karl Rove. There should be no doubt that Karl Rove was the evil puppeteer who worked the marionette and got him into the oval office in 2000.
The first chapter is meant to introduce you to the family tree and who is who in the grand scheme of things. However this is probably the weakest chapter written by Weisberg, and very hard to follow, even with the photo family tree provided. Weisberg insists of calling the same person multipule names, often on the same page. At one point he refers to George Herbert Walker Bush as George H. W., #41, Poppy, Pop, and little Pop all within a matter of sentences. Being a somewhat amateur genealogist, this is taboo. You designate a name, one name for a person, and refer back to that name at all times. This constantly changing of monikers to reference the same individual gets confusing fast, and it did. And of course everyone in the family had to have at least two names, and two different nick or pet names as well. Take it slow, refer back to the photo family tree, and you will make it through.
Jacob Weisberg is at his best however when providing details on Dick Cheney, the vice president, revealing the real authority behind the administration. A good bit of background information is given on where Cheney came from, who he had worked for and why, and how he came to be the #2 man in the administration. Let there be no doubt, Dick Cheney has done more to undo the Constitution and personal liberties of American's than any other man in the 232 years of our history. Dick Cheney is so powerful (or so he would assume) that he singlehandedly took the office of vice president out of the executive branch of government and moved it to the legislative branch!
Something that did surprise me that came out in this book was the basic revelation that George H.W. Bush was a better statesman, president and leader than he has been given credit for in the court of public opinion. Bush senior was able to take advice from different sources, reflect on them, and eventually formulate a plan or make a decision based on several different points of view, and in particular, based on facts. Dubya on the other hand, has little use of facts, or briefing points, or other bits of empirical evidence. Even Dubya's wife, Laura Bush, makes comment that her husband is not able to retain facts and information, instead bases his decision making process on some form of "I got a feeling about ..." Like the time Bush looked into the eyes of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and seeing into his soul, found goodness. Possibly the citizens of Russia are wondering just where Dubya looked, for they are still searching for the goodness.
There are many personalities that come into play in the development of Dubya and who he is today. His mother, Barbara, who does not fair well in this book; an great-uncle, George Herbert "Herbie" Walker Jr., who favored Dubya's father more than his own sons; a grandfather that insisted the grandchildren call him "Senator"; and of course Dubya's brother, Jeb, who was favored to be a president until Dubya wrestled that away.
If you want some family background and insights to THE.WORST.PRESIDENT.EVER than this book is a read for you. If you are just so glad the nightmare might be coming to an end soon (notice I said might, as it will take years, possibly decades to undo the damage done by this administration) than take a pass on this book.
Either way, I am just glad we will soon be able to talk about President Bush in a past tense form.
Customer Rating:
Summary: George W Bush: the man, the son, the politician
Comment: The Bush Tragedy is a book which immerses the reader into the personal and political life of the 43rd president of the United States: George W Bush. By immersing the reader into the politician's family life/history, politics, and convictions, the author allows him/her to understand "why" the Bush Administration has enacted laws which have caused national and international galvanizing.
The book's first two chapters are an examination of the Bush/Walker history, and how it has molded George W Bush's persona. This compendium of Bush's family history sheds light onto aspects such as Bush non-intellectualism, social ties/awkwardness, and unwillingness to correct his mistakes. In other words, these chapters are the foundation of Bush's political life, since his in/ability to function as a president stem from his life as a child, the son of George H W Bush, and a Yale and Harvard student.
The rest of the chapters provide the reader with a scrutinizing of Bush's political life. Specifically, the author provides a diagram of Bush's religious affiliation, his association with certain political figures, and his father's political "legacy," and how they affect Bush's political decision-making. Most importantly, these sections serve as a confirmer or corrector of one's ideas of George W Bush, since one can examine how the president's environment affects him and vice-versa. It is during this time that the concept of politics turns into a consequential and building process: Bush's policies are amendments, (failed) emulations, and extensions of past American and European presidents.
I strongly recommend this book to anybody who wants to learn more about the United States' current political turmoil. Likewise, this book allows readers to better understand the complexities of political rhetoric, and how it can present specious images that confuse and mislead audiences.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Detailed Account into the Bush Legacy
Comment: This is a very compelling book that allows you to understanding what makes "W" tick. If you liked the movie "W" than you will really appreciate this book. The movie "W" only scratched the surface on "W" desires to outdo his father where as the book explores both the Bush and the Prescott side of the family. Great book
Customer Rating:
Summary: Still in Search of an "Authentic 'W' Humanity."
Comment: Having already read several books (some reviewed here on Amazon.com) in search of the "real W," and after seeing the movie "W," which left me cold because there just did not seem enough meat there to support a full story (even a highly suspicious and caricatured one), I decided to purchase this book hoping for a final full frontal view of the real "W's'" humanity.
Since "W's" life, from beginning to end, has been such an unmitigated disaster, one would assume that he would be an easy subject (target?) to portray, at least psychologically anyway. However, the challenge, both for a writer and for a director, is how to capture his authentic humanity without reverting to caricatures and anti-Bush harangues. [It is clear that after a while, even caricatures also eventually become boring -- for one can gore a "dead ox" only so many times.]
For me, one of the most revealing (though hardly any more convincing than this one) of the books I have read so far is the psychoanalytic book "Bush on the Couch," by Justin A. Frank. Frank, who makes superb use of Melanie Kline's psychoanalytic techniques, concludes that "W's" main problem originated from suffering his father's neglect during his formative years -- and suffering from poor parenting, more generally. For instance, even after his sister had died of Leukemia, his parents (mainly at Barbara's insistence) for years, kept this fact from seven-year old "Georgie." Frank concluded that whatever else Barbara and George Bush may have been, during "W's" formative years at least, they surely could not have been considered good parents.
Here, Weisberg is clear up front about the fact that he is no Bush lover. He is in fact the creator of a very active anti-Bush blog. This book is pretty much a re-excavation of well-tread Bush family history, careful collation and "grafted on" to the author's many previously published (Salon) thoughts and views about "W" and his failed presidency.
His focus here is not on "W" per se, but on why his presidency has been a failure. Unsurprisingly, after a heavy-handed historical introduction and a compilation of his mostly anti-Bush views, Weisberg comes to the same conclusions that Frank's psychological analysis came to: that it was family relationships that were primarily responsible for the warped nature of "W's" personality and outlook on life. And while Frank's book delves on poor parenting, Weisberg's "focuses in" on trans-generational family influences (one assumes that this is the only reason for the lengthy, almost overwrought historical analysis).
What does all this have to do with "W's" draconian instituted failed rightwing policies? Apparently the connection, which the author makes only indirectly and in the subtext is that it turned "W" against the competitive legacy of his "uber-successful" parents and the generations of his wealthy and status-conscious fore-parents, ultimately leaving a psychological hole in his psyche, one that was eventually filled-in with Texan styled swagger, an undue reliance of sycophantic gurus such as Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, backing into fundamentalist Christian faith, and (need it be said out loudly), also deep personal self-hatred and denial, prompted by his many barely concealable inadequacies, neither of which he seemed able to completely shake.
I enjoyed the book, but found it unconvincing. Three stars.
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