I report and link. You decide. - BroJ
From a Politico .com article, Politico pull-outs from "Dead Certain":
Politico pull-outs from "Dead Certain"
Students of politics and especially George Walker Bush will want to run, not walk, to their local bookstore this week to pick up "Dead Certain."
The portions picked up by the New York Times yesterday and Washington Post today don't do it justice. [/] It's not officially out yet, but I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy of the account of 43's life and presidency last night. Down below are some of the nuggets that you Politicos will find especially tasty. [/] The author, Robert Draper of GQ and formerly Texas Monthly, knows his subject and surroundings well, having written about Bush going back to the Austin circa ’98. His is neither a wet kiss nor a hatchet job. Which is partly why it's such a good read. Draper's assessment is fair and at times downright sympathetic. But he can also wield the knife.
And that goes for not just Bush, but for Bushworld, too. Draper can be tough on Karl Rove -- portraying him as transmuting the abuse he got from Bush onto his staff, reporters and other innocent parties -- but he also evinces some degree of compassion for the staff man who caught presidential (and before that gubernatorial) javelins like no other in W’s orbit. The same goes for Karen Hughes. She is painted as annoyingly on-message and Mother Hen-ish, but also as somebody immensely loyal and attuned to her boss. [/] In short, it’s a comprehensive account of the Bush presidency that aims to illuminate not advocate.
Best of all, it’s reported. Draper was there for many of the events that took place, but he also painstakingly reconstructs the scene through first-hand accounts. To wit: six interviews with POTUS (each about an hour), two interviews with FLOTUS and some two hundred other conversations with key Bush officials. Among those listed in the Author’s Note and Acknowledgements: Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Rove, Card, Bolten, Hagin, Wallace (nee Devenish), Bartlett, Mehlman, Sullivan, Schlapp, Taylor, Gerson, Miers, Hadley, Bremer, Dowd, Gillespie, Stevens, Schriefer, McKinnon.
And that is just the start. Let’s let Draper explain: [/]
“I spoke as well with dozens of other current and White House officials; with over half a dozen Cabinet secretaries; with numerous NSC, Pentagon and State Department officials; with several members of the Iraq Study Group (including its two chairmen, James A Baker III and Lee Hamilton); with a multitude of Bush family friends; and with senior advisers to both the Bush and McCain primary campaigns in New Hampshire and South Carolina. [/] Oh, and “scores of sources on Capitol Hill from both sides of the aisle.” [/] Then there are all the background chats.
[...] So, onto some of the most tantalizing parts:
Page 11: After Bush was famously ambushed by Boston television reporter Andy Hiller’s foreign leader pop quiz in 1999, he forgave but didn’t forget. “For weeks thereafter, they’d hear it from Bush, at the beginning of this or that briefing: ‘Okay, you guys are supposed to be so smart. Who’s the president of Trinidad?'"
Page 17: Flashback to the ’92 GOP convention in Houston. McCain is about to go on stage when a “youthful-looking fellow grabbed him by the arm” and implores him to hit Clinton for draft-dodging. No go, McCain replies to the president’s son, that’s not my thing (italics not quotes in orig.)
Page 25: Laura Bush to then Gov-Bush after his 19-point drubbing in New Hampshire at the hands of McCain: “You got defined.”
Page 52: The Texas youth offender who Bush famously cited throughout the 2000 campaign as representing the promise of America didn’t turn out so well. It was 15-year-old Johnny Demon Baulkmon who asked Bush at a juvenile prison in 1998, “What do you think about us now?” Baulkmon grew into “an adult petty criminal” and, in an interview at a prison visitation room in 2006, told Draper that Bush is “complete trash, a horrible evil person.”
Page 74: Bush’s chief strategist in the now-famous South Carolina primary Warren Tompkins (who now holds a similar post for Mitt Romney) appears to blame unnamed members of the Christian Right for the toughest tactics there: “Of course the Bush camp was ‘testing messages’ by phone. Spending tons on it! But Tompkins had nothing to do with the stuff on Cindy and the black kid, and he was glad not to know who the responsible party was…though he certainly had ideas. Working for Poppy Bush in 1988, he’d seen how Pat Robertson’s crusaders spread their message from one church to the next, until ministers all across South Carolina were sermonzing as one… .Now Robertson’s Christian Coalition had proxies in all forty-six counties – absolutely bent, like so many others encamped there in South Carolina, on destroying John McCain."
Page 81: Meeting McCain privately in May of 2000 before picking up his former rival’s endorsement, Bush finally apologized for not denouncing the statement by Thomas Burch in the South Carolina primary. Burch was the veteran who, with Bush present, accused McCain of forgetting about Vietnam veterans.
Page 96: Though part of the “Iron Triangle” in the 2000 campaign consisting of himself, Hughes and Rove, Joe Allbaugh “had topped out” by the time Bush was sworn in for his first term, Draper writes. He become head of FEMA, but when the agency was merged with the newly-formed DHS in 2003, Allbaugh – “aware that he would no longer have direct access to the president” – resigned. “Bush never had a lengthy conversation with him again after that.”
Page 99: Coddy Johnson, the 22-year-old son of Bush college pal and administration official Clay Johnson, had to talk Rove into making a play for West Virginia in the general election in 2000. After being warned to not pay a lick of attention to the traditionally Democratic state upon being hired as a regional political director, Johnson put together a “long, statistics-driven” memo in favor of trying to pick off the Mountaineer State. Rove was convinced and the state helped swing the election.
Page 102: Explaining how Bush is not afraid to put Rove in his place, Draper recalle an incident from a meeting in Austin in 1999. Rove was strutting his stuff and Bush put a quick end to it. “’Karl,' said the governor. 'Hang up my jacket.’'"The room fell silent and Rove put the coat on the rack.
Page 256: After his poor first debate performance against John Kerry in the fall of 2004, Hughes and Dan Bartlett told Bush plainly just how bad he had done – by forcing him to watch his own performance that night. “And so Bush at in his Air Force One suite and watched himself on television acting pissed off – and got pissed off at Bartlett for making him watch himself.”
Page 269: Mehlman making the case to Bush on election night why the early exit polls had it wrong about Kerry winning: “Look at Pennsylvania,” Mehlman said. “Unless there’s a lot of Amish voting for Kerry, you can’t have that kind of turnout and lose the state by seventeen.” [/] “ “: Rove on election day: “My gut is, we take Florida and Ohio, and we win.”
Page 272: At 1:10 a.m. on election night, NBC White House reporter David Gregory called Bartlett’s cell phone. “’Can I speak to Dan Bartlett? Came the familiar voice. ‘This is Dave Gregory.’” Rove replied “sweetly,” saying “Will he know who you are?”
Page 273: Kerry spokesman Mike McCurry to Devenish in the middle of the night: “Look, I’m not going to walk out in my boxer shorts and go into John Kerry’s room and talk to him about conceding. He’s going to do the right thing, he knows he’s lost, and he’ll concede in the morning.”
Page 396: Asked by Bush for his prediction the Saturday before the ’06 elections, RNC chair Mehlman told the president the House GOP would lose 16 seats (Dems needed 15 for the majority). Bush argued that it could be 14 and Rove backed him up with data. “No one in the White House seemed to believe either man.” [/] By Jonathan Martin 03:35 PM [/] e-mail: jmartin@politico.com [/] aim: jmartnrComments
How about this nugget from the Clinton Fundraising Handbook,page 235 "never,ever turn down foreign cash,we can always post it from an American address. Don't be shy about holding out the possibility of a pardon to shake those pursestrings loose". [/] Posted By: Intrepid1 | September 03, 2007 at 04:17 PM
[...] "The portions picked up by the New York Times yesterday and Washington Post today don't do it justice." - MartinKos______________MartinKos, shouldn't these sentences really say "The portions picked up by the left-wing New York Times yesterday and liberal Washington Post today don't do it justice." ?? Please advise. [/] Posted By: perception50 | September 03, 2007 at 05:38 PM
FYI, the author is Robert Draper, not Eric Draper. Eric is the President's photographer. [/] Posted By: | September 03, 2007 at 06:04 PM
[...] From all accounts, this seems to be a well-balanced account so far. I'm looking foward to reading it. [/] Posted By: Scott | September 03, 2007 at 06:10 PM
Politics is full of egos and thisjust proves it. G.W. bush is a failure because he wasted his presidency on Iraq. [/] Posted By: wild man | September 03, 2007 at 10:26 PM
[...] How can this be? I thought all of America hated Bush and thought he was the worst President ever since 2001? [/] Posted By: Right-mided Frank | September 04, 2007 at 01:05 AM [/] [My ellipses and emphasis]
