Book beast
More Book beastThe Bush Book Bomb
by Matt Latimer
Matt Latimer is the author of the New York Times bestseller, SPEECH-LESS: Tales of a White House Survivor. He was deputy director of speechwriting for George W. Bush and chief speechwriter for Donald Rumsfeld.
Charles Dharapak / AP Photo
While 43's memoir isn't due in stores until after the 2010 midterm voting is over, Republicans are increasingly anxious about its impact. Former Bush aide Matt Latimer on the Dems' last best hope.
Faced with festering political controversies, frustration within the ranks, an ongoing war in Afghanistan, and a stubbornly stagnant economy, the Obama administration has no other choice. The team that once promised to rid us of old-style politics is clinging to that well-worn Washington tactic: Blame the other guy. "The other guy" is about to re-enter the fray—and the timing is making many Republicans nervous.
Just as their once-comatose party shows some color in its cheeks again, its old doctors are back in the ward. Former President George W. Bush and his corral of Texas-based surrogates are preparing to flood the airwaves in anticipation of his new memoir, another step in a carefully crafted rehabilitation strategy. The publication date of Bush's Decision Points is set for early November, one week after the congressional elections. But, as with any likely bestseller, the details of the book are certain to leak out earlier—meaning the Bush years could be re-litigated and re-explored during the final, pivotal weeks of the campaign.
It is not clear just how much the Bush book will affect the debate—it was Bill Clinton, after all, who said all elections are about the future. And some Republicans, particularly those most closely tied to the Bush regime, actually argue the book could help the party by reminding some voters of what they liked about Bush. Still, that has not stopped some Republicans, traumatized over the last two election cycles, from fearing the worst. "Monumentally bad timing" was the reaction of one former Bush aide who learned of the book release date. Another prominent conservative compared the Bushies' public-relations savvy to LeBron James. "Selfish and stupid" was another noted right-wing columnist's reaction. Democrats, meanwhile, are gleeful.
Thanks in large part to the Obama administration's stumbles—an unpopular health-care bill and the administration's perceived mishandling of the economy and the BP catastrophe—the Republicans are on a winning streak. But the GOP grassroots has been at work as well, trying hard to move the party away from their old leadership. Just this year, Republican voters tossed aside once-popular Washington incumbents from Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (clobbered in the Texas gubernatorial primary) to Utah's three-term Senator Robert Bennett. They rejected Mitch McConnell's favored candidate for an open Senate seat in Kentucky (in favor of the untested Rand Paul) and forced Florida's GOP Governor Charlie Crist out of a Senate primary race he was certain to lose. Even the party's most recent presidential nominee, John McCain, is facing a stubborn primary challenge in Arizona. GOP Chairman Michael Steele, who meets with the grassroots constantly, figured out their mood early, blasting the Bush administration and Republican leadership for having "screwed up" and saying it was time to move on.
One prominent conservative compared the Bushies'
public-relations savvy to LeBron James.
Like the Bush team itself, there is nothing that the Obama administration would like more than to re-lasso the GOP to the Bush years and, the Obama White House hopes, remind the country of why they turned to the Democrats in the first place. President Obama's consistent attacks on the Bush record undoubtedly have come as an unhappy surprise to Bush, who vowed never to criticize his successor publicly and, perhaps somewhat naively, believed Obama would return the favor. But that, of course, is not how Washington works. Starting from the first lines of his inaugural address, when Obama offended Bushies by seeming to chastise the outgoing president, Obama has made clear that he has no compunction about tarring the Bush record. And as their political fate sinks faster than Tom Cruise's latest movie, Team Obama has blamed everything on the Bush Republicans but Amelia Earhart's disappearance. (That comes next week.)
Just this month, for example, the president called the lingering recession the Bushies' fault, the result, Obama said, of "a decade of economic policies that culminated in the worst crisis since the Great Depression." On Afghanistan, the White House blamed the Bush administration for "undersourcing" and neglecting the war. And on everything from health care to energy, Obama recently blasted the Bush years for having a policy that he labeled "you're on your own"—policies that he said were "bad" for workers, "bad" for business owners, and "bad for the country." Some pundits are dubious of such a strategy, but there are a few signs that it may be working. Though Bush has been out of office for nearly two years, a recent Bloomberg poll found that more voters blamed the former president than the current one for the situation in Afghanistan, unemployment, and the federal deficit. Into this sour mood, the Bushies are preparing to wade.
The former president, who I knew to be an often "misunderestimated" politician, may indeed think his book will help his party—by setting the record straight. (There are parts of that record that can use some plain old Texas clarifyin'.) Undoubtedly some people will look more kindly on the Bush years now than they did at the time, particularly on national security. But the problem is that Bush himself will not be able to make his case before the elections. As with most high-profile books, W. will likely be embargoed from talking until his book is released—far too late to change the minds of any voters.
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Rebecca Dana is a senior correspondent for The Daily Beast. A former editor and reporter for The Wall Street Journal, she has also written for The New York Times, The New York Observer, Rolling Stone, and Slate, among other publications.
The Shadow Over Obama’s Address
As vice chairman of Public Strategies and president of Maverick Media, Mark McKinnon has helped meet strategic challenges for candidates, corporations and causes, including George W. Bush, John McCain, Governor Ann Richards, Charlie Wilson, Lance Armstrong, and Bono.
Does Diet Soda Make You Fat?
Susan B. Roberts, PhD is Professor of Nutrition and Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts University and author of The "I" Diet weight-loss program. Weight loss on this program averages 16 pounds in 8 weeks and 30 pounds in 5 months.
No Way to Wind Down a War
Matt Latimer is the author of the New York Times bestseller, SPEECH-LESS: Tales of a White House Survivor. He was deputy director of speechwriting for George W. Bush and chief speechwriter for Donald Rumsfeld.
The Ann Coulter You Don't Know
Matt Latimer is the author of the New York Times bestseller, SPEECH-LESS: Tales of a White House Survivor. He was deputy director of speechwriting for George W. Bush and chief speechwriter for Donald Rumsfeld.
Is Harry Reid Right About the GOP?
Matt Latimer is the author of the New York Times bestseller, SPEECH-LESS: Tales of a White House Survivor. He was deputy director of speechwriting for George W. Bush and chief speechwriter for Donald Rumsfeld.
RJB-Boston
all bush's problems started when he appointed cheney as his vice president and then cheney ran things by focusing on the neocon agenda, oil, prosperity for the military industrial complex and extreme secrecy and paranoia. if bush had gone down another path with his choice, he may have come out ok.
mmarsh
Cheney was a symptom not the cause. The fact is Bush was a lightweight who never had do any heavy lifting his entire life. When he got himself into a jam (in school, the draft, in baseball, his businesses), his father or his fathers friends would bail him out. He got used to other people doing things for him. That in and of itself made Bush a very bad president. Real Leaders take charge, and Bush's attitude was to simply passed th buck to someone else. A person with this attitude has absolute no business in public office...
Bush was so far over his head in the White House (and even governor) his only choice was to hire people like Cheney and the rest of the neocon cabal who would actually shoulder the burden of the work. It didn't really occurred to him until much later in his administration that his "advisors" had agendas of their own and there were some truly terrible consequences letting these people operate without any oversight -Bush got the blame for all of it.
Bush was convenient scapegoat for the neocons, what worries me the most is that these idiots are merely biding their time waiting for the next GOP idiot candidate they can manipulate (read: SARAH PALIN) so that they continue the policies left over from the Bush Administration.
Holyterror44
The look on Bush's face when he got the message "America is under attack" was the look of a lifetime slacker who could no longer pass the buck.
FarLeftFist
Bush equals Illuminati NWO. Zeitgeist.
TOMMcG
mmarsh
You hit the nail squarely on the head. Good Post!!
Cpriestess
excellent comment but keep watching for that look in this Oval office...
CoddledEgg
Notice the common thread- Bush had real jobs. Not like Senator Present who almost wrote an autobiograph in his 20's but couldnt finish it, spoke once in court before he quit that and did nothing as a Senator.
VincentOMoh
CoddledEgg: Obama was a university professor. That in itself is a "real job," yes?
Fordham03
I agree, mmarsh. Rarely has anything been stated so correctly and succinctly. Bush was a disaster from start to finish. The only presidential behavior he exhibited was the way he welcomed Obama to the White House. By that time, he was happy to hand it over.
Palin is cunning but not smart, and certainly not educated in civics or American History. In other words, she's a sham. She's an ex-beauty queen with a massive ego who saw that racism and snide remarks worked on the campaign trail with McCain and quit a real job as governor of Alaska to ride the gravy train. There are so many unscupulous people out there that are willing to dupe the American people to put a complete idiot in the White House that it scares me. What about country first?!
Sticky29
Wow!! I just need to ask, have you ever met Mr. Bush? I doubt it, so to cast all tghese charges without ever meeting him does not seem fair. And talk about being over your head, what about Obama? What do you think of him?
Ritarita
The only reason
Bush was ever 'awarded'
The Presidency in the first place-
Was so Cheney COULD BE VP.
The military industrial/Big Oil complex
Understood that Cheney
Could not get elected on his own
Without a 'more attractive'
Ventriloquist's dummy.
And their planning
Was VERY RICHLY rewarded-
With war and de-regulation.
From Enron
To Afghanistan
To the Gulf of Mexico-
It's all about the
Profits baby.
dannyboy547
Nice poem.
RevPettibone
to Ritarita.....
So how do you explain the Manchurian Candidate the democrats ushered in to the Oval Office now???? Does that mean With Joe "Plugs" Biden as his copilot, you're intention was to make sure there'd always be someone at the helm to walk all over?
FarLeftFist
This book is going to bomb. No pun intended. Who would want to relive that nightmare from the beginning all over again.
Ritarita
Tit for tat
Arguments
Are just not that
Effective-
Rev.
RevPettibone
to Ritarita.....
You're right, it's better for me to trump you with the following Youtube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za7rrFJ4zUw
CoddledEgg
I love how 10 years later is still denying the election results.
Like after 2004 the Dims were talking about only having to "flip" 150,000 votes in Ohio. Delusional.
bosatsu
America's problem began when Republicans chose Bush to begin with. They had John McCain, Colin Powell, Alexander Haig... All true conservatives, all war veterans--and not of the AWOL type. All competent leaders with long track records of success in their fields.
But they chose Bush. A daddy's boy who couldn't run a company anywhere but into the dirt. He needed massive help from start to finish; from daddy's contacts to actually governing.
This itself was a symptom. A symptom of Christian fundamentalism in my opinion. He said the right things, hated the right groups and purposefully courted the religious right. But he was an empty shell and a proper mask for someone else.
The other candidates had their own ideas and strong personalities to match. All Bush wanted was to sit in the big chair. The other candidates would not be easy to control. Bush was a willing puppet.
But fortune still smiles on America, even through Bush. He single-handedly destroyed Reagan's voodoo economics, corporate socialism has been exposed, and the religious right is flocking to Sara Palin and the tea-party, where they can be mocked and neutralized.
And now, he offers to remind us, yet again, of the path we could be still taking downwards.
God works in mysterious ways indeed.
TOMMcG
Another good post. And to me it looks for all the world that the GOP may well deliver us another spectacularly unqualified presidential nominee in Sarah Palin. As of now I would bet a healthy wager that she is far and away the likely nominee of the Republican Party. Nobody else is even close. Now that the Tea Party is virtually dictating tactics and policy to the "mainstream" Republicans, she is in the Catbird seat. It just seem beyond belief that after George W Bush, we could get someone even more hollow, shallow, and vapid than was he.
Yarbels
Instead of Bush we have a racist liar as a joke of a president! Obama keeps crying that everything is Bush's fault! I wonder if his little girls whine the way he does!
What a joke Obama is. He is still protecting the unions"organized crime" and his Butt Buddy Barny Frank! Yeah way to go Obama time to crack down on those thieves or at least the ones your not in bed with! By the way Mr. President how do you take your Frank? As for you losers that voted for him and continue to support him I have a question. How do you like taking it up the back side? As always keep those comments coming. I can be contacted at work http://www.usa-businessreview.com were still in Beta so me and Obama are all doing the same thing. Watching the paint dry.
pjsoft
I agree. To be fair, Bush did after the midterms in 2006, see the "light." He fired Rumsfeld and started listening Sec. Rice rather than Cheney. Took him 6 years to figure it out but at least he did, too late for his approval ratings. The damage had already been done.
Cpriestess
Although I believe your conclusion is correct you forget how it happened. Mr. Bush asked Cheney to head the VP search committee and after searching high and low for suitable candidates, he informed GW that the only REALLY good candidate was himself. And unfortunately this did not cause GW to ask any questions.
misha1000
It's a pop-up book. His signings around the country are going to be at Toys R Us.
Holyterror44
Signed with a big, blue crayon.
FarLeftFist
L-O-F**king-L
Dosylac
What a waste of money to buy that Morons fantasy book.
Hopefully it will tank and no one will buy it.
And Mr. Lattimer, I doubt the health care bill was largely unpopular.
dcbooknurse
I'm not a Bush43 fan, but I am interested in reading the book. I don't believe that Bush, Cheny and all got up every morning and said "Goody, We get to destroy the country some more!" They thought they were doing what was best. I'd just to understand how they came to the conclusions that what they were doing was what was best.
bosatsu
you won't find that information in the book. This is an attempt to rewrite history and sanitize his disastrous time in office. This will be propaganda fantasy, pure and simple.
Holyterror44
DC,
Their Rice Krispies told them.
Ritarita
DCnurse
They didn't do
What they thought
WAS BEST-
They did what they thought
WAS BEST FOR PROFITS.
You sound much too altruistic
To believe that people like that exist
But in this case-
YOU CAN BELIEVE
YOUR EYES.
leftguy
Enough hasn't been done to expose the pure capitalistic evil that was the Bush regime. Now we have a strong role model and His cabinet are role models as well. He will prevail.
Holyterror44
He could at least show some courage and release it before the elections.
What is he afraid of?
aniccia
simple human truth and divine reckoning
This user is no longer registered.
Yarbels
Yo mcmchugh99 since your kind of slow I will use small words. When the American gov cuts taxes on the richest 2 percent do you know what happens? They pay more money in taxes to America. So here is what you need to do...are you following me here mcmchugh99? Yes? OK If you want the richest 2 percent of Americans to pay more taxes what needs to be done is lower their taxes! If you ever need anything else explained to you feel free to contact me at http://www.politico.com/news/stories,http://www.usa-businessreview.com
tumbleweed
I can remember in one simple word what I liked about Bush....NOTHING!!!!
Danbury
It is so typically Orwellian Republicanism to say that the president on whose watch 9/11 occurred looks good "especially on national security."
Blows my mind.
What the GOP has going for it, frankly, is the impatience and stupidity of the American public.
bosatsu
There you have it. Sad but true.
Cpriestess
Both large parties are counting on the dumbing down of America, that is why walking away from them actively is so vitally necessary.
nonpolitical
How true, unfortunately for both parties
Danbury
Repubs just now figuring out that Bush is "selfish and stupid"?
Dawn lights on Marblehead.
dailyplanet
An attempt to rehabilitate Bush's image? Who says it can't be done when concerted effort is made.
An army of hard-core Republican conservatives, right-wingers, spent years burnishing Ronald Reagan's legacy, making him into an icon to be worshiped. They even initiated a campaign to have his image carved into Mt. Rushmore!
Bush's presidency was the extreme realization of what Reagan championed: a reactionary government for and by the corporate and financial elites. If Ronald Reagan can be PR'ed into saint-hood, maybe somebody so inconceivable as George Bush can be resurrected.
Danbury
As a friend of mine often says, "Americans are stoopit."
pennsykid2000
Lattimer: Just this month, for example, the president called the lingering recession the Bushies' fault, the result, Obama said, of "a decade of economic policies that culminated in the worst crisis since the Great Depression." On Afghanistan, the White House blamed the Bush administration for "undersourcing" and neglecting the war. And on everything from health care to energy, Obama recently blasted the Bush years for having a policy that he labeled "you're on your own"-policies that he said were "bad" for workers, "bad" for business owners, and "bad for the country."
Few could encapsulate the Bush administration's horrendous record of damage to the country any better than this. How could anyone seriously say that any of these comments are not true? The evidence is overwhelming.
Titus77
Anyone who disputes the above is either knowingly perpetuating lies or is hopelessly ignorant of facts. Attention conservatives, republicans and all those who just hate Obama and think he's the anti-christ: you're wrong and you have zero credibility.
MekhongKurt
pennsykid2000, you saved me the time of making the comment you made in your second paragraph. It was the very first thing I thought.
leslee
Democrats and Republicans alike need to get over it: the Bush presidency is over. If Obama and his pals "best hope" is to try to run against Bush, yet again, it's a pretty sad commentary on his own presidency. Different if Bush had anything at all to do with the future. He doesn't. Period, end of story. On the other hand, when you realize that what Obama has accomplished has all been done by virtue of the majority party simply cramming unpopular legislation down our throats, perhaps fighting a straw dog is the only battle they think they can win.
floridabob
We are, unfortunately, still experiencing the Bush Presidency. Getting over it, will take many years.
nonpolitical
It wasn't Bush's policies that wiped out my retirement. Obama is another empty shirt. Doesn't any one out there realize the difference between bilions and trillions? Bush was bad Obama is worse!!
Danbury
Bush presidency is hardly over.
We will be dealing with the fallout from those eight years for a long, long time to come.
MadCharles
Danbury, You're right. Obama is following the Bush war plan, and wars history also as we speak. He's doing a crap job. But he'd rather not be known in history as the President that lost the war vs pleasing his silly base.
Danbury
MadCharles,
You think Obama's base is for continuing the wars and increasing the number of troops????
Hmmm.....
Seems you have the Republican bad habit of just creating reality to suit your agenda.
mmarsh
MadCharles
Danbury is correct. Obama's polls are in the toilet because he lost his base and a major reason why he has lost his base is because he refuses to extradite himself from the War Bush Created.
Pumping resources into a extremely unpopular war will only further anger his base.
StellaRay
Sorry, no cigar. Neither you or any other republican is going to sell us on forgetting the monumental incompetency of the Bush administration, which we are still suffering for.
But it is true that Bush is not solely responsible for the Great Recession. No, that would be the last 30 years of republican economic agenda, starting with Regan's failed trickle down theories and ending with Bush's extravaganza of deregulation and lack of attention or concern as the bankers turned their business into one big casino.
susangalea
Your point is good but Clinton had a part in that old deregulation thing too. Let's be fair. His reputation for bringing down the deficit and other rather good economic judgments is well-deserved too. Not sure what is redeemable about the Republicans here. Nothing really.
MekhongKurt
"Cramming unpopular legislation down our throats"? You mean like National Security Letters? Legal opinions saying the President could do as he damned well pleased with "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo and elsewhere? You mean the Republican Congress that went along with off-the-books funding for two wars? -- funding we're kinda stuck with now, thanks to Bush?
I know exactly what -- and who -- you mean.
Radicalmoderate
You are simplistic and pathetic. You have a hollow philosophy and your premise and arguments are ridiculous. Just how thick is that Bush Bubble around your brain? Did you notice that your party tanked our country and your sad ideology is headed to the trash heap of idiocy faster than you can destroy my 401k?
floridabob
I object to people, as this writer, saying the American people have an unfavorable opinion of the new HC Law. Kaiser poll clearly show, that is not true. They say 48% favor, 41% oppose.
Danbury
It's going to be like the tea party dimwit holding the sign that says, "Keep your government hands off my Medicare!"
Americans will happily exploit for themselves the new bill while insisting that OTHERS should not, don't have legitimate reasons to do so, are just lazy and don't work hard enough. You know, THEY have legit reasons for needing gov't help, but no one else does.
Meanwhile, the truly put-upon, the top 1%, will continue shrieking about the devastation awaiting them should Bush's tax cuts expire! Eek.
Lack of empathy and narcissism have taken over the culture in the US.
MadCharles
Dan ! not too many years ago democrats were screaming keep you're hands off my medicare.. You'll mature more once you're out of high school.
Danbury
MadCharles,
1) Untrue;
2) You totally missed the point.
MekhongKurt
MadCharles, of course the Democrats screamed "Keep your hands of my Medicare!" -- they SUPPORTED it. Not like the Tea Partiers & Co. who insist on smaller government, government getting out of lives -- EXCEPT in ways THEY benefit. Oh no -- don't touch that stuff!
The sheer hypocrisy is incredible, matched only by Congress's passing one law for themselves and another for the rest of us.
To cheer myself up a bit, I will admit the rich irony does bring a smile -- if faint and hollow -- to my face.
Ritarita
Yeah.
He's totally off base
With that one.
There are
Numerous polls
That show MOST in favor-
They just don't get much
Press.
duanes
we the people cant get over bush because he installed his croonies so deep into our government that it will take years to get them out, get the lies and slicksters out of office,, what bush did to this country cannot be forgiven nor forgotten, a pea brained idiot run by a bunch of hidden billionairs who to this day continue to bankrupt and wreck our country,,, if you think this is better forgotten and brushed under the rug then your just as bad and he and cheney and rummy,,, your all dummies,,,theyve killed our kids, theyve lied to us, theyve put people in places that will hurt our country for years, if you dont think so all you have to do is look at roberts, and his decision to let forgien companies dump money into our elections,,,,,,,thanks bush instead of writing a book to try to chang history you and cheney should be in jail,,,,, on death row would be appropriate id say!
ROOSTERTLC
THIS POOR EXCUSE OF A MAN IS
A MASS MURDERER !!!
A LIAR !!!
A THIEF !!!
A WIMP !!!
A COLD, CALCULATING S.O.B. !!!
THIS BOOK SHOULD HAVE A DISCLAIMER !!!
"READING THIS B.S. WILL MAKE YOU IMPOTENT" !!!
Ritarita
Troll.
susangalea
At some risk to your blood pressure, I'm guessing... Could you find the lower cases on your keyboard? I find myself often ignoring your enthusiastic remarks because the over -emphatic rendition is truly wearisome. Just a thought, mind....
greenback
Sweet! That was a cool poem! You oughta publish it.
JohnConnughton
Matt, what planet are you from? There are no 'last best hopes' for anyone. In Nov 2010 almost anything could happen, including the Rep votes get split up and the Dems GAIN seats. I don't know why everyone is assuming history repeats and mid-term elections mean losses to the incumbent party, because these surely are times unusual for the breadth and depth of major issues, and the absurdity of its political rants. Sure the Dems could lose seats, but almost certainly not control. On the other side we've got people talking secession out loud, which is TREASON. We've got people exposing ideology so wrong and dated you wonder why they don't just keep quiet and do themselves a favor. Simply bad-mannered morons like Joe Barton and Joe 'You lie!"whatever his name was. Sorry, Matt, too many on the right are drawing small crowds of lunatic fringe, but will not be elected by more sober electorates. Hell, look what you've got for a party chairman, a moron of token hue who states that Obama chose the Afghan War while Americans have always rejected it! Their BS is so deep only the truly faithful will be able to hold their nose and trudge through it to the voting booth.
So I don't know about Nov 2010. And you don't either.
lordmi
don't we have to work on it
to be more certain?
MekhongKurt
John, I believe you're spot on regarding the midterm elections.
Besides the strong possibility, even likelihood, of the far right causing the vote to splinter significantly, there's nothing and no one on the far left who could do the same to the Democrats. There simply are no parallels on the left to the Tea Party, Fox News (by far the leader in cable), and the Limbaugh/Beck/Hannity genre.
Another factor, though I am guessing it won't be a big one, is that some Republicans, according to my Republican friends, are really put off by the party shifting right at the behest of fringe elements (see list above) and by the lockstep -- one friend calls it "goose step," and he certainly knows the image that conjures up -- "Party of No" business. Some of my GOP friends say they're going to have a hard time voting for Republicans. Not that they'll vote for the Democrats -- but they well might not vote at all.
I suspect there are considerably better than even odds that the fringe right is in for a rude awakening once the votes are counted. They will richly deserve it if the Democrats gain even a single seat in either chamber, let alone one (or more) in BOTH.
Thank you.
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