Eli Lake is a former senior national-security correspondent for The Daily Beast. He previously covered national security and intelligence for The Washington Times. Lake has also been a contributing editor at The New Republic and covered diplomacy, intelligence, and the military for the late New York Sun. He has lived in Cairo and traveled to war zones in Sudan, Iraq, and Gaza. He is one of the few journalists to report from all three members of President Bush’s axis of evil: Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.

'EXTRAORDINARILY GRACIOUS'

The agency's reputation was at a low point when Bush was brought in to help repair it—an assignment he thought was President Ford's way of burying his political career.

THE TSURIS

A senior official calling Netanyahu “chickenshit” shows the ugly side of the president and his team when it comes to the Jewish state.

Cruel Bargain

After the Obama administration bargained for Bowe Bergdahl’s life, the family of ISIS hostage James Foley begged the White House for the same treatment—only to be denied.

Smoking Gun

There’s one man, some Republicans say, who kept the public from learning about the chemical shells littered around Iraq. He was Bush’s most important political adviser.