Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush

A reviewer

It takes a special kind of president and a special kind of writer to come together and create a special kind of hubris that is found in spades in DEAD CERTAIN, a breezy, high school hallway gossipy look at the first term and half of George W. Bush. It's a hot topic, a quick read, stuffed with trivia and fully accountable facts that are so fresh you don't feel the need to flip to the back to check the source, because, for the most part, you could be that source yourself. We've all been there with W. in one fashion or another, we've all seen the rise and now the slow and steady tumble, but what DEAD CERTAIN does, and does well, is tie the names in with the places and offer up a number of facts that are at once striking, yet also sadly bland, meaning it often reads like an Agatha Christie novel... there's lots of locations, but in the end it all comes down to one room, eight people and one killer, and here, clearly, it's the president himself. Dead certain, unwavering, a stick to it guy who has to be admired for his intelligence (yes, it's true, W. is a smart man), his dreams (which, while broad are admirable) and his ability to see over the horizon - it's all nobel and Draper does take the time to point these things out... but he also takes the time to twist the knife as well, and you can't blame him since time and again Bush has been handing those knives out for years now. Draper is a good writer, and the book reads very well, but it's also very hollow and feels rushed. He always seems in a hurry to get from one low point to the next that he often fails to hit enough high spots to show us just how deep these low spots really are. Iraq again is the 800 pound gorilla in the room and manages to eat up so much of the book that other events in W's term get the short shift. Draper spends about as much time on New Orelans as Bush does. Cheney's hunting accident is glossed over with a zinger or two, seemingly uninterested in how this single event clearly showed the breakdown in communication between the White House and... well, the White House. The SAME SEX marriage battle is shrugged off as a election ploy (rightly so), yet Draper ignores the Jeff Gannon story. Plus, everyone, while alive, real and seen on TV day and night, all come across like charatcers in the book. There's just stats, facts and quotes and that's it... of them all, and I guess it only makes sense, George W. Bush gets the most time spent on his life. But even here, it's really old news. You can lay the charge of 'bias' at Draper's door and not feel guilty (or vindicated) because the ebb and flow between the present and the past are edited together in a way to leave you with some, at times, disturbed thoughts. For both, Draper and the president, the hubris comes in with both an unfinished term and a incomplete book - how is it possible to write about a president that has yet to complete his term? Impossible. It's not finished, anything can (and will) happen, yet both Draper and Bush feel free to act like it's all in the past. Bush may like to say that he dosen't think about his next step, but he betrays this late in the book with the often quoted line about how much cash he can make in speeches and his Freedom Institute, but even before that he's been quoted as leaving it all up to HISTORY, which is just as good as throwing up your hands and walking away right there and then. And in the end, that's how DEAD CERTAIN closes. No conclusions are drawn, no real study has been made. It's headline rich, quotable and sure to be passed around like a Lynn Cheney novel. It's 1.5 HISTORY, quick, hot and soon to be overtaken and left in the dust by longer, more thoughtful studies down the road.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Certainly Consequential

Author Robert Draper was given rare access to the president and we get a revealing look at Bush the man. And what we see is a man whose rhetoric does not always match his actions. Bush insists a leader shouldn¿t govern by polls and yet his White House is portrayed as prioritizing politics time and time again. For instance, Bush acknowledges that one of the main justifications for pursuing comprehensive immigration reform is the fact that it would help the GOP in the coming years. Also, the book takes us inside a White House prepping for re-election unusually early. We learn the eternal debates Bush partisans were having over who would be the strongest and weakest Democratic contenders in 2004 'the White House feared John Edwards and Dick Gephardt but looked forward to running against Howard Dean and the doomed John Kerry'. The book also outlines the administration¿s disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina and how political turf wars inside and outside the administration only exacerbated the situation. Also, want to know why Bush didn¿t get back to D.C. or get to New Orleans when the scope of the catastrophe was apparent to all? According to the book it was because it was Bush¿s pattern to shy away from tragic events and the president hated schedule changes. 'The section on Katrina also provides a hilarious depiction of Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu¿s response to the tragedy'. Bush¿s critics like to portray him as incurious and even dumb but the Bush that emerges in the book is an optimistic people person with shrewd political skills and just enough smarts to take advantage of opponents who make the mistake of underestimating him. Remember when Bush was derided for insisting he testify to the 9/11 Commission with Vice President Dick Cheney? Well it turns out Bush actually dominated the testimony and talked about 90 percent of the time. Bush also brags about reading up to 100 books a year and often invites historians to the White House for open discussion 'even though the president says he believes you learn more by doing than by reading'. And the author even details Bush¿s wonkinsh tendencies on some of his pet subjects like education. In ¿Dead Certain¿ the reader is able to relive the many highs and lows of the Bush presidency. We also learn President Bush is a man of extremely strong likes and dislikes. Exercise, faith, clarity, and Dr. Evil impressions are in one category nuance, long meetings, late nights and dancing are in the other. And if that¿s not enough, the author even reveals the top administration official who drives a Harley to work, is crushed on by members of the press and once dated actress Bo Derek. Pick up the book and find out who it is.

No text was provided for this review.

No text was provided for this review.