While Tony Blair emerged from his memoirs as a chameleon of many colours, there is only one George W. Bush in Decision Points. The book reads like the man speaks. If it has been ghosted — and Bush gives thanks to a multitude of helpers — it has been done with consummate skill to preserve the authentic Bush voice. The result will be unexpected, even unwelcome, to many. This is an interesting and readable book, which clips along in short, spare sentences, with frequent flashes of humour. Don’t take my word for it. It has been praised by none other than Bill Clinton.
Bush, of course, sets out to put the record straight; and, as he sees it, there is a great deal to put straight — the ‘war on terror’, Afghanistan, Iraq, rescuing the banks and hurricane Katrina being some of the more notable areas where his critics have found him wanting. When he left office in 2008, his approval ratings were in the low 20s, a historic nadir for a departing president. Bush takes comfort from the example of President Harry Truman:
The man from Missouri knew how to make a hard decision and stick by it. He did what he thought was right and didn’t care much what the critics said. When he left office in 1953, his approval ratings were in the 20s. Today he is viewed as one of America’s great presidents.
This is the book’s key passage. Bush, like Blair, looks to history for his vindication, which, he confesses, will not come in his lifetime. If 50 years hence Iraq is a stable and prosperous democracy, the agony of its birth pangs will, he thinks, be seen as a price worth paying for the removal of Saddam Hussein. At which point, though he does not say this in so many words, George W. Bush will assume his rightful place in the pantheon of great American presidents.
Bush’s reputation began to be trashed early in the presidential campaign of 2000, both by Al Gore’s Democratic party and a large slice of European opinion, including in Britain. At the time it reminded me of the reaction to the coming of Ronald Reagan in 1981. Too many people then saw only a mediocre Hollywood actor and not the experienced politician who had shown his smarts as California governor and head of the Screen Actors’ Guild.
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