BUSH
Jean Edward Smith
Simon & Schuster
808 pages; $35
For George W Bush, the summer already looks unbearable. The party he gave his life to will repudiate him by nominating a bombastic serial insulter, who makes the famously brash former president look like a museum docent by comparison. And a renowned presidential biographer is weighing in with a judgment that makes Mr Bush's gentleman's Cs at Yale look like the honour roll.
If Mr Bush eventually gets a more sympathetic hearing by history, as he hopes, it will not start with Jean Edward Smith's Bush, a comprehensive and compelling narrative punctuated by searing verdicts of all the places where the author thinks the 43rd president went off track.
Mr Smith, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, made a name for himself in part with masterly biographies of Dwight D Eisenhower and Ulysses S Grant, offering historical reassessments of underrated presidents who looked better with the passage of time. With Bush, he sticks to the original conventional assessment, presenting a shoot-from-the-hip Texan driven by religiosity and immune to the advice of people who knew what they were talking about.
While not a fresh portrait, it is one worth debating at a time when the political class is struggling to understand the meaning of Donald Trump's rise. Mr Trump's name appears nowhere in Bush, but it is clear the populist revolt that propelled him to the Republican nomination had its roots in Mr Bush's presidency, so much so that he easily overcame the former president's brother Jeb. Mr Trump rejects much of what Mr Bush stood for, from the war in Iraq and more forgiving immigration policies to free trade and the very notion of compassionate conservatism.
Mr Smith leaves no mystery where he stands on Mr Bush's place in history. The first sentence of his book: "Rarely in the history of the United States has the nation been so ill-served as during the presidency of George W Bush."
The last: "Whether George W Bush was the worst president in American history will be long debated, but his decision to invade Iraq is easily the worst foreign policy decision ever made by an American president."
In between are more than 650 pages of fast-paced if harsh biography. In this telling, Mr Bush's religious piety took on messianic fervour leading him to turn democracy promotion into a mission from God. He didn't listen to the generals and diplomats. He presided over the diminution of American values by authorising torture and bugging.
The value of Mr Smith's account is not original reporting but a thorough assimilation of the existing record. Mr Bush declined to speak with him, as he has with other authors since leaving office. Mr Smith spoke with both Dick Cheney and Donald H Rumsfeld, but for the most part relies on the existing body of literature.
Mr Smith is more approving of his subject in moments where Mr Bush follows his original campaign doctrine of compassionate conservatism. The former president gets high marks for his No Child Left Behind programme - intended to improve education, especially for minority students - as well as for expanding Medicare to cover prescription drugs. Mr Smith credits Mr Bush for saving the economy through his bold intervention after the financial crash of 2008.
He presents a president who was usually gracious and warm-hearted, who disdained the sort of divisive bashing that Mr Trump favours and who went out of his way to make Barack Obama's transition successful.
Mr Smith's fundamental critique is his belief that Mr Bush overreacted to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. "The events of 9/11 were tragic, but scarcely catastrophic," he writes. That led Mr Bush, in his view, to advance policies that were not justified by the actual danger.
The Patriot Act, he writes, "may be the most ill-conceived piece of domestic legislation since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798." In labeling Iran, Iraq and North Korea an "axis of evil," Mr Bush "had spoken without weighing the consequences." Mr Bush's refusal to face up to the fact that Iraq had no unconventional weapons "suggests a willfulness that borders on psychosis."
Mr Smith takes this indictment further than others by criticising even the decision to go to war in Afghanistan, suggesting that it was a mistake to conflate the Taliban with Al Qaeda. He, of course, has the benefit of hindsight. Even if he is right, few if any leaders in either party at the time argued against the invasion. And what is often overlooked is how Mr Bush evolved over time and modified his approach to the point that Mr Obama kept many of his policies after taking office.
But if Mr Bush feels bruised by Mr Smith's evaluation, he can commiserate this summer with his father. In 1992, Mr Smith published George Bush's War, castigating the first President Bush for Operation Desert Storm's expulsion of Iraqi troops from Kuwait.
Ultimately, the elder Mr Bush's reputation has grown with time despite this assessment - to his chagrin, partly because of comparisons with his son. The younger Mr Bush now has to hope for the same - and may be able to count on comparisons with Mr Trump to make him look better with time.
©2016 The New York Times News Service
Jean Edward Smith
Simon & Schuster
808 pages; $35
For George W Bush, the summer already looks unbearable. The party he gave his life to will repudiate him by nominating a bombastic serial insulter, who makes the famously brash former president look like a museum docent by comparison. And a renowned presidential biographer is weighing in with a judgment that makes Mr Bush's gentleman's Cs at Yale look like the honour roll.
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If Mr Bush eventually gets a more sympathetic hearing by history, as he hopes, it will not start with Jean Edward Smith's Bush, a comprehensive and compelling narrative punctuated by searing verdicts of all the places where the author thinks the 43rd president went off track.
Mr Smith, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, made a name for himself in part with masterly biographies of Dwight D Eisenhower and Ulysses S Grant, offering historical reassessments of underrated presidents who looked better with the passage of time. With Bush, he sticks to the original conventional assessment, presenting a shoot-from-the-hip Texan driven by religiosity and immune to the advice of people who knew what they were talking about.
While not a fresh portrait, it is one worth debating at a time when the political class is struggling to understand the meaning of Donald Trump's rise. Mr Trump's name appears nowhere in Bush, but it is clear the populist revolt that propelled him to the Republican nomination had its roots in Mr Bush's presidency, so much so that he easily overcame the former president's brother Jeb. Mr Trump rejects much of what Mr Bush stood for, from the war in Iraq and more forgiving immigration policies to free trade and the very notion of compassionate conservatism.
Mr Smith leaves no mystery where he stands on Mr Bush's place in history. The first sentence of his book: "Rarely in the history of the United States has the nation been so ill-served as during the presidency of George W Bush."
The last: "Whether George W Bush was the worst president in American history will be long debated, but his decision to invade Iraq is easily the worst foreign policy decision ever made by an American president."
In between are more than 650 pages of fast-paced if harsh biography. In this telling, Mr Bush's religious piety took on messianic fervour leading him to turn democracy promotion into a mission from God. He didn't listen to the generals and diplomats. He presided over the diminution of American values by authorising torture and bugging.
The value of Mr Smith's account is not original reporting but a thorough assimilation of the existing record. Mr Bush declined to speak with him, as he has with other authors since leaving office. Mr Smith spoke with both Dick Cheney and Donald H Rumsfeld, but for the most part relies on the existing body of literature.
Mr Smith is more approving of his subject in moments where Mr Bush follows his original campaign doctrine of compassionate conservatism. The former president gets high marks for his No Child Left Behind programme - intended to improve education, especially for minority students - as well as for expanding Medicare to cover prescription drugs. Mr Smith credits Mr Bush for saving the economy through his bold intervention after the financial crash of 2008.
He presents a president who was usually gracious and warm-hearted, who disdained the sort of divisive bashing that Mr Trump favours and who went out of his way to make Barack Obama's transition successful.
Mr Smith's fundamental critique is his belief that Mr Bush overreacted to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. "The events of 9/11 were tragic, but scarcely catastrophic," he writes. That led Mr Bush, in his view, to advance policies that were not justified by the actual danger.
The Patriot Act, he writes, "may be the most ill-conceived piece of domestic legislation since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798." In labeling Iran, Iraq and North Korea an "axis of evil," Mr Bush "had spoken without weighing the consequences." Mr Bush's refusal to face up to the fact that Iraq had no unconventional weapons "suggests a willfulness that borders on psychosis."
Mr Smith takes this indictment further than others by criticising even the decision to go to war in Afghanistan, suggesting that it was a mistake to conflate the Taliban with Al Qaeda. He, of course, has the benefit of hindsight. Even if he is right, few if any leaders in either party at the time argued against the invasion. And what is often overlooked is how Mr Bush evolved over time and modified his approach to the point that Mr Obama kept many of his policies after taking office.
But if Mr Bush feels bruised by Mr Smith's evaluation, he can commiserate this summer with his father. In 1992, Mr Smith published George Bush's War, castigating the first President Bush for Operation Desert Storm's expulsion of Iraqi troops from Kuwait.
Ultimately, the elder Mr Bush's reputation has grown with time despite this assessment - to his chagrin, partly because of comparisons with his son. The younger Mr Bush now has to hope for the same - and may be able to count on comparisons with Mr Trump to make him look better with time.
©2016 The New York Times News Service