George Bush: The Booksellers Best Friend

For a guy that many consider the most likely to have never picked up a book, George W. Bush is a one man growth industry for the world of publishing.

In the last three months publishing houses have been chopping trees, letting the ink flow and binding the bromides and broadsides, as author after author offers up their take on the Bush Presidency and its effect on American life.

The latest and seemingly the one causing the most distress at the White House, is Bob Woodward's "Plan of Attack". Woodward was given unequalled access to the inner corridors of the Bush White House, as the President and his acolytes planned the war in Iraq.

Woodward paints a complete picture of The Bush regime heading to battle, planning war before September 11th, diverting money from the War on Terror in Afghanistan to the Iraqi expedition and pushing Secretary of State Colin Powell to the periphery of the Bush agenda.

Woodward also stirred up a hornets nest with his claims that the Saudi's and the Bush inner circle have struck a deal to lower gas prices in time for the November election, a claim the Saudi's are going out of their way to try and debunk. And no doubt one the Kerry machine will want to keep on a front burner through the summer.

The many surprises recounted in the book, has the White House on full fledged damage control, sending out handlers and assorted key players to counter spin the offerings of Woodward. Of course they are the masters of their own misfortune, it's a tad surprising that the Bush handlers would allow such unfettered access to a man that basically brought down a presidency with All the President's Men. The book he co-authored with Carl Bernstein during the tumultuous Nixon era and changed the way journalism worked from the seventies on. Then again perhaps no one on the White House staff picked up that epic effort of journalism, because had they managed to thumb through a few pages, there is no way they would have given him a front row to the dysfunction he recorded.

This is the third of a blitz of books about the Bush presidency and the controversies that seem to be percolating just under the surface in this election year.

Richard Clarke made a splash with his tome "Against all enemies", that basically accused the Bush White House of ignoring terrorist threats to the United States prior to 9/11. His book was timed to climb the best sellers list as he was giving testimony at a Congressional Hearing into the events of 9/11. The non stop television exposure and the steady review of his testimony did nothing but help keep his book in the forefront over the last few months.

The White House went on the attack over Clarke's work as well, sending out the heavy hitters to give the official line when questioned about many of the issues that Clarke brought out. Increased book sales were the net result of their non stop rebuttal of his talking points, something his agent must be quite thankful for. No need to promote when the United States government is bringing up your book at every turn.

Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill started the great Bush Rush, with his participation in a tell all book titled, "The Price of Loyalty", which was published in early January. O'Neill, who was fired from the Bush cabinet over a year ago, served up his revenge with a flourish. Interviewed by author David Suskind, O'Neill described the President as a person disengaged from his day to day job; he painted the picture of a Presidency that seems to survive purely through the inertia of the political machine. His blistering attacks on the attention span of President Bush, his compilation of 19,000 memos, thank you notes and other correspondences, all served to present a disconcerting sense of detachment by the high officials of the White House.

In fact, the tone of the book had the White House so worried that Donald Rumsfeld apparently warned Suskind not to publish to publish this book; Suskind did not take the words as a threat, more of a concern over confidential and possibly harmful conversations being published and misconstrued. The White House manned the barricades as they attacked almost every point that O'Neill made. Regardless, it was a book that caught the attention of the White House. And it was the book that began the current literary avalanche of all things George.

While many sectors of the US economy may be on shaky ground, one sector is in good shape. With three consecutive literary efforts now on the shelves, the Industry of explaining, examining and exorcising George seems to be a hot one. At the rate the Bush books are coming out, George could be a legitimate Book of the Month candidate. Hell if they keep up this pace of releasing books about the President, he will be a lock for the Book of the Month, one month at a time.