It was only about eighteen months ago I first went for a browse through the amazon.ca booklists and discovered that George W. Bush was good for the book business, more than one year later and he’s still the champ of the bestseller shelves and the delete bins.
As the opinion polls continue to track downwards in pretty well every category that can be measured. The President may feel like he’s an unloved guy, but if there is one group that perhaps has a soft spot for the embattled US prez; it might be the Book sellers of the world.
George to put it simply is still good for business, putting aside the usual tomes by Al Franken and Maureen Dowd there is a an entire forest being clear cut as we speak, dedicated to books to bash Bush.
A quick scan of the Amazaon.ca books list find dozens of titles all with the same theme, America Good, Bush Bad. No wonder the President is reported to have retreated more and more into the bowels of the White House, eschewing conversations with anyone beyond his closest aides. One thing is certain he’s not hanging out in the Presidential Library, since it seems there wouldn’t be much in the way of positive re-enforcement for him to peruse.
Some of the more vitriolic books include,
Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove made George Bush look Presidential, by James Moore and Wayne Slater. It basically tells the story of the Machiavelli of the West Wing and how he has been able to create a President out of a reluctant warrior. One assumes that the sequel is in the works should Rove end up in political or criminal trouble over his current situation.
Such Men Are Dangerous: The fanatics of 1692 and 2004, by Frances Hill. Described as a chilling commentary, that compares the President and his neo-con buddies to the same crew that conducted the Salem Witch Hunts.
How much are you making on the war Daddy? A Quick and Dirty Guide to War Profiteering in the Bush Administration, by William Hartung. Going well beyond those great debates about Dick Cheney and Halliburton, this one shows how many of the current Bush insiders have earned and in some ways created their fortunes with public policy.
The President of Good and Evil: Questioning the ethics of George W. Bush, by Peter Singer. From Iraq to the Supreme Court, Singer examines pretty well every decision that the President has made and suggests that he leaves his nation underserved.
The above is only a miniscule sample of the pages and pages to click through at Amazon.ca. If you have some time do a search of the many books listed about Bush and try as you might, it would be quite a feat to find more than a handful suggesting that the Bush Presidency is one of great achievement and anything close to being a success.
Even some of those tomes that praise the leader don’t seem to scream off the page with glee. Take the Bush biography by David Frum, The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush. Sheesh, when even your own side can’t muster up more than the term “surprise”, it’s time to get busy on legacy building. Of course to be fair to the President, Frum is probably the fairest of fair weather supporters, living off his 15 minutes of fame in the Bush White house and his Axis of Evil slogan.
Moved out of the White House a few years ago, he most recently he spent a fair amount of time ambushing the President’s first choice of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court, so Frum may not have been the most dedicated of foot soldiers.
And to add insult to all of this injury, even John Dean has risen from the political dead and weighed in with his own unflattering look at the Bush agenda. Dean has written an interesting examination of the bush Presidency called, Worse than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush. That title alone, must give the President pause to reflect on his popularity.
When the author and main participant in what has been described as arguably the most crooked presidency ever, suggests that your Presidency is a bad one, well it may be time for a serious image makeover. Not to mention time for some serious rewriting of your agenda and an urgent call to improve your place in American History. It also is a hint that you can put your library card away for awhile, there's nothing there for you to read.
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