My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Book Review:

I read this 653 page book from cover to cover so I must have liked it. It was an informative and enlightening history of the Bush-Cheney Administration from 2001-2009. The writing appeared even handed to me. Maybe GW received a bit of a break as he proved to be very human and sympathetic when dealing with families of deceased servicemen and women. Condi Rice comes off as a moderate voice of reason, a bulwark against the hard line tone and policies recommended by VP Cheney, particularly as it related to the war on terror. Bush’s best advisors seemed to be his wife, Laura, Condi Rice and Karen Hughes.

The reporting by Baker around the events of 9/11 was excellent!

Dick Cheney comes off gruff, combative and strident throughout the book. On the surface, he did not undermine the President but his philosophy was different on the conduct of the war against terror, social issues and especially the pardon decision around Scooter Libby.

Political Analysis:

I wasn’t a fan of GW when he was President. It appeared that his administration did not take seriously the warnings about Bin Laden that came up in summer 2001. The Afghanistan and Iraq debacles were poorly decided and carried out with very little planning and coordination between the White House and the military. Hurricane Katrina was a disaster for New Orleans, Louisiana and Bush. Recovery planning was bungled largely due to poor management skills of Michael Brown, Bush’s FEMA director.

The economy almost cratered in Bush’s last year in office. He was saved by the heroic efforts of Henry Paulson, his Secretary of the Treasury. Neither Bush nor Cheney had a clue as to what was going on as financial services were ready to collapse.

From reading the book, one can sense that Bush realized that he did not do a very good job. His poor performance cost the Republicans the 2008 Presidential race. John McCain could not separate himself far enough politically and personally from the Bush administration. Obviously that strategy failed…

Bush-Cheney will not be judged the worst adminstration in recent U.S. History.That designation should go the Trump-Pence adminstration 2017-2021.







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