According to Crown Publishers, "Decision Points" will offer "gripping, never-before-heard detail" on such historic events as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the 2000 presidential election along with Bush's decision to quit drinking, his relationship with his family and other personal details.Here's the cover :
Political strategist Karl Rove says President George W. Bush made the right decision to launch the Iraq war in 2003, but the former White House adviser admits the failure to find weapons of mass destruction badly damaged the administration's credibility.So Bush unknowingly misled the American public?In his new memoir, "Courage and Consequence," Rove blames himself for not pushing back against claims that Bush had taken the country to war under false pretenses, calling it one of the worst mistakes he made during the Bush presidency.
Rove says Bush did not knowingly mislead the American public about the existence of such weapons.
O'Reilly : I have to say that when President Bush was in trouble in Iraq, this network and this program, and your program as well, routinely, routinely hammered President Bush. On Iraq.Here's Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch admitting he used his network, and worldwide media empire, to help the Bush administration try and shape public opinion all through the War On Iraq :Hume: Well, we certainly -- we, we were very faithful about covering all the bad news that came out of Iraq for a very long period of time. The criticisms that were made of him were reported and discussed at length on Fox News. Um, now, he had his defenders, the war had its defenders, there was commentary on Fox --
O'Reilly: But there was no cheerleading -- There was no cheerleading of President Bush on this network when his administration ran into trouble. There was no cheerleading, you know -- it was skeptical coverage, Iraq's going south, when the economy started to wobble last September, we were right on that.
It will soon be every man for himself.
There's a lot of bodies....“Did President Bush know everything you knew?” Bob Schieffer asked Cheney on “Face the Nation” last Sunday. The former vice president’s uncharacteristically stumbling and qualified answer — “I certainly, yeah, have every reason to believe he knew...” — suggests that the Bush White House’s once-united front is starting to crack under pressure.
I’m not a fan of Washington’s blue-ribbon commissions, where political compromises can trump the truth. But the 9/11 investigation did illuminate how, a month after Bush received an intelligence brief titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.,” 3,000 Americans were slaughtered on his and Cheney’s watch. If the Obama administration really wants to move on from the dark Bush era, it will need a new commission, backed up by serious law enforcement, to shed light on where every body is buried.
Read The Whole Story Here(Official Bush biographer Robert) Draper reports that Rumsfeld’s monomaniacal determination to protect his Pentagon turf led him to hobble and antagonize America’s most willing allies in Iraq, Britain and Australia, and even to undermine his own soldiers. But Draper’s biggest find is a collection of daily cover sheets that Rumsfeld approved for the Secretary of Defense Worldwide Intelligence Update, a highly classified digest prepared for a tiny audience, including the president, and often delivered by hand to the White House by the defense secretary himself. These cover sheets greeted Bush each day with triumphal color photos of the war headlined by biblical quotations. GQ is posting 11 of them, and they are seriously creepy.
Take the one dated April 3, 2003, two weeks into the invasion, just as Shock and Awe hit its first potholes. Two days earlier, on April 1, a panicky Pentagon had begun spreading its hyped, fictional account of the rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch to distract from troubling news of setbacks. On April 2, Gen. Joseph Hoar, the commander in chief of the United States Central Command from 1991-94, had declared on the Times Op-Ed page that Rumsfeld had sent too few troops to Iraq. And so the Worldwide Intelligence Update for April 3 bullied Bush with Joshua 1:9: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Including, as it happened, into a quagmire.)
What’s up with that? As Draper writes, Rumsfeld is not known for ostentatious displays of piety. He was cynically playing the religious angle to seduce and manipulate a president who frequently quoted the Bible. But the secretary’s actions were not just oily; he was also taking a risk with national security. If these official daily collages of Crusade-like messaging and war imagery had been leaked, they would have reinforced the Muslim world’s apocalyptic fear that America was waging a religious war. As one alarmed Pentagon hand told Draper, the fallout “would be as bad as Abu Ghraib.”
"He SHOULD return home with his head held high. His accomplishments will only be realized in the history books of our children and grandchildren. Thank you, Mr. President. You made me feel like a true U.S. patriot. Good job, sir.""Bush is the man""thank you BUSH may you be safe welcome home."
"America did not deserve someone of your characte, Mr. Bush.""Thank You President Bush for putting America first and popularity last. You will be missed. I just hope we survive these next four years...."
"I'm thankful for our safety, tax cuts and two new conservative justices on the Supreme Court. Thank you President Bush."
On his last day as president, he had a typical morning at the White House, according to departing White House Press Secretary Dana Perino. He spoke with outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other aides, then took a walk around the White House grounds.
"He's the president of the United States, the way he always is," Perino said. "He hasn't changed. He gave me a big kiss on the forehead."
Bush kept with presidential tradition, leaving new President Barack Obama a personal letter in the drawer of the desk in the Oval Office.
Bush was accompanied on his last day by first lady Laura Bush, by his parents, former President George H.W. Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush, daughters Barbara and Jenna and son-in-law Henry Hager.
The family members were part of the former president's entourage to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland to board what had been Air Force One — now designated Special Air Mission 28000 — as he returned home to Texas, stopping first at a welcome celebration in Midland and then on to Waco and his nearby Crawford ranch.
The Bush team on board was a who's who of his former closest aides: Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, Dan Bartlett, Joe Allbaugh and Ed Gillespie. Longtime Texas friends Don Evans, who was commerce secretary in Bush's first term; Alberto Gonzales, the attorney general who left under a cloud; Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel who withdrew as a Supreme Court nominee; and Tom Schieffer, Bush's former partner in the Texas Rangers, who served as U.S. ambassador to Japan and, earlier, to Australia.
So Bush is gone."My fellow Americans," Bush said, "at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us."
"You better believe we're going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration," said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending.
On the economic side, Bush vowed to bring back economic stagnation by implementing substantial tax cuts, which would lead to a recession, which would necessitate a tax hike, which would lead to a drop in consumer spending, which would lead to layoffs, which would deepen the recession even further.
Bush concluded his speech on a note of healing and redemption.
"We as a people must stand united, banding together to tear this nation in two," Bush said. "Much work lies ahead of us: The gap between the rich and the poor may be wide, be there's much more widening left to do. We must squander our nation's hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent. And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it."
"The insanity is over," Bush said. "After a long, dark night of peace and stability, the sun is finally rising again over America. We look forward to a bright new dawn not seen since the glory days of my dad."
By Darryl Mason, January 2007
You're the President of the United States.
Your country is locked into a war that no-one, really, anymore, believes you can win.
You have met, privately, with the family members of at least one third of the men and women who have died in the war you insisted, for reasons that don't even make sense anymore, had to be fought.
You were surrounded by people who told you it would be "a cake walk", that "Americans would be greeted with flowers and sweets" and that the country you invaded was crying out for all that was good and true and right about America.
You look around today, and most of the people who were there with you, in the dark hours after 9/11, who said, "Yes, Mr President, we must do Iraq", you look around, and most of them aren't there anymore. There's Condi. God bless Condi, but she too was caught up in the filth that flowed in those darkest days. One day, people will read of how she held you in the darkest hours of the darkest days, held you as only a true friend can. You cried then, but you cry more now.
You know it was always a lie, that real men didn't cry. It was illusion. And it made it harder for you to cope when the tears started to come. Because it wasn't supposed to be that way. This was not what men did. At least, that's what you were always taught.
You wished you had been stronger, that you didn't listen to all those voices, all those people, all those front pages stories saying that what you were going to do was the right thing to do. That it was necessary. To do Iraq. To get rid of Saddam.
You did it for your own reasons, too, of course. You did it to become the legend. To make the dream of a world ruled by freedom and democracy a reality. How were you to know that it could never be? That it was all a fantasy? These were supposed to be the best minds in America. The brightest of all the shining stars. But they didn't know anything more than you in the end.
And you did it to show them all. All those who said you were a loser. From the days when your dynasty of privilege and opportunity offered you the world, but locked you out of it as well.
And you did it, in the end, to avenge your father. Or did you do it to show the old man?
To say to him, "Look, I can finish what you started. I can set these people free."
But he shakes his head at you now and says you don't understand, you never understood, this is not the way the world works, there is no black or white, or even shades of grey. The complexity of all would melt the mind of anyone man who tried to take it all in.
But how you were supposed to know that?
He never told you. He never wanted to tell you anything. Only until it was too late. And then he sent in his old friends. But he felt shame when he thought of you. That you could come from him. But who was he? A living joke, when you were the rising star.
Life was easy, for a long time. Drink some beers, have some lunch, go watch your baseball team play a game, chew some tobacco right there in the bleachers, next to your wife. Man, you were king of the world back then. Well, King of Texas, anyway. And that was all the world you knew, and that was all the world you needed to know.
But it's not then, it's now.
Today.
And you wonder, you wonder...
Like anyone would wonder.
What happened?
What the fuck happened?
How did it all go so fucking wrong?
This is now. This is your world. Your country. Your people. Your war.
And you're trying to get it right, in the time you have left.
You want to get it right. You would give your life like Jesus to get this right. To make it good.
God told you, this was the right thing to do. That when he said Love, he meant Freedom. That's what you wanted to give to the world as your gift as the most powerful man on the planet.
But your dreams lie in ruins now.
Your world has turned dark. Your dad isn't well. He doesn't understand why you did what you did. He warned you about those people. All those who told you were right, that you would be remembered as greater than George Washington. One day. If only you did what they said.
Get him. Get Saddam. Take his country. Kill them all.
Greater than Washington?
Not now.
Not ever, now.
And they want you gone.
All those who told you you had to do this. That you had to seize the moment in history provided by 9/11 to change the future. They want you gone in the worst way. Because everyday you're still there, you remind them of their own failings. Of their own hatred and their pitiful fancy, and their shame, and egret.
If they even know how to feel shame and regret.
They want you gone so bad, you don't even know if you will make it to your last days, if you will even be alive in January, 2009.
How can two hundred million Americans hate you so much?
Don't they understand? You're not God. You're just...you. The one who was not supposed to succeed. Who was not supposed to become President. You were written off before you even got out of high school. You drank too much, you did too many drugs, you made so many mistakes, but you got your shot at the golden fleece.
The greatest prize in history.
You were so close. Like a god on earth, maybe. For a few weeks perhaps.
So close.
And now it's all gone. All gone.
You dream about the Americans who died in Iraq, in Afghanistan, like you dream about all those other talented, brilliant young people who were engaged in black budget activities that never reached the newspapers, the successes and the failures, all those who will never be granted medals, or even recognised by name for the ways they tried to change the future. Tried to change the world. Like you did.
You keep going back to George Washington.
You keep returning to the same books. Re-reading them, trying to find something in those words, in that history, in those legendary days of the 1770s to guide you now. God isn't there anymore. You call to him, but there's no answer. Not like before.
You pray to Washington now. He was written off, like you are now, nobody believed he could turn it all around and defeat those who were unbeatable. But he did it. He proved them all wrong. And he changed the world forever.
Can you do this now?
Can you make it?
Can you prove them all wrong?
Are you strong enough?
You cry today for that young man, that brave young man who saw a grenade in the street and threw his helmet on it, and then blocked the rest of the blast with his chest. He died back home, with his parents by his side.
That poor kid. He died to save his friends, not only from death, but from shrapnel wounds. How brave is that? You cry because you don't know if you would have done the same thing in the place of the man whose family you just gave a medal to.
You want to cry?
Of course you want to cry.
What man wouldn't.
To see all this horror, and to know it is your own making.
They won't blame Saddam.
Not in two hundred years.
They won't blame Richard Perle and Frank Gaffney Jnr and Karl Rove and Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, and all those who signed their names to that fantasyland doctrine in the late 1990s.
Their names will fade.
Some of them, some of those who cried loudest for war against Iraq, their names are already forgotten. They've gone back to being nobody fuck-alls and the nothings they were before you let them walk the halls of the White House and get a lend of your ear.
But your name, George W. Bush, it is your name that will be remembered in the centuries to come.
You are already the most famous President of the United States. Ever.
The poor, starving masses huddled in mud huts in the middle of bone-dry, food-bare Africa, and their equivalents in all the regions of the world, they don't know who the fuck Lincoln and Washington were.
But they know your name.
Oh yeah, they know who you are.
And they blame you for everything.
Everything.
So you cry now. You cry now for all the dead American soldiers, and all the dead Iraqis and Afghans, and all those dead Somalis from this week as well. You weep for them all. And you cry for your country, and the wars to come, in far off lands, and the wars to come at home.
It won't end well.
There will be more horror to come. For everyone.
And for you, too.
If they let you live that long.
Someone has to pay. Someone always has to pay. To clean the slate. To restore the balance. To clear the halls of the ghosts. To let the world breathe a sigh of relief.
To start at the beginning, to begin again.
Did you give it your all? Did you give it your best shot?
Bush has made 77 visits to his ranch in Crawford during his presidency, and spent all or part of 490 days there.Bush said he really "wanted to change the tone in Washington." Maybe he could have changed that tone if he'd spent just a little bit more time there, in the nation's capital.
PRESIDENT BUSH: I want to thank the President-elect for joining the ex-Presidents for lunch. And one message that I have and I think we all share is that we want you to succeed. Whether we're Democrat or Republican, we care deeply about this country. And to the extent we can, we look forward to sharing our experiences with you. All of us who have served in this office understand that the office transcends the individual. And we wish you all the very best. And so does the country.
