A lot of people are surprised that George W. Bush’s book “Decision Points” is selling so well.
The next question, though, is how on earth sales have been this good. Or put another way, who’s actually buying the poorly-reviewed book of a failed former president?
[…..] [C]onservative books nearly always outsell liberal books in large part because of bulk orders. A couple of months ago, for example, Mitt Romney boosted sales of his book by requiring various schools, think tanks, and institutions to buy thousands of copies in exchange for his speeches. Various conferences and Republican outlets do this all the time.Without access to the data, it’s impossible to say just how much of this may have inflated “Decision Points” sales, but it seems like the most credible explanation. How else could it have sold so many copies?
I have no idea if conservative bulk orders are what’s going on here; I don’t have a good handle on how the right thinks of George W. Bush right now (failed RINO or Churchillian genius). I do think the media reaction to the book was a bit strange. There was a tendency to pretend the Bush presidency took place a long time ago, or never happened at all (that’s not so surprising, I think a lot in the media would like to forget that they fluffed the guy so much from 2001 to 2006). And this long ago, far away depiction of the book made it seem like something no one would want to read.
I personally would be interested in reading the book. I’m not going to buy it, because I don’t want to give my money to that clown and because I don’t have time, but given the choice between reading W’s book and reading memoirs by Obama or Clinton or Bush I, I’d go with W’s book in a heartbeat. With most recent presidents, the thought processes and political success make sense to me. George W. Bush’s do not. His presidency is Real Murkin mystery to me. Could he really have been as detached from reflective decision-making as he seemed to be? I’m sure the book is largely inaccurate but I wonder what you can learn from those inaccuracies.
The Bush presidency was a spectacular disaster that I hope someday to understand. There must be other people who feel the same way about it.
ChrisS
I tried reading Bill Clinton’s book, but I had to quite halfway through. It was fucking awful. Maybe it got better, but the first half of the book didn’t provide anything I was looking for. “My mom did this, my brother did that, as far back as I can remember I’ve always wanted to help other people, southern people do things this way, etc.”
bleeech.
Makewi
It’s a good thing Obama hasn’t continued so many of Bush’s policies considering what a disaster they were.
Quaker in a Basement
I’m sure the book is largely inaccurate but I wonder what you can learn from those inaccuracies.
That Jerzy Kosinski was heir to Nostradamus?
max
that’s not so surprising, I think a lot in the media would like to forget that they fluffed the guy so much from 2001 to 2006
‘Doing the time warp…’ Well, in one sense, those years were very much like no one occupied the Oval Office – instead we had a cheerleader standing in for an actual President.
The Bush presidency was a spectacular disaster that I hope someday to understand. There must be other people who feel the same way about it.
You can understand how World War I broke out, but you’ll never understand it for the simple reason that it doesn’t make any sense. Likewise, you’ll never understand the Bush Presidency (Regency?) because it just. doesn’t. make. any. sense. In fact, it makes even less sense than just about anything I’ve ever heard of.
max
[‘So I’d think people purchasing the book were indulging in masochism.’]
New Yorker
I’m still convinced he checked out on 9/11 (“But I didn’t sign up for this! This is hard!”) and delegated his presidency to thugs and criminals and lunatics like Cheney and Gonzales and Rumsfeld.
dr. bloor
I understand the curiosity, but don’t think the book would be very satisfying in that regard. The man is so completely lacking in self-awareness, that even if he sat down to write a completely honest memoir, it would be a lie.
agrippa
The GWB administration was a disaster. I do not think that people want to discuss it; Republicans, in particular, do not.
I think that there were two problems: first was GWB himself. That is a mystery and bad decisions and the bad thinking that led up to those blunders are hard for rational/logical people to understand. “It seemed to be the thing to do at the time” is never a good excuse.
The other problem were the others in the Administration. Powell, it seems, was a good and loyal soldier. The others were much worse. Their rationale was an insult to common sense. Their folly is a mystery; intelligent people frequently make astounding blunders. Fatuous evil is contemptible.
General Stuck
Your talking the right wing appetite for political fiction that feeds a lion sized hatred for liberals, it is insatiable. It is a world when a right wing pundit like Michelle Malkin writes a book on the culture of corruption of the failed presidency of Barrack Obama began his first day in office, or thereabouts, and becomes an instant best seller.
Mike in NC
This comment made the most sense:
Nothing else sums it up as well.
Carol
Two suggestions: wait a few weeks for the returns or keep checking with your college or public library. The libraries always buy this sort of stuff, and that way you don’t have to buy a book.
The returns are likely to be 0.01 at Amazon, so you may only have to pay for shipping.
Some of the brisk sales may be just curiosity, not fandom. After all he was President, and even a President not very well liked has some insights about what happened during his term.
sukabi
first off DougJ, you’re assuming that W wrote the book (which is doubtful). secondly, it has been amply demonstrated that the bush machine has been trying to rewrite history wrt to W’s presidency / actions so this book will be more of the same (why read another fictional account?) . and third, save yourself some money and go to the library and check the sucker out, why give money to some jackass for a fictional, ghost written version of the last 10 years?
adding, that the reviews of the book are less than thrilling… W & ghost writer lifted large parts of other’s books / writings to include as his own “rememberings”… and once again… the LIBRARY is your friend.
ChrisS
Likewise, you’ll never understand the Bush Presidency…
I dunno, I think it’s pretty easy to comprehend when you don’t give people that much credit. The highlight of the Bush presidency was cutting taxes as much as possible, opening Iraqi oil fields, and perpetuating the corportacracy . Everything else was political expediency at its finest.
The Bush presidency may have failed most of America, but the rich got richer and the republicans have corrupted most levers of power with right thinking people from Liberty, Heritage, and Cato, etc. As well as fucking up the Supreme court for generations. His presidency was successful with a capital S.
Comrade Dread
I think a lot of conservatives have genuinely bought it.
Despite all the poo-pooing Mr. Bush received by conservatives the last two years, this was mainly done because it was fashionable to point out how not-conservative he was in light of their own awful elections in 2006 and 2008, and how unpopular he was with the nation.
Now, with the GOP on the rise again (for some reason), it’s fashionable to attribute all of the lingering negatives from his policies to Obama and try to rehabilitate the man’s image into that of a misunderstood and maligned messianic figure who was just too foresighted for the rest of the country.
Republicans genuinely want to believe this fiction and will support it, because the alternative: that they elected an idiot and the fulfillment of their dream of governing with their favored polices nearly destroyed the nation, is unthinkable.
If you really want to read the drivel, I suggest going to your local hotbed of government soshalism: your public library, where you too can be a parasite and read the words of the producers without paying for them.
Tonal Crow
Logic fail or creeping indecision? You decide.
KRK
You seem to be missing a “not” in there.
jibeaux
Similar to dr. bloor’s thoughts, I too would like to someday understand the Bush presidency, but I’m thinking that reading the collected thoughts of a man who thought his highest point in office was catching a big fish and his lowest point was being criticized by Kanye West is not going to be terribly helpful on that point.
sukabi
@Tonal Crow: seems the “Decider” has infected DougJ…
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
I would read Shrub’s book if I liked coloring books.
Makewi
#3 in books. I find it strangely comforting that all of the reasons why this might be so are also in line with the world view shared by most users on this site. This thread is like a support group, which is nice.
Gus
Why not both? After all, Barack Obama is simultaneously a Marxist and an Islamist, a weak president who is imposing an all-powerful government on us.
SectarianSofa
I dissent.
Evolved Deep Southerner
I was going to point out what appears to be a missing “not,” but I see a couple of folks have beaten me to it.
If that’s intentional, John, man, don’t do it …
daveNYC
I can understand why you might want to read the book, but the answers you are looking for won’t be in it. W. was a most unserious (not in a beltway VSP way), uncurious, and not overly smart guy. The book will just be a few hundred pages of self-fluffery, only useful for playing drinking games with (do a shot everytime 9/11 is mentioned).
Mustang Bobby
The next question, though, is how on earth sales have been this good. Or put another way, who’s actually buying the poorly-reviewed book of a failed former president?
Because with every purchase you get a free box of Crayolas.
(And … Mike Kay beat me to it but I wanted to say it anyway.)
Redshirt
I’d recommend instead reading some French existentialist works – you’ll get a better understanding of the Bush Admin when you realize everything is absurd.
licensed to kill time
I’m not very interested in reading the ghostwritten ‘thoughts’ of a profoundly non-introspective man. He has told us already that he rarely looks back once he has consulted his innards and made a ‘decision’ and says history will judge him which he doesn’t care about because he (and we) will be dead.
I wouldn’t fling a single centavo in his general direction.
Sasha
@ChrisS:
Fixt.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Carol:
You can’t return George W Bush’s book. Decision Points arrives pre-flagged.
Brick Oven Bill
As a data-point, one purchaser of George’s book also bought a lesbian Kama-Sutra book and a vibrator. I have been wondering about that particular purchase for a while, and now, based upon this blog-post, I believe that the purchaser was not DougJ.
KG
I didn’t have much (any) intention on reading the book. I’m not big on autobiographies in general, and think that biographies generally need some space/time between the subject and the audience. However, Santa appears to have delivered a copy for me at my mom’s house. It’s sitting on my coffee table and I have to admit, I’m inclined to read it. I will admit to voting for the guy twice (in 2000 I really didn’t think there was a dime’s worth of difference between the two and in 2004 I figured the devil I knew was better than the one I didn’t), and regretting at least the second vote. I am curious to see if there is any sort of self awareness (or perhaps subconsciousness) that manifests itself in the pages. Though I expect it to be terrible and to not make it much past the first third.
JB
No one should be surprised that Bush’s book is selling so well. Bush 43 is the first GOP President to come out with a book since the rise of the conservative book club racket. It would not surprise me if a vast majority of the books sold have been purchased by book clubs that will subsequently sell them off for 1 cent as part of a lure for subscribers or issue them to members who forgot to make their monthly orders.
There are also dozens, if not hundreds, of think tanks and universities that purchase copies in bulk as part of payment for speaking engagements and other events.
Also, never underestimate the goodwill one acquires when buying such books in bulk and then handing them out like party favors, especially from the authors.
W is the most powerful person every to hawk his wares in this environment and it should come as no surprise that he’s calling in a ton of favors from conservative publishers. and thus receiving a great deal of back from them.
Just Some Fuckhead
People livin’ in competition..
tomvox1
I saw the book at my cousin’s house on L.I. on Xmas, probably given to them by someone else in the family out there. They are Catholic social conservatives as well as Norquistian bathtub drowners.
And so, as in the case of my cousins, I think a lot of wingers want reassurance that the guy they voted for twice and is now one of the least popular presidents in American history was not an absolutely abject failure as leader of the free world. And W.’s book tells them what they want to hear–that the majority of people just don’t understand how great he really was and all the tough calls he had to make. But the winger book buyers do and that makes them feel better about their votes.
And as we have all seen, the hardcore Right does not allow pesky things like facts or the general consensus of history to penetrate their hermetically sealed 19th century-cum-1950s world view. They just want to be told that whatever stupid thing they believe is absolutely correct and that the other side is morally corrupt for believing otherwise, even though there are more of them. They take pride in being a dwindling minority of True Believers standing up to the hippy hoards. And that’s where these crappy memoirs and Jonah Goldberg shiticisms come in.
RobNYNY1957
A very interesting article about the book:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n01/eliot-weinberger/damn-right-i-said
Stillwater
@ChrisS: The highlight of the Bush presidency was cutting taxes as much as possible, opening Iraqi oil fields, and perpetuating the corportacracy . Everything else was political expediency at its finest.
I agree. There are no real mysteries of the Bush years. In fact the characterization of it as a disaster is, in my mind, a mistake. I think it is generally viewed by the establishment/neocon crowd as a huge success – the unitary executive, the Supreme Court appointments, the rollback on civil liberties and the underpinnings of the constitution, the rise of police state surveillance, the corporate friendliness, the end of US squeamishness about the use of force for good, etc., etc.
The one thing I don’t get was Katrina. That I would like to know more about.
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
@ChrisS: did he talk monica? I like to know where he picked up the cigar trick.
Sasha
@licensed to kill time:
I’m certain that a good amount of thoughts are from Bush 43 himself. The nigh proudly boastful admitting of authorizing waterboarding (i.e., torture) is pure W.
chris
More like this please.
“‘Damn right,’ I said: Eliot Weinberger’s brutal takedown of Decision Points by George W. Bush ”
Barry Ritholtz
handy
@Brick Oven Bill:
Don’t ever go away, Bill!
Zifnab
I actually asked about how Decision Points was selling when I was in the book store Christmas shopping, and the guy behind the counter said the book was genuinely in high demand.
But if it’s any consolation, he also said Sarah Palin’s new book was a flop.
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
@Mustang Bobby:
this is still an all-time great photo
http://judecowell.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/bush-pet-goat-book-upside-down-photo.jpg
a1
You have a point in that presidential memoirs are almost preordained to suck, since they’re the last people who are going to give an honest unfiltered look at their time in office. You’re kind of wasting your time reading any of them….best wait for real biographers to give their presidencies a look.
But come ON:
WTH?!? Seriously? The jury’s still out for you on that question? That’s unbelievable. Now you might really, really not want to believe the President of the United States was an unqualified and disinterested moron following his gut into disaster, but that’s been proven many times over, and it explains his actions and their results pretty damn well. Where’s the mystery here?
John W.
I’d rather read Obama’s book since he’s a good writer and would actually write it himself I imagine.
OTOH, Bush’s ghosts would be fucking incompetent as an actual writer. If Polanski made a movie about Bush’s ghostwriter, it’d end after 20 minutes with the ghost copying and pasting all the great stuff he could find on W from whatever sources they were reasonably confident that would never complain nor be found by any liberals.
Dan
Boston? Peace of Mind? “I understand about indecision, but I don’t care if I get behind…”? Nobody? really?
KG
@a1:
No one really wants to believe Occum’s Razor.
licensed to kill time
@Sasha: Well, I can envision him jotting down some ‘thoughts’ on 3 x 5 index cards for someone else to put into coherent sentences, perhaps. Maybe he garbled some crap into a recording device (pity the poor transcriber).
eta: I’m sorry if I sound brusque. This topic makes me grumpy.
harokin
I’ve seen three people reading it on Kindle-type things in airports and airplanes in the last two weeks, one of whom absolutely refused to turn off the reader during take-off and landing which is pretty much exactly what i would expect from a GWB fan (she would drape her sweater over it when the FA came by). Admittedly that was in DFW so YMMV in other parts of the country.
The only other thing I think people are reading are those Girl Who … books about that punk girl working for Julian Assange.
joe from Lowell
I feel the same way; I don’t think I have a good grasp on where Bush was really coming from, and I think his presidency was such a massive catastrophe that I very interested in it from the point of view of history.
I think it’s important to note here that these bulk orders – also known as “Richard Mellon Scaife putting a new wing on his basement – are based on the conservative political establishment, not the right in general. In that clubby little clique, W. is, first and foremost, a Bush, like his father and grandfather before him.
SenyorDave
Now, with the GOP on the rise again (for some reason), it’s fashionable to attribute all of the lingering negatives from his policies to Obama and try to rehabilitate the man’s image into that of a misunderstood and maligned messianic figure who was just too foresighted for the rest of the country.
Comrade Dread:
I think this is a great analysis. I would add that many conservatives are subtly (and sometimes not-so-subtly) trying to re-write history. Guiliani with his “no terrorism occurred under Bush” remark, a couple of conservative pundits saying that the recession wasn’t much worse than the one Bush inherited from Clinton, and a general pushing of the narrative that things were bad, but not terrible, and Obama’s policies made them worse. Plus they can rely on the good old American low-information voter (only a small portion of the people realize that almost everyone got a tax break under the stimulus package, and many people think Obama raised their taxes).
I assume this will be part of the Reublican startegy in 2012, and we’ll probably have the media acting like they are reasonable arguments (and it will be Stewart and Colbert pointing out they are just lies).
Beauzeaux
For one thing, every library in the country — public and private — will buy a copy. Including school libraries.
Even my tiny public library in British Columbia has a copy, so I expect every library in Canada will buy one too.
Library purchases make a BIG difference in the sales of non-fiction books.
And those bulk sales also add up quickly.
johnsmith1882
@Sasha:
This is somewhat off-topic, but your post reminds me of something. Does anyone else remember this: during the run-up to the 2000 election, at a debate I believe, the gleam W Bush got in his eyes when asked a question regarding his prodigious execution record? Something like; Question: W Bush, what do you have to say about the record number of executions in Texas during your governorship? W Bush: Yeah, that sure was awesome!
ChrisS
@Stillwater:
“The one thing I don’t get was Katrina. That I would like to know more about. “
More about what? The FEMA appointment was payback to a GOP supporter. Give a loyalist a job with a worthless federal agency. Oops.
iLarynx
@Carol: Good suggestion. I was able to get the hardback version of Zell Miller’s “A National Party No More” for $0.01 in October of 2008 (just to laugh at after the election, really). You can still get it for that at Amazon.
joe from Lowell
@a1:
They mystery here is, what is his gut? Did it tell him to invade Iraq to establish an imperial client state, or did it tell him to invade Iraq for Arab Spring?
The biggest question I have is, what was the cynical cover story, and what was the actual thinking, behind so much of Bush’s behavior.
pragmatism
my friend’s wife cries every time someone does not completely fellate gwb. it’s because HE KEPT US SAFE and SHE DOESN’T FEEL SAFE NOW. last time this happened with me was in Cabo and she ran away from our dinner and we had to search for her for 4 hours. now that is TEH SAFE.
Suck It Up!
could be the holidays?
Jewish Steel
So, no one has actually read it?
The Bush book is like Bon Jovi #1 hit albums. You don’t know anyone one who buys one. But everyone you don’t know buys one. And that’s a lot of people.
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
@pragmatism: does someone ever point out to her that 9/11 happen on shrub’s watch, even though the CIA told him bin laden was determined to strike using hi-jacked airliners, and yet he did nothing?
Sasha
@johnsmith1882:
It would be akin to his downright gleeful declaration of “I’m a war president!”
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
@Jewish Steel: to be fair, rank and file wingers don’t read. That’s why fixxed news has a large audience. those people don’t actively read (papers or news sites) and rely on the idiot box for infotainment.
jibeaux
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century):
But has anyone pointed out to pragmatism that he could also have enjoyable vacations by choosing friends who are cool and who have spouses who are also cool?
johnsmith1882
@KG:
I guess one can give you credit for admitting it, but how did your 2004 “logic” work exactly? Well, W Bush has been demonstrably wrong about every single thing he’s said and done, but maybe Kerry will be wronger?
pragmatism
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century):
yes. predictably she asserts that it was clinton’s fault. and then asserts that the “you’ve covered your @ss” moment never occurred and was fabricated by TEH SOSHULISTS and if gwb would have known, it would have NEVAR happened.
her parents were immigrants from a former soviet bloc country and she has quite a bit of mistress ayn’s communism fear hard wired into her. good thing she married a job creator(tm) and now whiles away her days helping out her favorite “charity”, the Junior League.
pragmatism
@jibeaux:
i don’t conflate “cool” with “has the exact same politics as me”. its my wife’s best friend and her husband is a great guy.
trollhattan
@DougJ
I’m guessing you’d have to accompany Dubya on a seven-day bender to find out anything insightful about his preznitcy. He’s certainly not revealing anything useful in a machine-filtered bio.
There’s nothing therrre, Luke.
KG
@johnsmith1882: well, in 2004, I was in law school and a bit deeper in the ether of the conservative movement… though that’s not really it, because I did split my ticket that year. I think more than anything I just didn’t trust Kerry. In all honesty, I should have done what I did in 2008 and voted third party, but I wasn’t quite there yet.
Stillwater
@ChrisS: More about what? The FEMA appointment was payback to a GOP supporter. Give a loyalist a job with a worthless federal agency. Oops.
I don’t think the entirety of the disaster known as Bush’s Katrina is Brownie’s doing. It was an institutional failure, a preemptive failure. The WH actively prevented relief efforts from getting to people. It was a political fiasco, and signaled the turning of public sentiment away from GW and the GOP. Lots of shit went down that normal-level incompetence can’t account for.
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
@pragmatism: who does she blame for the economic collapse?
DFH no.6
ChrisS has it mostly right. The W presidency is not hard to comprehend at all when you look at it in the broadest terms, particularly in light of the desires of the plutocrats and oligarchs who were behind it.
From that standpoint W’s presidency was, as ChrisS put it, successful with a capital S.
Bush did as he was told, even if it was not always quite that blatant.
But sometimes it was, like when he was directed to have Cheney run his VP selection, and then W blithely went along with Cheney selecting himself, surprise, surprise. Really fucking obvious, that one was.
Much the same thing happened, by the way, when McCain “chose” the Wasilla Snowbilly. Or do you really believe W and McCain came up with those on their own?
Sure, the day-to-day operations of the very complex executive branch, and such unforeseen events as Hurricane Katrina, made W look like he was in way over his head, because he was.
But it didn’t matter, because overall things went pretty swimmingly for Those Who Rule us, very much including events like 9/11 and the financial crash that were a disaster to most of the rest of us. With W at the helm, those were easily turned to the oligarch’s advantage. Even the Iraq War worked out mostly as intended – as domestic electoral politics for the 2004 presidential and, to a lesser extent, congressional elections. There’s no mystery there.
In fact, I find W’s presidency the easiest to grasp of any in my lifetime, with the minor exception of Gerald Ford’s (not much to understand there beyond Nixon’s pardon and it’s still-powerful aftermath). With W, our Rulers found a near-perfect way to further aggrandize their power and wealth, to gain the benefits of fascism without any need to resort to actual totalitarianism. Worked like a charm for them, and it’s just that simple.
a1
@joe from Lowell:
I don’t think his gut is that smart. I think Bush invaded Iraq because it “FEELS GOOD!” (remember how he bragged about sleeping like a log before giving the invasion order, which its pretty appalling all by itself?) I think his good buddies Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld told him invading Iraq would Spread Freedom and Stop Terror, and that FEELS GOOD! I think taking on the guy who fought daddy and kicking his ass FEELS GOOD! (he would proudly show off Saddam’s gun to White House visitors). “Arab Spring”? “Client state”? Who cares – presidentin’s hard! You take care of it, Dick – I got another vacation to go to!
And the biggest question I have about that question was when Bush told the French President in 2003 that we needed to invade, because Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East. (You know, the demons from “Ghostbusters II”?) Did Bush honestly believe that, or was that a cynical cover story to get the French on board? And which option is worse?
Tonal Crow
Dougj, why’d you correct the logic fail/typo/indecision point without acknowledging its former existence? Please consult your doctor, because this may be an early symptom of the devastating illness Mainstream Media Syndrome. Don’t wait, or encomiums to Bobo could be next.
pragmatism
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century):
clinton/obama. facts and timeline be damned.
tamied
@pragmatism: She needs to see a doctor. Soon.
Beauzeaux
@Beauzeaux:
I’ve been using this screen name here for more than a year now. Could I please ask you to find yourself another one?
pragmatism
@tamied:
lol. she’s equally convinced that i need to see a doctor. she read m. savage’s book, after all.
johnsmith1882
@KG:
Hm, that doesn’t really answer the question, but I guess one can’t expect too much from someone ensconced in “the ether of the conservative movement” circa 2004. Voted third-party in 2008, huh? Still can’t admit that you’ve been wrong for the last ten years? No, I guess you aren’t there yet.
SectarianSofa
@tamied:
Just not a dentist. (see Marathon Man.)
Sasha
@tamied:
If you’re wealthy and/or well connected enough, you don’t need to (or more precisely, you can get away with not seeing one).
Case in point: the topic of this thread, W.
Cat Lady
I think Bush is and always was just a simple minded fuck up who lucked into his birthright. I think he’s like every other entitled asshole, except with a mean streak and a daddy who kept him propped up and well connected, who knew that Daddy knew he was no Jeb. He wasn’t supposed to beat Jeb to the presidency. That was a mistake, and W knew it. Most of what he “decided” is from his gut because he’s basically lazy, or because it’s from his daddy issues. All that being said, what I’ve never understood was the spell that dumb fuck cast over the press corps. The power of nicknames? Really? If someone could ever explain to me what the fuck that was all about, that’s a book I would read.
Citizen_X
I want to read it, but a library copy only. I am not giving that motherfucker one goddamned penny of my money. Why do I want to read it? Because it would give insight into our damaged country and its deeply broken politics.
Anis Shivani has an excellent essay on the book here. (Warning 1: very long, but worth it. Warning 2: Huffpo.) Here’s a taste:
KG
@johnsmith1882: what part of “I didn’t trust Kerry” do you not understand? for that matter what part of “split my ticket” do you not understand? In 2000 and 2004 there were flawed candidates on the ballot. In each of those years and in 2008 I cast my ballot as I saw fit, if you have a problem with that, then I would kindly suggest you go fuck yourself.
Elizabelle
Popping by to link to Michael Kinsley’s NY Times Sunday Book Review of W’s opus.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/books/review/Kinsley-t.html?ref=review
and the Times’ excerpt from the book:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/books/review/excerpt-decision-points.html?ref=review&pagewanted=all
which features this classic passage, with the Decider asking the tough questions:
Umm, whether W wanted to be or not …
Readers are in for a treat, are they not?
DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective
I understand it quite well. Two words: Karl Rove. Two more words: Dry drunk.
The end.
I just saved your ass $18.89.
Sasha
One of my favorite reviews: “How Did This Wastrel Ever Find His Way to the White House?”
brantl
Why do you need to find out why the chief bottlewasher on the Kluzterfuck (not a mis-spelling) Express had a Kluzterfuck?
Elizabelle
@RobNYNY1957:
Thank you. Looks good.
Tonal Crow
@DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective:
Pretty much, except for “wingnut welfare”, “Fox ‘News'”, and “financial industry”.
Jewish Steel
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century):
Right, but us far-lefties always have our nerd noses buried in a book. I’m surprised no one here hasn’t plowed through it.
ETA: But I’m not volunteering.
jibeaux
@pragmatism:
Sure, but if you’re going to go on vacation with somebody, it’s probably going to go a lot better if a quarter of you aren’t crazy. Save that nonsense for family vacations. Hell, I get irritated when another mom on our annual beach trip makes better pancakes than I do.
johnsmith1882
@KG:
Ah, yes. You voted for W Bush twice, but voted third-party in 2008, so your hands are clean. 2004 is so ancient history, man. Don’t trust John Kerry, he was against the war in Vietnam and was never even on that boat. And I should play nice and not point out people like you who voted W Bush in 2004 are complicit in the situation this country finds itself in today. Or I can go fuck myself, right? Fact is, you can never live down voting W Bush in 2004. You have yourself to thank for the tanked economy and $1 trillion worth of war. Voting third-party doesn’t get rid of the giant shit W Bush left. The giant shit you wiped his ass of in 2004 and rubbed in the faces of “country-hatin’, not-with-us-must-be-against-us dirty libruls” like me. Fuck you too, pal.
brantl
@KG: “In 2000 and 2004 there were flawed candidates on the ballot. In each of those years and in 2008 I cast my ballot as I saw fit, if you have a problem with that, then I would kindly suggest you go fuck yourself.”
I would kindly suggest you either go get your head examined, or find a permanent minder, who has a shitload better judgement than you, preferably picked out by somebody with a shitload more common sense than you.
Elizabelle
George W. Bush left his high office no better qualified to hold it than when he arrived.
Maybe you could say that about Warren G. Harding too, although at least Harding had the grace to be in office only two years.
pragmatism
@jibeaux:
in a perfect world i would do that. there is plenty of good with her to counterbalance her bushitude. plus, we get to parasite onto their job producer ™ lifestyle and trappings. cause i’m a LOOTER like that.
Hungry Joe
The Bush II presidency was in fact a spectacular success: American power projected, military-industrial complex more deeply embedded, plutocracy-by-way-of-kleptocracy enshrined, tax base decimated, middle class savaged, safety net shredded, environment gutted, labor movement pummeled, Supreme Court tilted still further Attila-ward, science/education/rational thought denigrated … hell, they accomplished damn near everything they set out to do. How is that not — from one perspective, at least — success?
de stijl
@johnsmith1882: , @brantl:
People can and will vote for candidates you dislike using logic you don’t approve of. It happens every election. How and why someone else voted is none of your godamned business. Get over it.
Resident Firebagger
@chris: Thanks for that link. Awesome review.
It’s been too long since I’ve really pondered what a small, stupid, soulless piece of crap George W. Bush is…
johnsmith1882
@de stijl:
The reason I asked my original question was so that I could maybe understand why he voted like he did. No, it’s not any of my godamned business, but since he offered up voting for W Bush twice, I thought maybe he would offer up his reasoning for doing so. This blog seems like a reasonable collection of a wide range of opinions, unlike say, the daily beast, where it’s 100% you’re stupid, no you are. I thought maybe I could get a glimpse into the conservative mind, which no, I don’t understand, with a reasonable answer. “I didn’t trust John Kerry,” is a little thin in the reasoning department, in my opinion.
Tonal Crow
@de stijl:
Well, the ‘someone else” in question brought up not only his/her views on candidates, but his/her voting record, so it would seem to be a legitimate topic of conversation. Or are we debating under Marquis de Falwell rules here?
DougJ
@Dan:
Yeah, kind of an annoying song I admit. I genuinely like “More Than a Feeling” though.
DougJ
@Tonal Crow:
Sorry, I wasn’t sure how to denote it was a correction.
Tonal Crow
@DougJ: Use brackets, as in:
or even
.
Mustang Bobby
@Mike Kay
LOLOLOLOL!
Carol
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Groan. Then wait for the used copies or the stuff in the remainder bins. I have found some fairly expensive books in the remainder bins once the thrill is gone. Just keep looking for a few weeks on Amazon or even your local used bookstore. (I probably wouldn’t have much of a collection if it weren’t for those folks).
Even the Public Library might have a few extra copies that it would sell, donated by eager supporters unaware that the place may already have a few extra copies lying around.
I’m not surprised at the sales. Somebody voted for him, and enough that it was close enough to steal, and in the world of publishing a best seller is something that sells over a few hundred thousand. Hard-core supporters are at least that many.
Steaming Pile
Kind of like I once read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich with eagerness, devouring every work. Not because I thought Hitler was teh awsum, but because the man absolutely fascinated me. You don’t have to be a good guy to do that.
maus
@de stijl:
Someone’s choice to vote for Dubya twice is entirely relevant in a thread discussing him. Your kneejerk defense is curious and nonsensical. “It happens every day” … so? What a meaningless statement.
de stijl
@maus:
I think that laying the entirety of Bush’s malfeasance at the feet of some random blog commenter whose vote and the reason for his votes you don’t agree with is kind of a dick move.
But I also didn’t get all shouty at people sporting W bumperstickers back in the day either. Didn’t really seem worth my time. YMMV.
Waspman
@Comrade Dread:
Personally, I think it best if you don’t even check it out from the library, because libraries base their purchase orders on demand, and the on the condition of the books returned to their inventory. Checking out a library copy (and wearing it out) will cause them to buy more.
My library has 40 copies in its inventory – all checked out – the last thing I want to do is encourage them to order more.
The only responsible way to acquire this “book” is to watch for it in your local Goodwill Store. There should be plenty of them there already.
maus
@de stijl:
I’m not saying it’s an effective response, it certainly isn’t.
They did deserve to bring the fact up when responding to
I mean it’s fairly obvious for anyone that’s been following Bush with any reasonable attention that he’s not going to wink and nudge to being a fucking tool, nor will he hire people to do anything but preserve his intangible “legacy”. If you voted for him once, you had a pretty good idea of his character.
Waspman
@KG:
With your clearly expressed lack of intellectual acuity abundantly described in your comments on this page, I would agree that you probably will be unable to read more than a third of the book.
You “didn’t trust Kerry”? But you trusted the idiot – even after his first four disastrous years. That makes you an even bigger one.
Idiot.
policomic
@Dan:
Me! I got it!
P.S.: I am old.
Nellcote
Since we know he can actually write a book, I look foreward to Prez Obama’s take on his own presidency. And the forces aligned against him. And his reasons for choices he’s made as president. I hope Michelle Obama writes one too!
I have no interest in listening to W continuing to lie to me. 9 years was more than enough.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Yes, the Bush family for example.
Tonal Crow
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
I don’t see why the Bush family wouldn’t consider Dubya’s reign to be a near-complete success.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@Tonal Crow:
Success in that he didn’t blow up the world. Yes, in that sense, a success. Eight years is long time to keep your fingers crossed.
Tonal Crow
@LikeableInMyOwnWay: Um, the Bush family doesn’t want to see the world blown up? You know, “rapture” and all that bull?
thalarctos
“The Bush presidency was a spectacular disaster that I hope someday to understand. There must be other people who feel the same way about it.”
I studied Cambodian language, history, and politics in grad school attempting to understand how the leaders of the Khmer Rouge could sleep at night. Finally, I realized that the fact that I would never understand it was actually the best outcome I could have ever hoped for.
birthmarker
@Nellcote: This is a book I WILL buy!!
@RobNYNY1957: Great link, well worth the read.
thalarctos
@pragmatism: She sounds like a lot of fun.
Uloborus
I really don’t think Bush’s presidency was a success even for conservatives. Stacking the Supreme Court is probably the only unalloyed good they got. The thing is, he did everything they wanted – and it failed. The economy blowing to Hell was good for the twits who spawned it, but was an unpleasant pinch even to the rich. He made them look like asses and got Democrats into both houses and the presidency, and in a long term sense that’s caused damage they may never recover from. The public may be forgetting what a spectacular failure conservative policies were, but it’s too late. The legislation is already out of the bag.
But all of this pales, because Bush was the puppet of the NeoCons, not the conventional conservatives. And from a NeoCon perspective, his presidency was a cataclysmic disaster. They briefly took control of the movement, and only succeeded in being humiliated. Oh, they GOT the two wars they wanted. The problem is, those wars did not turn out the way they wanted. They haven’t been launching pads for global hegemony. They didn’t turn the spigot and usher in an age of free oil. Most of all, they completely failed to make the entire world turn and praise America for its perfection and freely convert to our way of thinking in all things.
That’s the stuff Cheney believed in. He wrote papers about this crap. None of it happened. Bush’s presidency was a fuck up for EVERYONE.
Anne Laurie
@Jewish Steel: __
As BOMC has proven for almost a century, certain books are not bought to be read, they are bought to be displayed. Having a copy of such book in one’s possession is meant to demonstrate that one is a right-thinking member of the elect. That’s very much the market “Decision Points” was designed for — it’s not so much a story, or even an argument, as it is an icon.
To be fair, I suspect that “The Audacity of Hope” was sold to its publisher on much the same basis, and at least 40% of the copies were bought for display, not reading.
Anne Laurie
@Cat Lady: __
Remember how we were all praising The Lion in Winter? As I understood the politics of 1998, Dubya was Bar’s favorite son, and Jeb was Poppy’s. The lifelong interfamilial battle was tipped against Jeb by outside forces, including the rumor that “the smart brother” wasn’t smart enough not to put his helpful advice to anti-Fidelista real estate pirates in writing, but the “moral law” of primogeniture were always on Dubya’s entitled-asshole side.
mclaren
America is a restaurant that serves plates of raw sewage. And when the patrons finish their meal, they beat on the tables and shout for the waiter, clamoring for seconds.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@a1: What’s being ignored is that he isn’t really talking about his gut. In his more honest moments he mentions that he consults God on all his decisions. That gut instinct isn’t going unchecked – it is being validated by his God.
scarshapedstar
You steal a car, you crash it in a ditch and set out on fire.
You steal a country…
Bob From District 9
@agrippa:
Powell is the one I have no respect for. He found out he had been used. He found out the invasion was a fraud. And he still supported Bush for re-election. He did not resign over that.
No matter how much loyalty to the boss may be valued, when people are dying, they have to outrank loyalty to anyone. When soldiers are dying, a good soldier holds their lives more sacred than loyalty to any leader.
Powell knew Bush did wrong. Powell knew US military personnel were dying because of that. Powell should have resigned, and demanded Bush end it.
Powell didn’t. Powell deserves no respect at all.
Bob From District 9
@agrippa:
Powell is the one I have no respect for. He found out he had been used. He found out the invasion was a fraud. And he still supported Bush for re-election. He did not resign over that.
No matter how much loyalty to the boss may be valued, when people are dying, they have to outrank loyalty to anyone. When soldiers are dying, a good soldier holds their lives more sacred than loyalty to any leader.
Powell knew Bush did wrong. Powell knew US military personnel were dying because of that. Powell should have resigned, and demanded Bush end it.
Powell didn’t. Powell deserves no respect at all.
Bob From District 9
@Anne Laurie:
The Audacity of hope was published well before Obama was president. 2006 was well before he was even a visible candidate.