I’m reading British historian Nigel Hamilton’s ambitious book “American Caesars: The Lives of Presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush.”
I’ve been skipping around the rather voluminous tome, but his depiction of Dubya has really captured me. There’s this ditty:
“His father (George H.W. Bush) then bailed him out when he was arrested and charged for possession of cocaine in 1972. Instead of going to prison, the Houston judge arranged for him to do community service and the legal record to be expunged. Thus ended George W. Bush’s National Guard authorization to fly nuclear-capable F-102 Interceptors.”
I remember rumors of Bush’s alleged cocaine usage and arrest during the election of 2004, but never heard of concrete evidence for the charge. Yet Hamilton, a respected historian, cites Dubya’s arrest as if fact.
Then there was this passage about Bush during the immediate aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Hamilton talks about the stunned reaction of the Bush administration, except for terrorism czar Richard Clarke, who only weeks earlier had been complaining about the administration’s lack of interest in terrorism or al-Qaeda and its focus on Iraq.
“The president’s message to the nation and the world, written by Karen Hughes and videotaped on board Air Force One, was forceful in asserting that the United States would not be intimidated by terrorists. Yet when Bush finally spoke, for the very first time in his presidency, to Richard Clarke the next evening in the Situation Room, it was to make what seemed an amazing presidential request: ‘Look, I know you have a lot to do and all, but I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this. See if he’s linked in any way.’
Clarke, who has scarcely slept or eaten in two days as he grounded the nation’s air traffic and attempted to thwart possible follow-up terrorist attacks, was ‘taken aback, incredulous,’ he recalled. ‘But Mr. President, al-Qaeda did this,’ he protested. ‘I know, I know,’ Bush said, ‘but… see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know.’
Dutifully, Clarke did so, suspecting that in the space of a few hours, Bush must already have been ‘gotten at’ by the madmen controlling National Security: Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, men who had, on the very night of the attack, held meetings not to avert further terrorism, or pursue al-Qaeda, but to have ‘discussions about Iraq.'”
It appears as if the bright light of history is already damning Dubya.
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