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Journalism of Courage
You have to worry for George W. Bush when one of the minor controversies afloat after the publication of his memoir,Decision Points,is whether he may have actually wanted to vote for Barack Obama,and not fellow Republican John McCain,in 2008. US presidents and their successors have complicated relationships for instance,during his presidency,Bush is reported to have sometimes turned to Bill Clinton for a comforting word. And then,Bush and McCain were never on the best of terms. Yet,in an odd way,it says something about the difficult task Bush has of defending,in an early draft of history,his big decisions when he does admit,in the book,to being more impressed by Obama than McCain during an emergency summit about the financial crisis.Obamas campaign ran mostly on his promise of a new kind of leadership,but the context was key: an increasingly isolated president,with Bushs record having provoked a dangerous level of anti-Americanism and now the economic situation appearing suddenly fragile,and his Republican Party keen to keep a safe distance. In that sense,Bushs exertions this month to promote his memoir are more than the mandatory marketing exercise: he must know that he has to himself go about reclaiming his reputation; a party hijacked by the Tea Party-types certainly wont be interested. Of course,in the age of Bob Woodward,no US president gets to retain for a memoir the big revelations about how business was transacted in his White House. So,the main scoops of Decision Points are some what-could-have-beens. Could Bush have actually been considering replacing Donald Rumsfeld earlier than he actually did? May he have parted ways with Dick Cheney at some point? Alas,well only have Bushs word for it,and that may not be enough for his critics.
