Former President George W. Bush has written a memoir that offers up a staunch defense of his domestic and foreign policies during his eight years in the White House. His autobiography “Decision Points,” published last week, is designed to shape public perceptions about his presidential legacy.
A pivotal point in the book — and his presidency — is the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, an event that Bush uses to explain many of his wartime decisions that remain controversial to this day.
“Decades from now, I hope people will view me as a president who recognized the central challenge of our time and kept our vow to keep the county safe,” Bush writes.
One of the few major surprises in the book is the revelation that Bush contemplated replacing Vice President Dick Cheney as a running mate in his 2004 re-election bid.
Instead of choice anecdotes, the book seeks to give insight and explain why he took the paths he did on consequential decisions, like the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.
The book, which reads at a steady pace with a conversational voice, offers behind-the-scenes views from the Oval Office, Bush’s discussions with others, in his successes and failures on domestic policy and events during his two terms in office. The former president goes to great lengths to defend against criticism that the federal government was to blame for the doddering response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
And he is spirited in his argument that invading Iraq in 2003 was the correct course, despite the absence of weapons of mass destruction that were the premise for the invasion.
In the run-up to the invasion, Bush said the intelligence community in several Western countries had concluded that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. And he notes, accurately, that Democratic leaders also believed that Iraq possessed WMD.
But he skims over the months-long marketing effort by the Bush administration to convince the public that the United States had the right to invade Iraq because of suspected WMD.
In the aftermath of Katrina, Bush said Louisiana officials hampered the federal response, more than the bumbling of Michael Brown, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
During a raucous meeting on Air Force One, Bush said, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin claimed that “the governor is in charge,” while Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco protested: “I think it’s the mayor.” Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., broke in with unproductive emotional outbursts, leading Bush to admonish her. “‘Would you please be quiet?’ ” I had to say to her at one point,” Bush recalled.
About the infamous quip, “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job,” Bush said the basis for his statement came from Alabama Gov. Bob Riley and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, both Republicans, who had told Bush that “that Mike Brown is doing a heck of a job” in directing FEMA’s relief efforts.
“My biggest substantive mistake was waiting too long to deploy active-duty troops” to Louisiana, Bush wrote.
“It was clear that federal troops were needed to restore order,” he said.
Bush winces at the criticism of rapper Kanye West, who said Bush’s slow response to Katrina showed that he didn’t “care about black people.” “I faced a lot of criticism as president,” Bush said. “I didn’t like hearing people claim I had lied about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction or cut taxes to benefit the rich. But to suggest that I was a racist because of the response to Katrina represented an all-time low.”
Bush said the allegation was “the worst moment of my presidency. I feel that same way today.” Since the book’s publication, West has said he didn’t use the right words when he criticized the president. Bush has said he accepts that explanation.
The former president, meanwhile, takes comfort in the things he said he got right.
NONFICTION
DECISION POINTS
by George W. Bush, $35.
