I love politics and history. When I worked for TCU's college news paper, the TCU Daily Skiff, I did several stories on the 2008 election and really started to gain interest in the whole process. I'm excited to get into next year's presidential election. I was talking in my office about my opinion of some of the next potential candidates and was recommended President Bush's book by my boss who said it was a very interesting book that would bring some clarity to Bush's elections and a lot the things he dealt with during his presidency.
To get in the spirit of the upcoming election, I decided to read it. Bush's first run for president came when I was in middle school and his second when I was in high school. So, while I remember the hanging chad incident in Florida, I wasn't really into the presidential race back in those days.
There were many issues I found interesting in his book but 9/11 and Katrina stand out the most.
9/11-
In the book, Bush talks about 9/11 and the decision to go to war. From my perspective in 2011, the war on terror seems like it has drug on and I have kind of forgotten why we have to be over there fighting and loosing lives. Bush talks about the anger and the attitude of the country when we were attacked. If he hadn't made the decision to go to war people would have rebelled. When the 9/11 attacks were fresh, many Americans were in favor of war and showing the taliban that they could not attack us and get away with it.
The book goes in depth about the decisions Bush and his cabinet made and leads you through the entire decision process of going to war and how to start over again after the 9/11 attacks. All I can say is, I would not have wanted to be in his position during this time. Dealing with a crisis like the terrorist attacks and making the decision to go to war would have been dreadful.
Bush also writes about Hurricane Katrina. Do you remember how unorganized New Orleans seemed after Katrina? There was total chaos in New Orleans and many people blamed the federal government, FEMA, and Bush. In the book Bush talks about how everything unfolded and that it was the governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans that couldn’t get it together.
Every issue in Bush’s presidency has a great synopsis in his book. He explains how and why everything happened the way it did. It is interesting that in his book he is able to wrap up each incident and event in a nice explanation from his perspective. When everything was happening in real time during his presidency we heard a lot of the criticism and comments of everyone else.
The most surprising thing to me in the book was the power of the media. There were so many moments that the president and the government found out about through watching the news. When the first World Trade Center was first struck, even the president was watching the same coverage as everybody else. I always thought the president and the government must know about everything that happens before the media but no, even the government finds out about the latest happenings from the media.
Overall his book is well written and so interesting because the events he talks about all happened not so long ago. I enjoy hearing his perspective on everything and learning how he felt about some of the events that he was so greatly made fun of and criticized for.
I was also reminded of how much importance our presidents put on their legacies and their re-election. I wish each president would work like it was his last year in office and do all of the absolute best things for this country instead of thinking about their re-election strategies.
Decision Points starts off with a little bit of history about George W.'s life. I really enjoyed this part of the book. His mom, Barbara sounds like a really great lady.
Here is a little bit of a rant that I would like to go on now. Y'all know how George W. has a Texas accent? I have always been skeptical of his accent because he was born in Connecticut. While he did move to Texas at age two, his parents don't have an accent so I'm not sure how he got such an accent. He never did pronounce the word nuclear correctly in all of his speeches and I think he did that to accentuate his accent. If he wanted to he could have pronounced the word correctly accent or not. My problem with his accent is that it made him sound less intelligent in his speeches because he mispronounced words, not just pronounced them with an accent. I've always thought he played his, I'm from Texas and that makes me cool/special card a lot.
The above paragraph is me and my opinion and has nothing to do with the book so I'll get back to the book now.
Anyway, I learned that Bush was an owner of the Texas Rangers Baseball team which I didn't know. Then he became governor of Texas.
When he decided to start running for president his mother was skeptical if he could actually get elected. His family thought that Jeb would have been a better choice.
Despite President Bush's mispronounced words and questionable accent that can make him sound a little slow, I believe he truly is a smart person after reading his book. I was also able to get a glimpse of him as a person, not just as our president. He struggled with some of the decisions he had to make. He feared for his wife and daughters lives at times because of the position he was in. Reading his book reminded me that he is also a person with feelings.
Being the president opens the door to lots of criticism and I don't think any person could ever make everyone happy. I'm glad I read this book and recommend it to anyone interested in reminiscing or gaining a deeper knowledge of the US during George W.'s presidency.
