Chapter 1 of Alterman's book "The Book on Bush"

[La_Serpiente]

The Book on Bush - Chapter 1

When George W. Bush ran for president in 2000 he was presented to the nation by his campaign handlers and a sympathetic media as a nice-enough fellow who didn’t take himself or much of anything else—save perhaps his family and religion—too seriously. Though polls consistently showed that a majority of voters held views closer to those of Democratic candidate Al Gore—and, indeed, a 52 percent majority did end up voting for Al Gore or Ralph Nader—even most of Bush’s opponents did not see his presidency as much of a threat to their beliefs.

While Bush had the reputation of being a conservative from a conservative state, he did not strike voters as particularly ideologically motivated. The media served his purposes here by focusing not on his record in Texas, or on the scale of the tax cut he proposed, but on his personal story of youthful dissolution before finding faith, along with his apparently charming habit of handing out nicknames to everyone he met. George W. Bush, the self-described “compassionate conservative,” was said to be different from the Republican hard-liners in Congress, who, in President Bill Clinton’s terms, held up the nation’s business with a politically inspired shutdown of the government and impeachment of the president. True, few people found themselves awed by Bush’s intellect, but the argument went that a man who knew himself, as Bush appeared to, was preferable to one who knew many things but needed to rely on pollsters to tell him what to say.

Nothing about Bush’s genial campaign—or Al Gore’s, for that matter—motivated Democrats to commit themselves strongly to his defeat. The New York Times reported just before Election Day that “the gap in intensity between Democrats and Republicans has been apparent all year,” with Republicans fighting tooth and nail for their man, and Democrats taking a more diffident attitude to theirs. Polls showed that Gore voters by two-to-one were more willing to accept a Bush victory after the Florida fiasco than vice versa. The retiring Democratic senator and liberal icon Daniel Patrick Moynihan told the Times, “There is no great ideological chasm dividing the candidates....Each one has his prescription-drugs plan, each one has his tax-cut program, and the country obviously thinks one would do about as well as the other.”

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The Book on Bush - Chapter 1

Dr. Alterman and Mr. Green will also be going across the country promoting their book. Here are the cities and times:

February 8, 3:00 p.m., Mark Green, WBAI Panel Discussion, CUNY Graduate Center, New York, NY

February 10, 6:00 p.m., Mark Green, Coliseum Books, New York, NY

February 11, 12:30 p.m., Mark Green, Borders, N. State Street, Chicago, IL

February 16, 7:00 p.m., Eric Alterman, First Unitarian Church, 1011 SW 12th Ave., Portland, OR

February 17, 7:30 p.m., Mark Green, Barnes and Noble, Bronx, NY

February 17, 7:30 p.m., Eric Alterman, Elliott Bay Book Company, 101 S. Main Street, Seattle, WA

February 18, 7:00 p.m., Eric Alterman, A Clean Well Lighted Place, 601 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA

February 19, 7:30 p.m., Mark Green, Barnes and Noble, Bayside, Queens, NY

February 19, 7:00 p.m., Eric Alterman, Copperfield's Books& Music, 138 N. Main St. Sebastopol, San Francisco, CA

February 23, 7:00 p.m., Mark Green, Book House, Albany, NY

February 25, 7:00 p.m., Mark Green, Barnes and Noble, Rochester, NY

February 26, no time yet, Mark Green, Talking Leaves, Buffalo, NY

February 27, 7:30 p.m., Eric Alterman and Mark Green, Barnes and Noble, Upper West Side, 2289 Broadway (@82nd St.), New York, NY

March 2, 7:00 p.m., Eric Alterman and Mark Green, Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Avenue, Washington, D.C.

March 4, 7:30 p.m., Mark Green, Community Bookstore, Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY

March 14, 2:00 p.m., Eric Altrerman, MIDNIGHT SPECIAL BOOKS, 1450 2nd Street, Santa Monica/Los Angeles, CA

full list

[soup]

1. a kick, a quote and a comment

:kick:

"Polls showed that Gore voters by two-to-one were more willing to accept a Bush victory after the Florida fiasco than vice versa."

Polls showed? They sure didn't ask ME.

(Love the gorgeous pic in your post.)

[La_Serpiente]

6. Why thank you

your compliment has been duly noted :-)

[dennis4868]

2. I just bought the book....

I really look forward to reading it and meeting Mr. Alterman on March 2 at Politics and Prose in Washington, DC!

[Bandit]

3. How come Moynihan hasn't been crucified like Nadar was?

Didn't they both say about the same thing.
“There is no great ideological chasm dividing the candidates....Each one has his prescription-drugs plan, each one has his tax-cut program, and the country obviously thinks one would do about as well as the other.”
Nadar said there is no difference between the two and was crucified.

[napi21]

4. Problem in 2000

The Country doesn't usually stay with the same PArty after an eight year control. Then there was that "Clinton really made me mad" thing. I must admit, I didn't think there was uch difference between the candidates either. I did vote for Gore, and I was more upset that the Supreme Court decided the election than I was at the future of a Bush WH.

I suspect there were quite a few people who fell into that catagory.

Guess what? They all know NOW!

I sure never dreamed that one PArty could screw up the whole country...and the world for that matter...in such a short time!

[enough]

5. A good read, thanks.

snip>

Bush’s combination of a low base of knowledge coupled with his admitted lack of intellectual curiosity might be less worrisome in a less ambitious politician. No president can know everything and, as Bush defenders argued during the election, many presidents have been book smart and real-world stupid—and vice versa. But the advent of the second Bush administration witnessed a fully united Republican Party driven by the engines of the religious right, big business and the neoconservative worldview—and piloted by a famously stubborn Texan.

For example, Bush’s unwillingness to depart from an original premise—get Saddam; tax cuts are always good—reflects a focus and willpower that are much commented-on traits. “We don’t second-guess out of the White House. We don’t adjust the plan based on editorials,” he said with an edge of disdain during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. A supporter told the Washington Post that Bush “learned that anguishing doesn’t pay. He doesn’t let his own inner core be supplanted by the hand-wringing of policy wonks.” Post reporter David von Drehle concluded, “Bush tends to make a decision only once. He doesn’t anguish afterward. He doesn’t really anguish much to begin with.”

But if the facts are merely a political convenience to prop up his first instincts, then where do Bush’s first instincts come from? If W’s thinking is more catechismic than empiric—that conclusions produce “facts” rather than facts producing conclusions—how does he arrive at his predetermined conclusions?

The answer, we believe, is that he begins any policy consideration with three fundamental questions: What does the religious right want? What does big business want? What do the neocons want? Convinced by political advisor Karl Rove that the way to a second term is to “activate the base”—that is, not alienate it, as his father did when he raised taxes after promising, “Read my lips, no new taxes”—Bush first and foremost wants to satisfy his core conservative constituencies. And if facts clash with the established orthodoxy, he’ll stick with his base, not the facts.

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