Matt Latimer Book: Bush Knocked Other Pols While President
President Bush mocked other prominent politicians behind their backs while in office, according to a new book by former speechwriter Matt Latimer.
Last month, the Washington Post reported that ex-Bushies were feeling a "growing nervousness" over what might be in their old colleague's tome. The October issue of GQ includes some eye-opening excerpts from the book.
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But Bush was perhaps most critical of vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin:
"I'm trying to remember if I've met her before. I'm sure I must have." His eyes twinkled, then he asked, "What is she, the governor of Guam?" <...>
"This woman is being put into a position she is not even remotely prepared for," he said. "She hasn't spent one day on the national level. Neither has her family. Let's wait and see how she looks five days out." It was a rare dose of reality in a White House that liked to believe every decision was great, every Republican was a genius, and McCain was the hope of the world because, well, because he chose to be a member of our party.
Latimer also writes that at one point, Bush appeared not to understand his own administration's proposal to deal with the economic crisis.
One of the president's staff members anxiously pulled a few of us aside. "The president is misunderstanding this proposal," he warned. "He has the wrong idea in his head. ... It wasn't that the president didn't understand what his administration wanted to do. It was that the treasury secretary didn't seem to know, changed his mind, had misled the president, or some combination of the three.
More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/15/matt-latimer-book-bush-sl_n_286853.html