You Can Make Book On It

As you probably know, former President George W. Bush is currently making the rounds promoting his new book about his presidency, Decision Points.  While I haven't read the book, I did read the report of the interview about it he gave with USA Today, out today, and I suspect you'll find it's a fairly representative, and predictable, reaction by the left-wing media.

On the front page, above the fold, we find this headline quoting the former president: "'I could have done better.'"  It's followed with an opening sentence that reads: "This isn't the George W. Bush who couldn't come up with an answer when he was asked during a 2004 White House news conference to name his biggest mistake."  Also, "unusually reflective" and "unusually introspective" are descriptive phrases that appear within the first four paragraphs.  Frankly, this tells you all you need to know.

When Bush balked at the question in the 2004 news conference, his instincts served him well.  Of course he had regrets and second thoughts about action he had taken or not taken as president.  Who wouldn't?  But in that setting and at that time, the liberal press was not seeking to humanize George Bush for the reading and viewing public.  Rather, they were looking for a "gotcha" moment they could then use to pummel him with politically.  As a sitting president, everything he did and said had political consequences and he would have been foolish to give his opponents a weapon to use against him.  As a former president, he's of course freer to speak his mind and while Bush is now prepared to publicly admit mistakes, it is clear the liberal press is still uninterested in humanizing him.  As we can see, they remain committed chiefly to creating the "gotcha" moment that escaped them in 2004.

As for Bush being "unusually reflective" or "unusually introspective", does it ever occur to them that his reticence is not unusual at all, it's just private rather than public?  I mean, do they really think we would be better served with the election of a Hamlet as president, a commander-in-chief wondering aloud whether or not he should do this or that?  This would not humanize him, it would instead make him pathetic and, with the nation at war, dangerous as well.  Of course they know this, but it does not serve their larger purpose of continuing the indictment George W. Bush and his presidency.