The scruffy charms of an insecure president

Bush emerged as a more human figure for me after reading this book.

I saw that George Bush in 1998. And I remember describing it to people back then, and they didn't really believe me. And even those who believed [me] in 1998 came to believe otherwise in 2001, when he started passing tax cuts and had already selected Cheney as his running mate and in all other ways was acting like a fairly retro conservative rather than a compassionate conservative. I think that his adversaries have caricatured Bush at their peril, not at his. Bush has made a living off of being, as he puts it, "misunderestimated." And it ill serves his opponents not to concede his strong points. Not for nothing is this guy president of the United States.

And it's amazing to me that people refuse to acknowledge that he has any gifts at all. But those who are in a room can feel it. And among them is that Bush has a very pungent personality. He has these scruffy charms about him. He doesn't really put on airs. The guy you see is the guy he is, pretty much. Sure, he has a variety of shortcomings, and they've hamstrung his presidency in a variety of ways. But one thing that became meaningful to me in doing that book is that I interviewed people who have been working for Bush over the years -- they love this guy. I don't just mean that they admire him. I don't just mean they are in awe of him. I mean they really love him and would take a bullet for him. I've spent a lot of time now with a lot of elected officials and the people who work for them, and you can't always say that about them.

But beyond the fact that Bush is charming and there's this incredible loyalty that is cultivated between him and his subordinates, he has a surprising intellect. A guy who reads Cormac McCarthy isn't a dummy. And a guy who can listen to an economist talk about a tax scheme and just eviscerate the guy because he doesn't seem to really understand what he is talking about and there's a loose thread in his argument cannot be intellectually lazy. I think that what's difficult to reconcile is this man's brightness with his capacity for incuriosity. I think where the rubber meets the road there is that Bush, for all of his talk about him being so comfortable in his own skin, possesses insecurities like the rest of us. And Bush, due to his insecurities, really doesn't like to be challenged.

It says a lot that this man, at the age of 61, stills feels the need to differentiate himself from his father, and there are examples of that throughout the book. And that this man, at the age of 61, having received the best education that money can buy from Yale and Harvard, still feels the need to run down the elite Ivy Leaguers. That this man, after being a very successful governor, felt like he had to select as his No. 2 guy a man who had no interest in the No. 1 spot. Clinton, for all his shortcomings, was not in any way threatened by having as his vice president a guy with clear designs on the presidency. He still found he could get a lot out of Al Gore and trust Al Gore while dealing with Gore's ambitions. Bush couldn't do that.

This is a guy who really possesses a lot of insecurities, and I think that's why he evinces this sort of incuriosity. There are only certain kinds of challenges that he can deal with. What is admirable about Bush is also part of his insecurity. I think because his insecurity drives him to want to be relevant and want to do big things, he's willing to throw the ball long. And I think that because of that, history is not going to judge this man with indifference. They are not going to judge him as Franklin Pierce. He is either going to go down in history as a disastrous flop or a really monumental president.

Do you like him?

Yeah, I like him a lot. I think he's a real likable kind of fellow. I think he's full of surprises. The short answer is that I do like him.

How do you think he will feel about your book?

I think he will be disappointed, not because I betrayed him, per se, but because the president has his own point of view about what's important and what isn't, and I have little doubt he will disagree with what I found to be the story worth telling. For all of my insistence that I wasn't going to impose my own belief system, whatever it might be, on his narrative, journalism is a series of judgment calls. Fundamental to them [is] not only, who do you believe? but, what's the story to tell? I think that my emphasis on certain things and de-emphasis on others will be very much at variance with his own [view].

I don't have any idea if he started to read [my book] or intends to read it. He made a point of telling me that he hasn't read any of the other books that have been written about him. I suspect that when the dust settles, some of those around him will say: You know, Mr. President, it really is a pretty fair and for the most part accurate rendering of who you are. And that may lead him to it.

I think that what may disappoint him ... is the overall content. And that has now proved disruptive to his presidency. And I can understand and appreciate that. But as he knew all along, the book was going to be published in September of 2007. I made no secret of that. And in fact, on many occasions the president would ask me, "Now when is this book going to be published again?" before he would answer a particular question, so he was cognizant of it.

Have you heard from anybody in the Bush administration since the book has been published?

Not in the administration. I have heard from people who have left the administration in the last year -- three or four or five of them -- and they've been effusive. They all pretty much said: You nailed it. So that's been gratifying. But inside the White House I haven't. I expect to see some of them in the next week or two, and I'll be curious to see what they have to say.

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