Fortunate Son
George W. Bush and the Making of an American President
by J. H. Hatfield


(Click for Amazon book review)

BOOK REVIEW by OnTheIssues.org:

This book is a negative biography of George W. Bush -- very negative. So negative that Bush attacked the author -- and hence the author became the controversy about this book, rather than the content of the book. At issue is the accusation that Bush was arrested for cocaine usage decades ago; Bush's allies responded by alleging that the author was arrested for even worse misdeeds. The counter-accusations against the author (and whether Bush was involved with them) deflected attention from the accusation against Bush -- which perhaps was the purpose of the counter-accusation, if one is a cynic.

Is attacking the author a good idea? Or more relevantly, is it good politics? This book was published just prior to the 2000 election; we have two examples for comparison, in the two subsequent elections. Bush suffered electorally because of the cocaine accusation -- but it never became enough of a full-fledged issue to lose him the election. In other words, the strategy of attacking the author worked.

In the 2004 election, John Kerry was similarly accused of horrendous behavior in what became known as the Swift Boat attack. Many Kerry allies attacked that book's author, Jerome Corsi, as unreliable, but Kerry himself did not respond. Kerry's lack of response is widely credited with contributing to his 2004 election loss. In other words, Kerry ignored Bush's lesson of responding by counter-attack, and paid the consequences.

After the 2008 election, Sarah Palin was the subject of an unfriendly biography called The Rogue, by Joe McGinnis. That author moved in next door to the Palins' home in Wasilla, Alaska. Palin made the author' the issue -- she attacked him for invasion of privacy, and by the time the book was published, the book's content had become irrelevant -- only the author's action in writing the book mattered. In other words, Palin took Bush's lesson and responded by counter-attack, and reaped the benefits.

So what about the content of this book? Why did Bush attack the author here, and not, say, the equally negative biographies Shrub or Worse Than Watergate? We think it's because this author went too far. Rather than restricting his attack to Bush's actions, the author questioned the entire Bush family. The Bushes feel entitled to high office, the author claims on pp. 2-5, because they feel like America's aristocracy.

The author goes on to attack George H. W. Bush too: questioning his actions in getting shot down over the Pacific in 1945. The author claims (pp. 306-17) that Bush Sr. ejected prematurely, and could have saved the other crew members from death. (The US Navy disagreed, and awarded Bush the Distinguished Flying Cross for that incident, as the author notes on p. 9). That sort of generic anti-Bush attack probably riled up the Bush family enough to go after the author -- and it certainly feels to the reader like the author overstepped the bounds of journalistic propriety.

We excerpt this book now, in preparation for the 2016 election, because the author would certainly include Jeb Bush as subject to the negative aspects of the Bush family legacy. We can anticipate a similar attack book, and a similar counter-attack, coming soon.

-- Jesse Gordon, OnTheIssues editor-in-chief, January 2013

OnTheIssues.org excerpts:  (click on issues for details)

Civil Rights     1978: ERA is unnecessary.

Government Reform     1978: Opposed term limits for Congress, in Congress race.

Click for quotations from other sources by: George W. Bush