What's the title going to be? "I Duh'd it My Way"?

[Sheldonrs]

George W. Bush to write memoir about 'decisions'

Mar 18 04:49 PM US/Eastern
By HILLEL ITALIE
AP National Writer Share on Facebook


NEW YORK (AP) - Former President George W. Bush, who once famously called himself "The Decider," is writing a book about decisions.
"I want people to understand the environment in which I was making decisions. I want people to get a sense of how decisions were made and I want people to understand the options that were placed before me," Bush said during a brief telephone interview Wednesday with The Associated Press from his office in Dallas.


Bush's book, tentatively (not decisively) called "Decision Points," is scheduled for a 2010 release by Crown, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group. It is unusual in a couple of ways.

Instead of telling his life story, Bush will concentrate on about a dozen personal and presidential choices, from giving up drinking to picking Dick Cheney as his vice president to sending troops to Iraq. He will also write about his relationship with family members, including his father, the first President Bush, his religious faith and his highly criticized response to Hurricane Katrina.

Instead of having competing publishers bid, Bush and his representative, Washington attorney Robert Barnett, negotiated for world rights only with Crown Publishers, where authors include President Obama and Bush's secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice. Barnett used a similar strategy in working out deals with publisher Alfred A. Knopf for another client, former President Clinton.

"Proceeding in this way gets the project going promptly, avoids the time-consuming process of multiple meetings and multiple negotiations, and preserves confidentiality for all concerned," Barnett said.

Financial details were not disclosed, although publishers have openly doubted that Bush would receive the $15 million Clinton got for his memoir, "My Life."

Crown Publishing is a division of Random House Inc. and the deal was handled by Random House executive vice president and publisher at large Stephen Rubin. As head of the Doubleday Publishing Group_ a division recently dismantled in a corporate realignment—Rubin released Dan Brown's mega-selling "The Da Vinci Code" and Kitty Kelley's "The Family," an unauthorized and unflattering take on the Bush dynasty.

Barnett said that Rubin and Crown had shown "great enthusiasm" and that a deal was made not long after Rubin and Crown officials met with Bush in Dallas.

The structure of Bush's current book is not unlike his "A Charge to Keep," published by William Morrow in 1999 as the then-Texas governor was preparing to run for president. In the foreword to "Charge," Bush noted that he had no interest in a comprehensive, chronological memoir.

"That would be far too boring," he wrote. "The book chronicles some of the events that have shaped my life and some of my major decisions and actions as governor of Texas."

Bush told the AP on Wednesday that he was not "comfortable with the first book, only because it seemed rushed," and that his current memoir would have "a lot more depth," thanks to his years as president. Although he didn't keep a diary while in the White House—he "jotted" down the occasional note—he said he began "Decision Points" just two days after leaving the White House and had written "maybe" 30,000 words so far.

Bush is working with research assistants and a former White House speechwriter, Chris Michel.

Once known for his reluctance to acknowledge mistakes, Bush said the book would include self-criticism, "Absolutely, yes," but cautioned that "hindsight is very easy" and that he would make sure readers could view events as he saw them.

"I want to recreate what it was like, for example, right after 9/11," he said, "and have people understand the emotions I felt and what others around me felt at the time."

Asked if he might write about the ouster of his first defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, or about his decision not to pardon Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, choices both openly disputed by Cheney, Bush said he didn't know.

"I made a lot of decisions," he said.

Libby was convicted of perjury and obstructing justice in the investigation of the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. Bush commuted Libby's sentence and saved him from serving time in prison, but Libby remains a convicted felon.

Bush said he has read other presidential memoirs, including Ulysses S. Grants' highly praised autobiography, a book he enjoyed in part because it was "anecdotal." He said he had "skimmed" Clinton's memoir and had yet to read either of Obama's books, "Dreams From My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope."

Like Clinton, he is a fan of "Personal History," the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir by Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham.

Presidential memoirs have rarely satisfied critics or the general public, with exceptions including Clinton's "My Life," a million seller despite mixed reviews, and Grant's memoirs, which didn't even cover his time in office. Bush's father also did not write a conventional memoir; he instead collaborated on a foreign policy book with his national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft.

George W. Bush has been talking for months about a memoir, even while he was president, and has said he wanted to give people an idea of the world as seen through a president's eyes. Publishers, noting Bush's low approval ratings and questioning his capacity for self-criticism, have been less enthusiastic, urging him not to hurry. Still, Barnett said he received calls from several publishers about a possible book.

Virtually all the top officials in the Bush administration, from Rice to political strategist Karl Rove, have either completed books or are in the midst of writing them. Cheney has said he plans a memoir and former first lady Laura Bush has a deal with Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

Her book, like her husband's, is scheduled for 2010. Barnett, who represents both Bushes, said that Laura Bush's book would come out first.


Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[Shawnee123]

"War, What is it Good For? I'll Tell You What it's Good For."

a memoir

[TGRR]

But who wants a book written in crayon?

[Beestie]

I wonder if he writes upside down too.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

You know what? The "Dubya Is Dumb" brigade really isn't all that smart, nor particularly clever. Your ideology keeps you stupid, fellas.

[DanaC]

Autobiography as alibi.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Reagan took down one dictatorship -- Noriega's -- and stymied a Cuban takeover of Grenada, which certainly hardly deserved being sucked in by Cuba, of all places and régimes. Bush took down two dictatorships: Saddam's Iraq and the Taliban's Afghanistan, both of which were universally acknowledged to be worldclass examples of suckass misgovernment.

This is more zealotry for human liberty than very many here have shown, and more effectually than any Democratic President since Truman, and it's to W's credit. And of course, this is why you should share my zealotry for human liberty rather than the passive-ism that breaks out in buboes all over the American Left when it's time to make men free -- by making their enslavers cease and desist. Should you really tolerate suckass misgovernment solely because it's, er, someplace else? Some of the people who argue with me really seem to believe that one. Sounds about as smart as insisting the world is flat.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Reagan took down one dictatorship -- Noriega's -- and stymied a Cuban takeover of Grenada, which certainly hardly deserved being sucked in by Cuba, of all places and régimes. Bush took down two dictatorships: Saddam's Iraq and the Taliban's Afghanistan, both of which were universally acknowledged to be worldclass examples of suckass misgovernment.

This is more zealotry for human liberty than very many here have shown, and more effectually than any Democratic President since Truman, and it's to W's credit. And of course, this is why you should share my zealotry for human liberty rather than the passive-ism that breaks out in buboes all over the American Left when it's time to make men free -- by making their enslavers cease and desist. Should you really tolerate suckass misgovernment solely because it's, er, someplace else? Some of the people who argue with me really seem to believe that one. Sounds about as smart as insisting the world is flat.

UG....Reagan didnt take down Noriega. He was still on the CIA payroll during the Reagan administration and helped funnel US funds to the Contras in Nicuagura. GHW Bush (who when he was CIA director also had Noriega on his payroll) took down Noriega.

I know you didnt mention Nicaragua, but Reagan's Iran/Contra scheme to promote democracy in Nicaragua broke the law....a number of officials in the Reagan administration were convicted of crimes in the pursuit of Reagan's illegal support of a more "democratic" movement in Nicaragua.

I dont even want to begin to discuss the lies, deceptions and potential illegal activities in regard to our invasion and occupation of Iraq.

We should absolutely be promoting freedom and human rights around the world....by supporting internal democratic movements and by working with allies (and even adversaries when appropriate) to isolate and pressure oppressive regimes, not by force of invasion and occupation....and NEVER by breaking our own laws or violating international treaty obligations to do so.

Zealotry that abuses or debases our democratic process in order to promote democracy elsewhere is immoral, unethical, anti-democratic and just plain wrong.

In the end, if history is a measure, the Reagan/Bush way generally comes back to bite us in the ass.

[Apollo]

I think I kind of like this tradition of ex-presidents writing books after their terms. It's like they feel that they have to answer to the decisions they've made during office.

Didn't the Greeks do something similar? It was something like... every leader had to "stand trial" at the end of their reign of power and be judged by some kind of committee of citizens? Or something like that...?

The two aren't really related at all I guess, and I might be wrong about the whole Greek reference, but this is the first time I've noticed the comparison.

[xoxoxoBruce]

It's also a "tradition" for presidents to have read one.

Bush took down two dictatorships: Saddam's Iraq and the Taliban's Afghanistan

Bwahahahahahahaha, dream on. He blew that one, big time. That's why we're headed for a nasty war now.

[Apollo]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

It's also a "tradition" for presidents to have read one.

Agreed.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

It's also a "tradition" for presidents to have read one.

Bwahahahahahahaha, dream on. He blew that one, big time. That's why we're headed for a nasty war now.

Exactly.

Originally Posted by Apollo

I think I kind of like this tradition of ex-presidents writing books after their terms. It's like they feel that they have to answer to the decisions they've made during office....

I agree and I might even read Bush's memoir.

If only to see if he explains his rational for gutting the Presidential Records Act that would have made it virtually impossible for future historians to have full and open access to his presidential papers (including e-mails)...speaking of which I hope he also explains how 4 million e-mails, many dealing with the decisions leading up to the invasion of Iraq, were "accidentally lost or deleted".

Nothing wrong with presidents writing memoirs to offer their own perspective on their place in history....but when they takes actions that restrict others from offering a different, more objective, perspective, history suffers.

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Bwahahahahahahaha, dream on. He blew that one, big time. That's why we're headed for a nasty war now.

Meanwhile Clinton ended a dictatorship in Haiti without firing a shot, got Milosevic to literally negotiate his entire government out of office without any invasion, got N Korea to start a reentry into the world without overt threats, stopped wasting American soldiers in a civil war that could not be won (Somalia), may have averted a major war between nuclear powers Pakistan and India by personally intervening ... Amazing how smarter leaders don't waste good American soldiers in boondoggles for personal glory.

xoxoxoBruce properly defined what we can expect because some administrations had so much comtempt even for the American soldier.

[tw]

Originally Posted by TGRR

But who wants a book written in crayon?

Did you read his autobiography? A ghost writer eventually quit in frustration. Eventually Karen Hughes had to finish it.

It was one of the most disjointed books I ever read. For example, you would expect a book to be a chronological history. Instead is was random snapshots of George Jr that said little about the man, avoided obvious problems (such as his National Guard duty) and ... well "My Name is Earl" said more about a man.

He could not even write his own autobiography. Just wondering how his presidential autobiography will be written.

I have never been so critical of any other politician ever. I never saw one so bad and so deserving of criticism. I read his book. He could not write it. Just wondering who will write it for him this time.