Two years before 9/11, candidate Bush was already talking privately
about attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer
Houston: Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential
candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the
political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost
writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in
preparation for a planned autobiography.

“He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” said author and
journalist Mickey Herskowitz. “It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One
of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a
commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political
capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted
it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade….if I had that much
capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed
that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful
presidency.”

Herskowitz said that Bush expressed frustration at a lifetime as an
underachiever in the shadow of an accomplished father. In aggressive
military action, he saw the opportunity to emerge from his father’s
shadow. The moment, Herskowitz said, came in the wake of the September
11 attacks. “Suddenly, he’s at 91 percent in the polls, and he’d
barely crawled out of the bunker.”

That President Bush and his advisers had Iraq on their minds long
before weapons inspectors had finished their work – and long before
alleged Iraqi ties with terrorists became a central rationale for war
– has been raised elsewhere, including in a book based on
recollections of former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill. However,
Herskowitz was in a unique position to hear Bush’s unguarded and
unfiltered views on Iraq, war and other matters – well before he
became president.

In 1999, Herskowitz struck a deal with the campaign of George W. Bush
about a ghost-written autobiography, which was ultimately titled A
Charge to Keep : My Journey to the White House, and he and Bush signed
a contract in which the two would split the proceeds. The publisher
was William Morrow. Herskowitz was given unimpeded access to Bush, and
the two met approximately 20 times so Bush could share his thoughts.
Herskowitz began working on the book in May, 1999, and says that
within two months he had completed and submitted some 10 chapters,
with a remaining 4-6 chapters still on his computer. Herskowitz was
replaced as Bush’s ghostwriter after Bush’s handlers concluded that
the candidate’s views and life experiences were not being cast in a
sufficiently positive light.

According to Herskowitz, who has authored more than 30 books, many of
them jointly written autobiographies of famous Americans in politics,
sports and media (including that of Reagan adviser Michael Deaver),
Bush and his advisers were sold on the idea that it was difficult for
a president to accomplish an electoral agenda without the record-high
approval numbers that accompany successful if modest wars.

The revelations on Bush’s attitude toward Iraq emerged recently during
two taped interviews of Herskowitz, which included a discussion of a
variety of matters, including his continued closeness with the Bush
family, indicated by his subsequent selection to pen an authorized
biography of Bush’s grandfather, written and published last year with
the assistance and blessing of the Bush family.

Herskowitz also revealed the following:

-In 2003, Bush’s father indicated to him that he disagreed with his
son’s invasion of Iraq.

-Bush admitted that he failed to fulfill his Vietnam-era domestic
National Guard service obligation, but claimed that he had been
“excused.”

-Bush revealed that after he left his Texas National Guard unit in
1972 under murky circumstances, he never piloted a plane again. That
casts doubt on the carefully-choreographed moment of Bush emerging in
pilot’s garb from a jet on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in
2003 to celebrate “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq. The image, instantly
telegraphed around the globe, and subsequent hazy White House
statements about his capacity in the cockpit, created the impression
that a heroic Bush had played a role in landing the craft.

-Bush described his own business ventures as “floundering” before
campaign officials insisted on recasting them in a positive light.

Throughout the interviews for this article and in subsequent
conversations, Herskowitz indicated he was conflicted over revealing
information provided by a family with which he has longtime
connections, and by how his candor could comport with the undefined
operating principles of the as-told-to genre. Well after the
interviews—in which he expressed consternation that Bush’s true views,
experience and basic essence had eluded the American people
—Herskowitz communicated growing concern about the consequences for
himself of the publication of his remarks, and said that he had been
under the impression he would not be quoted by name. However, when
conversations began, it was made clear to him that the material was
intended for publication and attribution. A tape recorder was present
and visible at all times.

Several people who know Herskowitz well addressed his character and
the veracity of his recollections. “I don’t know anybody that’s ever
said a bad word about Mickey,” said Barry Silverman, a well-known
Houston executive and civic figure who worked with him on another book
project. An informal survey of Texas journalists turned up uniform
confidence that Herskowitz’s account as contained in this article
could be considered accurate.

One noted Texas journalist who spoke with Herskowitz about the book in
1999 recalls how the author mentioned to him at the time that Bush had
revealed things the campaign found embarrassing and did not want in
print. He requested anonymity because of the political climate in the
state. “I can’t go near this,” he said.

According to Herskowitz, George W. Bush’s beliefs on Iraq were based
in part on a notion dating back to the Reagan White House – ascribed
in part to now-vice president Dick Cheney, Chairman of the House
Republican Policy Committee under Reagan. “Start a small war. Pick a
country where there is justification you can jump on, go ahead and
invade.”

Bush’s circle of pre-election advisers had a fixation on the political
capital that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher collected from
the Falklands War. Said Herskowitz: “They were just absolutely blown
away, just enthralled by the scenes of the troops coming back, of the
boats, people throwing flowers at [Thatcher] and her getting these
standing ovations in Parliament and making these magnificent
speeches.”

Republicans, Herskowitz said, felt that Jimmy Carter’s political
downfall could be attributed largely to his failure to wage a war. He
noted that President Reagan and President Bush’s father himself had
(besides the narrowly-focused Gulf War I) successfully waged limited
wars against tiny opponents – Grenada and Panama – and gained
politically. But there were successful small wars, and then there were
quagmires, and apparently George H.W. Bush and his son did not see eye
to eye.

“I know [Bush senior] would not admit this now, but he was opposed to
it. I asked him if he had talked to W about invading Iraq. “He said,
‘No I haven’t, and I won’t, but Brent [Scowcroft] has.’ Brent would
not have talked to him without the old man’s okaying it.” Scowcroft,
national security adviser in the elder Bush’s administration, penned a
highly publicized warning to George W. Bush about the perils of an
invasion.

Herskowitz’s revelations are not the sole indicator of Bush’s
pre-election thinking on Iraq. In December 1999, some six months after
his talks with Herskowitz, Bush surprised veteran political
chroniclers, including the Boston Globe’s David Nyhan, with his blunt
pronouncements about Saddam at a six-way New Hampshire primary event
that got little notice: “It was a gaffe-free evening for the rookie
front-runner, till he was asked about Saddam’s weapons stash,” wrote
Nyhan. ‘I’d take ‘em out,’ [Bush] grinned cavalierly, ‘take out the
weapons of mass destruction…I’m surprised he’s still there,” said Bush
of the despot who remains in power after losing the Gulf War to Bush
Jr.’s father…It remains to be seen if that offhand declaration of war
was just Texas talk, a sort of locker room braggadocio, or whether it
was Bush’s first big clinker. ”

The notion that President Bush held unrealistic or naïve views about
the consequences of war was further advanced recently by a Bush
supporter, the evangelist Pat Robertson, who revealed that Bush had
told him the Iraq invasion would yield no casualties. In addition, in
recent days, high-ranking US military officials have complained that
the White House did not provide them with adequate resources for the
task at hand.

Herskowitz considers himself a friend of the Bush family, and has been
a guest at the family vacation home in Kennebunkport. In the late
1960s, Herskowitz, a longtime Houston Chronicle sports columnist
designated President Bush’s father, then-Congressman George HW Bush,
to replace him as a guest columnist, and the two have remained close
since then. (Herskowitz was suspended briefly in April without pay for
reusing material from one of his own columns, about legendary UCLA
basketball coach John Wooden.)

In 1999, when Herskowitz turned in his chapters for Charge to Keep,
Bush’s staff expressed displeasure —often over Herskowitz’s use of
language provided by Bush himself. In a chapter on the oil business,
Herskowitz included Bush’s own words to describe the Texan’s
unprofitable business ventures, writing: “the companies were
floundering”. “I got a call from one of the campaign lawyers, he was
kind of angry, and he said, ‘You’ve got some wrong information.’ I
didn’t bother to say, ‘Well you know where it came from.’ [The lawyer]
said, ‘We do not consider that the governor struggled or floundered in
the oil business. We consider him a successful oilman who started up
at least two new businesses.’ ”

In the end, campaign officials decided not to go with Herskowitz’s
account, and, moreover, demanded everything back. “The lawyer called
me and said, ‘Delete it. Shred it. Just do it.’ ”

“They took it and [communications director] Karen [Hughes] rewrote
it,” he said. A campaign official arrived at his home at seven a.m. on
a Monday morning and took his notes and computer files. However,
Herskowitz, who is known for his memory of anecdotes from his long
history in journalism and book publishing, says he is confident about
his recollections.

According to Herskowitz, Bush was reluctant to discuss his time in the
Texas Air National Guard – and inconsistent when he did so. Bush, he
said, provided conflicting explanations of how he came to bypass a
waiting list and obtain a coveted Guard slot as a domestic alternative
to being sent to Vietnam. Herskowitz also said that Bush told him that
after transferring from his Texas Guard unit two-thirds through his
six-year military obligation to work on an Alabama political campaign,
he did not attend any Alabama National Guard drills at all, because he
was “excused.” This directly contradicts his public statements that he
participated in obligatory training with the Alabama National Guard.
Bush’s claim to have fulfilled his military duty has been subject to
intense scrutiny; he has insisted in the past that he did show up for
monthly drills in Alabama – though commanding officers say they never
saw him, and no Guardsmen have come forward to accept substantial
“rewards” for anyone who can claim to have seen Bush on base.

Herskowitz said he asked Bush if he ever flew a plane again after
leaving the Texas Air National Guard in 1972 – which was two years
prior to his contractual obligation to fly jets was due to expire. He
said Bush told him he never flew any plane – military or civilian –
again. That would contradict published accounts in which Bush talks
about his days in 1973 working with inner-city children, when he
claimed to have taken some of the children up in a plane.

In 2002, three years after he had been pulled off the George W. Bush
biography, Herskowitz was asked by Bush’s father to write a book about
the current president’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, after getting a
message that the senior Bush wanted to see him. “Former President Bush
just handed it to me. We were sitting there one day, and I was
visiting him there in his office…He said, ‘I wish somebody would do a
book about my dad.’ ”

“He said to me, ‘I know this has been a disappointing time for you,
but it’s amazing how many times something good will come out of it.’ I
passed it on to my agent, he jumped all over it. I asked [Bush
senior], ‘Would you support it and would you give me access to the
rest of family?’ He said yes.”

That book, Duty, Honor, Country: The Life and Legacy of Prescott Bush,
was published in 2003 by Routledge. If anything, the book has been
criticized for its over-reliance on the Bush family’s perspective and
rosy interpretation of events. Herskowitz himself is considered the
ultimate “as-told-to” author, lending credibility to his account of
what George W. Bush told him. Herskowitz’s other books run the gamut
of public figures, and include the memoirs of Reagan aide Deaver,
former Texas Governor and Nixon Treasury Secretary John Connally,
newsman Dan Rather, astronaut Walter Cunningham, and baseball greats
Mickey Mantle and Nolan Ryan.

After Herskowitz was pulled from the Bush book project, the biographer
learned that a scenario was being prepared to explain his departure.
“I got a phone call from someone in the Bush campaign, confidentially,
saying ‘Watch your back.’ ”

Reporters covering Bush say that when they inquired as to why
Herskowitz was no longer on the project, Hughes intimated that
Herskowitz had personal habits that interfered with his writing – a
claim Herskowitz said is unfounded. Later, the campaign put out the
word that Herskowitz had been removed for missing a deadline. Hughes
subsequently finished the book herself – it received largely critical
reviews for its self-serving qualities and lack of spontaneity or
introspection.

So, said Herskowitz, the best material was left on the cutting room
floor, including Bush’s true feelings.

“He told me that as a leader, you can never admit to a mistake,”
Herskowitz said. “That was one of the keys to being a leader.”

Research support for this article was provided by the Investigative
Fund of The Nation Institute.

Russ Baker is an award-winning independent journalist who has been
published in The New York Times, The Nation, Washington Post, The
Telegraph (UK), Sydney Morning-Herald, and Der Spiegel, among many
others.

David wrote:

[Snip, snip, snip]

More drivel from the 'tard boy.

dxAce
Michigan
USA

dxAce wrote:

More drivel from the 'tard boy.


more mindless insults from little Bozo...








mike

m II wrote:

dxAce wrote:

More drivel from the 'tard boy.

more mindless insults from little Bozo...

Another stupid response from a dumb Canuck.

dxAce
Michigan
USA

http://www.iserv.net/~n8kdv/dxpage.htm

dxAce wrote:

m II wrote:


dxAce wrote:


More drivel from the 'tard boy.

more mindless insults from little Bozo...


Another stupid response from a dumb Canuck.





more mindless insults from little Bozo...what is this one? Number four out of a
repertoire of ....four....? Things haven't been the same since that horse you
were molesting kicked you in the head. Come to think of it, aren't you using
that pre-existing injury to get an insurance settlement now? That would be so
YOU..Amazing what the promise of thirty thousand does even to the 'morals' of a
pervert.




mike

m II wrote:

dxAce wrote:

m II wrote:


dxAce wrote:


More drivel from the 'tard boy.

more mindless insults from little Bozo...


Another stupid response from a dumb Canuck.


more mindless insults from little Bozo...what is this one? Number four out of a
repertoire of ....four....? Things haven't been the same since that horse you
were molesting kicked you in the head. Come to think of it, aren't you using
that pre-existing injury to get an insurance settlement now? That would be so
YOU..Amazing what the promise of thirty thousand does even to the 'morals' of a
pervert.

Only thirty thousand? Damn, why am I wasting my time. Thirty thousand was just the
price quoted to fix my neck!

LMAO at the stupid Canucky 'tard.

Continue to tote.

dxAce
Michigan
USA

Yep,

hear Saddm Hussein 's got them weapons of mass destruction

George Bush's Gonna Invade..

- Yessiree Bob !

"Dan" wrote in message
oups.com...

Yep,

hear Saddm Hussein 's got them weapons of mass destruction

George Bush's Gonna Invade..

- Yessiree Bob !


Yep he sure did have WMDs. Glad you finally see the light Dan.

B.H.

"David" wrote in message
...
Two years before 9/11, candidate Bush was already talking privately
about attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer
Houston: Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential
candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the
political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost
writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in
preparation for a planned autobiography.

"He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," said author and
journalist Mickey Herskowitz. "It was on his mind. He said to me: 'One
of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a
commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political
capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted
it.' He said, 'If I have a chance to invade..if I had that much
capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed
that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful
presidency."

Herskowitz said that Bush expressed frustration at a lifetime as an
underachiever in the shadow of an accomplished father. In aggressive
military action, he saw the opportunity to emerge from his father's
shadow. The moment, Herskowitz said, came in the wake of the September
11 attacks. "Suddenly, he's at 91 percent in the polls, and he'd
barely crawled out of the bunker."

That President Bush and his advisers had Iraq on their minds long
before weapons inspectors had finished their work - and long before
alleged Iraqi ties with terrorists became a central rationale for war
- has been raised elsewhere, including in a book based on
recollections of former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. However,
Herskowitz was in a unique position to hear Bush's unguarded and
unfiltered views on Iraq, war and other matters - well before he
became president.

In 1999, Herskowitz struck a deal with the campaign of George W. Bush
about a ghost-written autobiography, which was ultimately titled A
Charge to Keep : My Journey to the White House, and he and Bush signed
a contract in which the two would split the proceeds. The publisher
was William Morrow. Herskowitz was given unimpeded access to Bush, and
the two met approximately 20 times so Bush could share his thoughts.
Herskowitz began working on the book in May, 1999, and says that
within two months he had completed and submitted some 10 chapters,
with a remaining 4-6 chapters still on his computer. Herskowitz was
replaced as Bush's ghostwriter after Bush's handlers concluded that
the candidate's views and life experiences were not being cast in a
sufficiently positive light.

According to Herskowitz, who has authored more than 30 books, many of
them jointly written autobiographies of famous Americans in politics,
sports and media (including that of Reagan adviser Michael Deaver),
Bush and his advisers were sold on the idea that it was difficult for
a president to accomplish an electoral agenda without the record-high
approval numbers that accompany successful if modest wars.

The revelations on Bush's attitude toward Iraq emerged recently during
two taped interviews of Herskowitz, which included a discussion of a
variety of matters, including his continued closeness with the Bush
family, indicated by his subsequent selection to pen an authorized
biography of Bush's grandfather, written and published last year with
the assistance and blessing of the Bush family.

Herskowitz also revealed the following:

-In 2003, Bush's father indicated to him that he disagreed with his
son's invasion of Iraq.

-Bush admitted that he failed to fulfill his Vietnam-era domestic
National Guard service obligation, but claimed that he had been
"excused."

-Bush revealed that after he left his Texas National Guard unit in
1972 under murky circumstances, he never piloted a plane again. That
casts doubt on the carefully-choreographed moment of Bush emerging in
pilot's garb from a jet on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in
2003 to celebrate "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq. The image, instantly
telegraphed around the globe, and subsequent hazy White House
statements about his capacity in the cockpit, created the impression
that a heroic Bush had played a role in landing the craft.

-Bush described his own business ventures as "floundering" before
campaign officials insisted on recasting them in a positive light.

Throughout the interviews for this article and in subsequent
conversations, Herskowitz indicated he was conflicted over revealing
information provided by a family with which he has longtime
connections, and by how his candor could comport with the undefined
operating principles of the as-told-to genre. Well after the
interviews-in which he expressed consternation that Bush's true views,
experience and basic essence had eluded the American people
-Herskowitz communicated growing concern about the consequences for
himself of the publication of his remarks, and said that he had been
under the impression he would not be quoted by name. However, when
conversations began, it was made clear to him that the material was
intended for publication and attribution. A tape recorder was present
and visible at all times.

Several people who know Herskowitz well addressed his character and
the veracity of his recollections. "I don't know anybody that's ever
said a bad word about Mickey," said Barry Silverman, a well-known
Houston executive and civic figure who worked with him on another book
project. An informal survey of Texas journalists turned up uniform
confidence that Herskowitz's account as contained in this article
could be considered accurate.

One noted Texas journalist who spoke with Herskowitz about the book in
1999 recalls how the author mentioned to him at the time that Bush had
revealed things the campaign found embarrassing and did not want in
print. He requested anonymity because of the political climate in the
state. "I can't go near this," he said.

According to Herskowitz, George W. Bush's beliefs on Iraq were based
in part on a notion dating back to the Reagan White House - ascribed
in part to now-vice president Dick Cheney, Chairman of the House
Republican Policy Committee under Reagan. "Start a small war. Pick a
country where there is justification you can jump on, go ahead and
invade."

Bush's circle of pre-election advisers had a fixation on the political
capital that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher collected from
the Falklands War. Said Herskowitz: "They were just absolutely blown
away, just enthralled by the scenes of the troops coming back, of the
boats, people throwing flowers at [Thatcher] and her getting these
standing ovations in Parliament and making these magnificent
speeches."

Republicans, Herskowitz said, felt that Jimmy Carter's political
downfall could be attributed largely to his failure to wage a war. He
noted that President Reagan and President Bush's father himself had
(besides the narrowly-focused Gulf War I) successfully waged limited
wars against tiny opponents - Grenada and Panama - and gained
politically. But there were successful small wars, and then there were
quagmires, and apparently George H.W. Bush and his son did not see eye
to eye.

"I know [Bush senior] would not admit this now, but he was opposed to
it. I asked him if he had talked to W about invading Iraq. "He said,
'No I haven't, and I won't, but Brent [Scowcroft] has.' Brent would
not have talked to him without the old man's okaying it." Scowcroft,
national security adviser in the elder Bush's administration, penned a
highly publicized warning to George W. Bush about the perils of an
invasion.

Herskowitz's revelations are not the sole indicator of Bush's
pre-election thinking on Iraq. In December 1999, some six months after
his talks with Herskowitz, Bush surprised veteran political
chroniclers, including the Boston Globe's David Nyhan, with his blunt
pronouncements about Saddam at a six-way New Hampshire primary event
that got little notice: "It was a gaffe-free evening for the rookie
front-runner, till he was asked about Saddam's weapons stash," wrote
Nyhan. 'I'd take 'em out,' [Bush] grinned cavalierly, 'take out the
weapons of mass destruction.I'm surprised he's still there," said Bush
of the despot who remains in power after losing the Gulf War to Bush
Jr.'s father.It remains to be seen if that offhand declaration of war
was just Texas talk, a sort of locker room braggadocio, or whether it
was Bush's first big clinker. "

The notion that President Bush held unrealistic or naïve views about
the consequences of war was further advanced recently by a Bush
supporter, the evangelist Pat Robertson, who revealed that Bush had
told him the Iraq invasion would yield no casualties. In addition, in
recent days, high-ranking US military officials have complained that
the White House did not provide them with adequate resources for the
task at hand.

Herskowitz considers himself a friend of the Bush family, and has been
a guest at the family vacation home in Kennebunkport. In the late
1960s, Herskowitz, a longtime Houston Chronicle sports columnist
designated President Bush's father, then-Congressman George HW Bush,
to replace him as a guest columnist, and the two have remained close
since then. (Herskowitz was suspended briefly in April without pay for
reusing material from one of his own columns, about legendary UCLA
basketball coach John Wooden.)

In 1999, when Herskowitz turned in his chapters for Charge to Keep,
Bush's staff expressed displeasure -often over Herskowitz's use of
language provided by Bush himself. In a chapter on the oil business,
Herskowitz included Bush's own words to describe the Texan's
unprofitable business ventures, writing: "the companies were
floundering". "I got a call from one of the campaign lawyers, he was
kind of angry, and he said, 'You've got some wrong information.' I
didn't bother to say, 'Well you know where it came from.' [The lawyer]
said, 'We do not consider that the governor struggled or floundered in
the oil business. We consider him a successful oilman who started up
at least two new businesses.' "

In the end, campaign officials decided not to go with Herskowitz's
account, and, moreover, demanded everything back. "The lawyer called
me and said, 'Delete it. Shred it. Just do it.' "

"They took it and [communications director] Karen [Hughes] rewrote
it," he said. A campaign official arrived at his home at seven a.m. on
a Monday morning and took his notes and computer files. However,
Herskowitz, who is known for his memory of anecdotes from his long
history in journalism and book publishing, says he is confident about
his recollections.

According to Herskowitz, Bush was reluctant to discuss his time in the
Texas Air National Guard - and inconsistent when he did so. Bush, he
said, provided conflicting explanations of how he came to bypass a
waiting list and obtain a coveted Guard slot as a domestic alternative
to being sent to Vietnam. Herskowitz also said that Bush told him that
after transferring from his Texas Guard unit two-thirds through his
six-year military obligation to work on an Alabama political campaign,
he did not attend any Alabama National Guard drills at all, because he
was "excused." This directly contradicts his public statements that he
participated in obligatory training with the Alabama National Guard.
Bush's claim to have fulfilled his military duty has been subject to
intense scrutiny; he has insisted in the past that he did show up for
monthly drills in Alabama - though commanding officers say they never
saw him, and no Guardsmen have come forward to accept substantial
"rewards" for anyone who can claim to have seen Bush on base.

Herskowitz said he asked Bush if he ever flew a plane again after
leaving the Texas Air National Guard in 1972 - which was two years
prior to his contractual obligation to fly jets was due to expire. He
said Bush told him he never flew any plane - military or civilian -
again. That would contradict published accounts in which Bush talks
about his days in 1973 working with inner-city children, when he
claimed to have taken some of the children up in a plane.

In 2002, three years after he had been pulled off the George W. Bush
biography, Herskowitz was asked by Bush's father to write a book about
the current president's grandfather, Prescott Bush, after getting a
message that the senior Bush wanted to see him. "Former President Bush
just handed it to me. We were sitting there one day, and I was
visiting him there in his office.He said, 'I wish somebody would do a
book about my dad.' "

"He said to me, 'I know this has been a disappointing time for you,
but it's amazing how many times something good will come out of it.' I
passed it on to my agent, he jumped all over it. I asked [Bush
senior], 'Would you support it and would you give me access to the
rest of family?' He said yes."

That book, Duty, Honor, Country: The Life and Legacy of Prescott Bush,
was published in 2003 by Routledge. If anything, the book has been
criticized for its over-reliance on the Bush family's perspective and
rosy interpretation of events. Herskowitz himself is considered the
ultimate "as-told-to" author, lending credibility to his account of
what George W. Bush told him. Herskowitz's other books run the gamut
of public figures, and include the memoirs of Reagan aide Deaver,
former Texas Governor and Nixon Treasury Secretary John Connally,
newsman Dan Rather, astronaut Walter Cunningham, and baseball greats
Mickey Mantle and Nolan Ryan.

After Herskowitz was pulled from the Bush book project, the biographer
learned that a scenario was being prepared to explain his departure.
"I got a phone call from someone in the Bush campaign, confidentially,
saying 'Watch your back.' "

Reporters covering Bush say that when they inquired as to why
Herskowitz was no longer on the project, Hughes intimated that
Herskowitz had personal habits that interfered with his writing - a
claim Herskowitz said is unfounded. Later, the campaign put out the
word that Herskowitz had been removed for missing a deadline. Hughes
subsequently finished the book herself - it received largely critical
reviews for its self-serving qualities and lack of spontaneity or
introspection.

So, said Herskowitz, the best material was left on the cutting room
floor, including Bush's true feelings.

"He told me that as a leader, you can never admit to a mistake,"
Herskowitz said. "That was one of the keys to being a leader."

Research support for this article was provided by the Investigative
Fund of The Nation Institute.

Russ Baker is an award-winning independent journalist who has been
published in The New York Times, The Nation, Washington Post, The
Telegraph (UK), Sydney Morning-Herald, and Der Spiegel, among many
others.




Isn't it just AMAZING, totally AMAZING how our weak little **** ant media
doesn't cover the DSM {Downing Street Memo} like it does the "Runaway bride"
story if you can call it one for freaken 10 days straight? Or "Tom and Kates
wedding"?
Holy ****.....

Is the media scared of this administration? Are the journalists scared of
their bosses? What is going on? Plus with all the new Homeland security laws
allowing the FBI to just do whatever they please, we now live in a
dictatorship.

A state where the media and other organizations are actually scared to speak
up. Where the administration allows the country to be invaded and where our
rights that SOLDIERS DIED FOR are washed away forever with a stroke of a
pen.

Bush and Cheney are enemies of the state. I know, you hate me, not the
message or the facts. When someone with no brain is "your hero", who are you
really talking to anyway?

Like Benjamin Franklin said:
"Those that give up their rights for safety deserve neither"

Lucky

On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 12:42:58 -0400, "Lucky"
wrote:


Isn't it just AMAZING, totally AMAZING how our weak little **** ant media
doesn't cover the DSM {Downing Street Memo} like it does the "Runaway bride"
story if you can call it one for freaken 10 days straight? Or "Tom and Kates
wedding"?
Holy ****.....

Is the media scared of this administration? Are the journalists scared of
their bosses? What is going on? Plus with all the new Homeland security laws
allowing the FBI to just do whatever they please, we now live in a
dictatorship.

A state where the media and other organizations are actually scared to speak
up. Where the administration allows the country to be invaded and where our
rights that SOLDIERS DIED FOR are washed away forever with a stroke of a
pen.

Bush and Cheney are enemies of the state. I know, you hate me, not the
message or the facts. When someone with no brain is "your hero", who are you
really talking to anyway?

Like Benjamin Franklin said:
"Those that give up their rights for safety deserve neither"

Lucky

Don't forget the single missing Aruban party chick...

http://www.ucomics.com/rallcom/2005/06/09/