Ladies & Gentlemen, Your President...

The following excerpt is from today's New York Times Sunday Book Review. The book is Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush by Robert Draper. A second book, The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment Inside the Bush Administration by Jack Goldsmith, is also reviewed.

But there is another, less attractive part of the Bush persona: the mean-minded frat boy. At the 1992 Republican National Convention, Senator John McCain was about to speak for the re-election of Bush 41 when young George came up to him and said, according to Draper, “You’ve gotta hammer Clinton on the draft dodging.” That from a man who had weaved his way out of serving in Vietnam. McCain replied, “Sorry, that’s not my thing.”

On Jan. 31, 2001, soon after taking office, Bush held a cabinet meeting. When he entered the room, one chair was empty: the secretary of state’s. “Lock the door,” Bush said. A few minutes later Colin Powell could be heard trying the doorknob. The room “erupted with laughter.” Then Bush ordered the door unlocked. He “had made his point,” Draper says; Powell was “not the big dog any longer.” That the president of the United States would want to show how important he was by humiliating Colin Powell speaks volumes.

The link to the full article is here.