Derision Points

Dubya still likes to call himself "The Decider." But a lot was decided for him. This imaginative memoir reveals the real Bush from his youth. He was a hard-drinking, good-natured lout -- and the last person who'd run for high office. Bush was a spoiled rich brat. From adolescent drunk he graduated to prankster frat boy at an Ivy League. His famous father got him out of the draft. He got elected to the highest office in the world. Impressive resumé. Stranger than fiction! By the Maine reporter who "busted" W for drunk driving. The biography covers the juvenile career of Geo. W. Bush, his rowdy teenage behavior and drinking habits. His hijinks at Yale and Harvard. Dodging the draft with a little help from Congressman "Poppy" Bush. Inside the Bush Family; mano a mano over an affair his father is having. W's DUI arrest. Eligible bachelor W gets engaged to a nice girl -- so as to be more eligible for a run for Congress. He loses the race but marries Laura Welch anyway. W will be assisted again to rise to high office. Bush comes across as a devil-may-care, insolent youth, with a rude nickname for everyone, always ready to get into mischief, or into a case of liquor, to relieve his boredom. This amusing portrait of a oaf's progress is hardly flattering, but is not as unsympathetic as much of his press. An ordinary kid born into a strange family, "Dubya" never was interested in politics. He had to play his part to pay his family dues. This may well explain why Bush as President just did not seem to care to keep up the pretences that the world expects from its leaders. Indeed, we see G W Bush here as an anti-hero rather than a leader. Yet the author does not dwell on such theories. This is a hilarious book rather than a serious one, in keeping with the lightweight personality of its subject. Author Ted Cohen is the Kennebunkport reporter who uncovered the story of Dubya's DUI conviction during the 2000 presidential campaign. That the press did not deem to pick up on it may have swung that close election.