Bush Memoir Due in 2010

In his new memoir 'Decision Points,' former President George W. Bush explains some of the tough decisions he made while in office, including how he dealt with 9/11, the lack of weapons of mass. Bush’s memoir “Decision Points” could well have been titled “The Decider Decides”: it’s an autobiography focused around “the most consequential decisions” of his. 'I could not have quit drinking without faith,' Bush writes in his memoir, Decision Points, released Tuesday (Nov. 'I also don't think my faith would be as strong if I hadn't quit drinking.' Across 497 pages, Bush recounts the ways religious faith shaped his life and his politics. In the memoir, Bush Hager reflects on a span of time in which she lost her three remaining grandparents. Below, Bush Hager opens up about motherhood, anchoring the news during a pandemic, and being a member of one of America's most famous political dynasties.

You've seen the Oliver Stone movie, 'W.' But if you want a really sympathetic portrayal of the former president, you'll have to wait until 2010, when Crown (a division of Random House) will publish his memoir. The deal was announced today. The book is tentatively titled 'Decision Points' and will focus on a dozen or so key points in Bush's life, according to an Associated Press story. How do I know it will be sympathetic to Bush? Just a hunch.

I have two big hopes for the memoir. First, that it will not be dull -- at least not as dull as 'Speaking of Freedom: The Collected Speeches of George H.W. Bush' (that's the first President Bush) which came out not long ago. The second is that it will give the definitive account of Bush's religious conversion.

I know, a lot of folks will think, who cares about that -- we want to know why he invaded Iraq, or something important. But as I noted in a Post story a few years back, there are two accounts of how Bush came to Jesus, one in which Billy Graham played the central role and the other in which the central role was played by Arthur Blessitt, an evangelist known for dragging a heavy, 12-foot cross around the world. The Blessitt story -- involving a classic 'born again' moment -- is well known among Bush's supporters in the evangelical Christian community but is little known to the general public. Most media accounts I've seen just credit Billy Graham, or else suggest that Bush's conversion was tied to his drinking, which is not exactly what Bush himself has said (the former president suggested in various ways on various occasions that his faith helped him to give up alcohol, but NOT that he found his faith because of his drinking). Even the Graham story is fuzzy -- as far as I'm aware, Bush has never publicly divulged what, exactly, Graham said to him in their private talk (in Maine, in 1985) that changed his life. Seems like an important 'Decision Point.'

What are you hoping to read about in this memoir?
--Alan Cooperman

By Alan Cooperman | March 18, 2009; 6:23 PM ET Alan Cooperman
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Bush can not even speak correctly. Let alone write some thing other than his name.

Posted by: poliltimmy | March 19, 2009 7:15 AM

I am more interesting in seeing this moron of president writing this book from prison cell; prefferably in state where they have death penalty.

Posted by: BOBSTERII | March 19, 2009 10:28 AM

Alternative working title: 'If I Did It: Confessions of a Failed Presidency'

Posted by: MStreet1 | March 19, 2009 11:56 AM

Posted by: Limey51 | March 19, 2009 12:54 PM

Bush says he wants people to 'understand the environment he was in.' Thats FUNNY! For eight years WE wanted him to understand the environment we were ALL in.

He was the funniest and most tragic President we have ever had and the most unnecessary. His book is equally so.

Posted by: bgreen2224 | March 19, 2009 2:59 PM

Given the economic disarray in the publishing industry that is undermining the publication of many worthy books, I sincerely hope that Crown is not squandering millions on an advance for a book that will not be released until 2010 but which has already outlived whatever usefulness it could have had when its author was at the center of the daily zeitgeist index. Even if I wanted to suffer through his locutions and excuses all over again--which I do not--I would not want to line his pocket with a cent of what little of my income remains unsullied by his decisions.

Posted by: cebeling | March 19, 2009 3:09 PM

I've read practically all the other presidential autobios out there, so I don't see why I wouldn't read this one. I don't think it'll top Grant's though.

George Bush Memoirs

Posted by: prokaryote | March 20, 2009 4:20 PM

I'm not sure how I missed the news on this, but this just annoys me.

Because that's $7 million that could go to legitimate authors (fiction or non-fiction) down the drain.

Posted by: Chasmosaur1 | March 24, 2009 11:32 AM

'What are you hoping to read about in this memoir?'

Barbara Bush Memoir Audiobook

I'd be interesting in reading about the moment that it dawned on him that he was totally inadequate for demands of the Presidency.

It took most Americans until about the time of Hurricane Katrina - but some of us realized it several years earlier; and by the end of his term, the awareness was near universal.

Barbara Bush Memoir

'Worst. President. Ever.'

Posted by: AsYouKnowBob | March 26, 2009 12:20 AM

The comments to this entry are closed.

Laura Bush Memoir

Former U.S. president George W. Bush says he continues to have a 'sickening feeling' about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, his main justification for approving the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.
Mr. Bush discusses the Iraq war and other controversial moments of his presidency in his book Decision Points, released in bookstores across the U.S. Tuesday.
In an interview with NBC television to promote the book, the former president says the invasion was the right decision to make, and he feels no need to apologize. He contends that Iraqi citizens are better off without Saddam, whom Mr. Bush calls a 'homicidal dictator.'
The 64-year-old former president did acknowledge a number of mistakes during the government's botched response to Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans, Louisiana in 2005.
He says he failed to express his concerns for the victims of Katrina, many of whom were black, leading to accusations that he was racist. Mr. Bush calls the the experience the worst moment of his presidency.
He also writes of a rift with his vice president, Dick Cheney, after Mr. Bush refused to pardon Cheney's former aide, Lewis 'Scooter' Libby. Libby was convicted of lying to federal agents investigating the public disclosure of a CIA operative, Valerie Plame. Mr. Bush says Cheney accused him of abandoning Libby, whom the vice president described as 'a soldier on the battlefield.'
Mr. Bush says he considered replacing Cheney after his first term in office to counter the belief that the vice president wielded enormous power in the White House.
Mr. Bush writes that replacing Cheney would - in his words - 'demonstrate that I was in charge,' but he decided to keep Cheney because the vice president helped the president 'do the job.'
The former president also writes that he personally approved the use of waterboarding, or simulated drowning, during the interrogation of alleged al-Qaida mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

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