James i would say he was a guy who was the son of a president , had trouble dealing with that fact for the first 40 yearsplus of his life and then got his own personal life together enough to be a quite successful and shrewd politician to be elected governor of texas, and then became president of the united states. The first thing he would be known for then at the time of his presidency now and forever more will certainly be the fact that he was president at the time of the september 11th attacks and chose to wage a war in iraq that turned out to be a disaster. Brian what were his early years like . James well, he followed in his fathers footsteps and i say that quite literally, because he was forced almost to go to prep school at andover. He went to yale. He did many of the things his father did. It really in his mind, i think, it was not him. He once said many years later there were differences between him and his father starting with the fact that he went to Sam Houston Elementary School and his father went to Greenwich Country Day School in connecticut. He grew up in texas where his father had not and he identified with and i think took comfort in the idea, the image of himself as a texas good old boy, and he became very good at playing that role. Brian how about his schooling . James well, so, he went to texas schools until eighth grade and then his parents sent him to prep school at andover. And by his own account, i think he said many years later that making the transition to andover was the hardest he ever did in his life until he ran for president. He didnt like it there. There are painful, funny stories of him writing his First High School essay in his first weeks there and he took out the thesaurus that his mother had given him, because he didnt want to use the word tears so he wrote the word lacerates as in the lacerates were running down my cheek. I mean, he just didnt like it there and he reacted by becoming kind of the fun guy in the class. There are pictures of him as a cheerleader. There are pictures of him as a cheerleader dressed up as a woman leading the taunts. He was the goto guy for fun. Thats at andover and then that very much continues at yale where he is the head of a fraternity, delta kappa epsilon. He is the guy who organizes the toga parties. The first time george w. Bushs name ever appears in the new york times, i found, was to defend his fraternity from something, it may have been his hazing practices, i forget what it was. But he was the spokesman for the old Fraternity Life at a time, and this is the context, when yale itself was changing. There were certainly fraternities and parties there and there were certainly lots of other students at yale traditionally who were the sons of former yale people. Yale was gradually becoming in the early 60s a meritocracy, like many other schools like yale. People were admitted on the basis of their test scores and so on. It was becoming a more intense place. The faculty were more professional than the old genteel faculty in the past. And he didnt like it. He developed such an antipathy to yale that he went even three years into his presidency before he was willing to come back to the campus. I mean, he did not give and he didnt like it. He eventually during his presidency made a kind of peace with it, but it took a long time coming. Brian when did he apply to law school and why wasnt he accepted . James a couple of years after he when bush left yale, he lived a kind of singles life down in texas. His father his parents actually left texas in the early 1970s. First, they went to china. Well, they went to the United Nations and then they went to china, but they werent around. Bush lived in a singles apartment. He went into the Texas National guard. Theres more of a story to that because, he, like the sons of other texas politicians, went into a special Texas National guard unit that was really for politicians sons and members of the dallas cowboys. And this is during the vietnam war. It meant that he really didnt have to fight. And there have been disputes going back decades about how much pull was used. I found in researching the book that no one has ever found his father, george h. W. Bush, intervening or making calls to get him out of the guard, but friends of his father and texas political leaders did so. Brian where did he apply for law school and, again, why wasnt he accepted . James im having trouble remembering that. Maybe, its probably in my own book but i cant remember now. Brian i thought it might be texas, university of texas. James thats correct. Bush at first when he was applying for college actually, kind of asked to go to austin and see the university of texas. And it might have been a wish, but he ended up at yale. And then youre right, when he tried to go to law school or thought about applying to law school and he applied to texas at austin. Brian do you know why they didnt accept him . James i do not at this point. Brian you point out in your book that there are two words to describe his change in life. One of them is drinking and the other is religion. Explain that. James these come together in the mid1980s, and in the period of 1985 and 1986, first lets talk about what happened and then whats in the background. As far as drinking, in 1986 he celebrates his 40th birthday with friends. Hes off in colorado at the broadmoor hotel. He stays up late drinking with his friends. He wakes up with a terrible hangover. And hes had a drinking problem. He sometimes describes it that way, sometimes not, for a good while. Hes also been arrested for driving under the influence. This has been a chronic problem. He wakes up the day after and says thats it, im not going to drink, and he doesnt. He gives up drinking. The second thing that happens is that he develops, he becomes an evangelical christian, and during this same period begins to turn to religion regularly. Now, theres, in my view, an interesting political component to this which is that both of these things happened within a couple of years after his father decides to run for president. So, the sequence is that in 1984 Ronald Reagan wins reelection. Hes obviously not able to run again in 1988. George h. W. Bush is his vice president. And in april of 1985, his father calls the entire bush family together in a meeting at camp david and he brings out lee atwater, now sort of now famous political consultant, scoundrel, great political tactician. And he says this is lee atwater. And lee atwater addresses everybody and says i think its atwater himself warns people, your father is going to be running for president , you got to be careful. Anything any member of the family does could come back to hurt him. And george jr. , that is george w. Bush, and jeb are very mistrustful of atwater. They pull him aside and they say how do we know we can trust you . They asked that question because atwater is a political consultant, some of his partners are consulting for a rival politician, jack kemp. And atwater keep swearing and finally keeps swearing he will and jeb bush says what we mean is, if someone throws a grenade at our father, will you jump on it . So, they were mistrustful of this consultant but hes telling them stay clean. And in the middle of these mornings, george w. Bush this is only a year before he decides to give up drinking altogether. And so, thats the background on drinking. Hes had these warnings. He doesnt want to get into trouble. As far as religion, now i dont want to im not going to say if someones religion has a political component to it in its origins. But i will say that as soon as george w. Bush becomes an evangelical christian, he becomes the liaison for his fathers president ial campaign with the evangelical christians. Its a role he plays throughout the 1988 campaign and up to and through the 92 campaign. Brian how often did he run for office before he ran for governor of texas and in the mix of all that, when did he meet laura welch and marry her . James first, he ran for office once before his Texas Gubernatorial Campaign and that was in the late 70s. He ran in 1978 for a seat in congress and he lost. He lost to a guy named kent hance. Its interesting in light of what we later know and think of george w. Bush that in that campaign, his opponent, hance, attacked him for being this east coast preppy guy from out of town who couldnt possibly know texas well. So, he portrayed george w. Bush almost like his father. And bush began to develop responses to this, i mean, bush definitely, one thing that i think many people agree is he had a good sense of humor. Finally, when he got tired of being attacked, hance at one point said weve got a candidate who was born in new haven, connecticut and hes an outsider, and bush said i was born in new haven, connecticut because i wanted to be with my mother that day. [laughter] brian what about laura . James he married laura in the late 70s. Brian he met her where and under what circumstances . James oh, he met her at friends arranged to get them together at a barbecue. They were in midland and she was a local librarian. I found, its interesting to me that even his choice of a spouse reflected this kind of antielite, i mean, he chose someone from texas, not someone from the social set of his parents. And, in fact, if you read laura bushs memoir closely, she says quite gently, it took me about 10 years to be comfortable with barbara bush. Barbara had an acid tongue and laura is quite the reverse. Brian what was your assignment these are small books, under 200 pages, theyve done them on all president s. James yes. I joke to my friends that the assignment is if you write more than 50,000 words, well cut off your arm. [laughter] brian what was your assignment and what did they want you to come up with and who did it . James who did the book . Brian yes. James the book, like all of the others in the series, is published by henry holt. Its called the american president s series. And they want you to briefly discuss the background of president s, then cover their presidency and briefly their life after their presidency. And, in fact, the fine editor if this book, paul golub, at first asked me for an outline before i started writing and i turned it in and there were eight chapters and two were getting him into the presidency and the last one was postpresident ial life. And he laughed and said yes, you hit on it, thats what all of these books are with one exception, and that one exception to divert in history for a minute is William Henry harrison who was president for only 30some days before he got a cold and died. And paul laughed and said, in that book the epilogue was the presidency. [laughter] brian what is your background and what are you doing now . James i am by profession a journalist. I spent more than 30 years of my career in journalism. Actually, this is now the 50th anniversary of the day when i decided that i wanted to be a journalist. I was about to go to medical school and i asked for a leave of absence, and 50 years ago this week, i believe, i was granted a years leave of absence from medical school. I went off and i started at a small newspaper, not a very good one, in new haven, connecticut and i never had so much fun in my life. And so, i may have taken another year of leave, i dont even remember now, but the minute i started, i liked newspapers and never went back. I worked for, over the next couple of decades the new haven paper briefly and for the Washington Post for three or four years, and eventually was that the Los Angeles Times for over 20 years both in washington and overseas. Brian and youre doing what now . James so, since then, ive been writing books full time. I did that first at a washington think tank called center for strategic and International Studies. I wrote a book that covers the george w. Bush administration called rise of the falcons. And i moved in 2004 to Johns Hopkins school of advanced International Studies and have written books there since. Brian so, here are some videos, very brief, from 1988. George w. Bush is here in this town working for his father in april of 1988. Its a short interview that we did with him. I just wanted you to hear him talk about texas. [video clip] mr. Bush its a state that encourages growth and its a state that has got a certain sense of pride to it that i like. I just happen to think that texas has got problems, although its growing out of them, but the opportunities in that state are just enormous and im a person whos always seeking opportunity. Brian that was 1988. What was george w. Bush doing during the campaign and what do you think he was thinking at that point about his own future in politics . James very interesting question. Thats a continuation of the story i told about lee atwater and mistrusting him, because george w. Bush at that point, he kind of was out of the oil business. He was relatively free. And when he expressed some mistrust to atwater about how his Fathers Campaign would be run, atwater said if you dont trust me, why dont you, he said to george and jeb, one of you can come to washington and work alongside me, watch me every day. And george w. Bush did. And so, he went and worked alongside lee atwater for over a year. So, he actually moved to washington and helped. And his role in the campaign, his first role he called it was loyalty enforcer. So, with all these politicians and political figures running around, he was the guy watching out for his fathers interests. Im sure atwater was, too, but he wanted to double check. His own ambitions, i think, i became convinced and wrote that he had his own ambitions at the time and so to move ahead for a second, in 92 after his father lost, hes running for governor of texas. Everybody says that he developed his ambitions after his father lost. No. I think he held his ambition in check while his father was president. In fact, barbara at one point discouraged george jr. From running for governor of texas in 1990 because she thought it wasnt a good idea while george bush sr. Was president. Anything that one of them did could reflect on the other. Brian how difficult was it for him to get elected governor of texas . James the best line on that came from his father, george h. W. Bush. He wasnt always full great quips, but said that for george w. Bush to get elected to president after he was governor of texas was like a sixinch putt. It was harder for him to be elected governor. There was a very popular, wellremembered now democratic governor, ann richards. She was the one who said of george h. W. Bush that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. And richards was quite popular, but bush jr. , george w. , ran hard against her. He had a very good political advisor, good at politics, karl rove, and together they worked out the strategy to beat her. And one of the tactics that they had which people saw when he was president , was incredible message discipline. This was one of the characteristics of bush as a politician. He would never have particularly penetrating or very long answers, but he would develop a handful one sentence, two sentences, three sentences and deliver them over and over. And years later, ann richards said in frustration, she meant this as a political compliment, but she said if you ask george bush the time of day during that campaign, he would say we must teach our children to read. He would give the same response to everything. Brian how did he get elected president . James how . [laughter] lets talk about his political tactics and successes. He learned from his fathers loss in 1992. He developed what he felt were strategies to win where his father lost and, too, he noticed his fathers errors. So, he needed to bring together within the Republican Party three different constituencies. One of them is the traditional republican conservative constituency, the Old Country Club constituencies, the people who wanted their taxes cut. Lesson number two was dont raise taxes. Thats what his father did. He needed to develop much better support from evangelical christians than his father had, and he needed support from the hawks or the neoconservatives, but that was an important faction in the party. And all of those wings of the party needed to give strong support to the republican candidate. People forget now, for example, but the evangelicals were not always a solid, a constituency in the Republican Party. In fact, they had supported Democratic Candidates for many decades. Richard nixon made some inroads getting some evangelical support. They ran back to jimmy carter, a Southern Baptist democrat. Reagan developed much more support from evangelicals. And then his father lost that kind of support. Bush worked both for his father and then for himself to bring evangelicals into the Republican Party. So, that was one part of his political tasks that he succeeded in. As far as what i call the hawks of the Foreign Policy, the neoconservatives, hard for people to remember now, but in the 1992 campaign, they tended to support bill clinton. They were so unhappy with his father. This had to do with the fact that his father supported gorbachev, that he supported the breakup of the soviet union, didnt support an independent ukraine for a long time, a lot of other things. And bill clinton supported the neoconservatives. Some of them went to work for him. Bush jr. Goes to work and develops their support as well. So, he pulls together all the wings of the Republican Party and then he campaigns, he has no trouble winning at all, winning the republican nomination. And then running against al gore, he runs against bill clinton and the lewinsky scandal. I am going to bring george w. Bush says im going to bring honor and dignity to the white house. And after all that, we talk about all these great political stratagems, after all that, it was enough not to win a majority of the country. It is enough only to produce a deadlock in the Electoral College and a Long Supreme Court battle. So, it wasnt as though it was some overwhelming victory, it wasnt at all. Brian as you look back on the bush v. Gore decision and the fact that he ended up winning the electoral votes he needed but not the popular vote, whats your opinion of what happened during that period . James i thought it was a travesty. I put in my career about eight years covering the supreme court. And one thing i thought i had learned was that the court of that era and the conservatives on the court of that era, and im talking of people like Justice William rehnquist, were in favor of what they would have so, to take the most obvious example, the way that 325 million americans go through airports today started on september 12, that whenever the flights resumed and has never gone back to what it was on september 10. It affected American Foreign policy, just for the start i think we can say that it had a profound effect on bushs Foreign Policy team that played a role certainly in the decision two years later to invade iraq. Brian here is a short piece of video after his book came out, Decision Points, when asked about legacy. [video clip] bush i dont really worry about my legacy because im still studying Theodore Roosevelt or harry truman, and there is not going to be an objective history done on this administration for a long time. James yes. Thats a little selfserving. Its true for any president that it takes many decades for historians to judge. And that may be true with parts of what bush did. But its not too soon to judge on some aspects of his legacy, i mean, its not too soon to judge on the war in iraq. Why . Because it didnt accomplish what he thought it was going to accomplish before he started the war. It cost 4,000plus american lives. It cost 2 trillion. And i think, i write in my book and i dont think this judgment will change, that it was one of the biggest strategic blunders in American History. So, those kinds of judgments, i think, can be made. He is stating there the truism that peoples judgements do change of president s as time goes on. But i dont think that one is going to change much. Brian how did he make the decision both for going into afghanistan and iraq . James yes. I think i would divide them, i mean, the decision to go into afghanistan followed immediately after september 11. The thinking of the administration within hours after september 11 was we want to punish the people who did this they knew right at the start this was al qaeda and any countries that assisted them, and in this particular case since al qaeda had been based in afghanistan, that meant afghanistan. They gave afghanistan a warning fairly quickly to turn over bin laden, and then proceeded to attack within weeks. Now, theres a lot more to that, because bush gathers his war Team Together at camp david the weekend after the september 11 attacks and there are one or two proposals that they go beyond afghanistan. In one particular case, there is a recommendation to attack iraq at that very first weekend meeting after september 11. But that is generally put aside. I choose those words carefully. Its put aside but its not rejected. But for the time being they decided to focus on afghanistan. And that does, i mean, that takes some time. That takes a few months for them to bring in cia teams and then eventually the military to dislodge the taliban from kabul. Now, how did we invade iraq . That is a much longer story. So, there has been this recommendation at the very first meeting to attack iraq. Why . Because brian do you know who it came from . James yes. It came from Paul Wolfowitz at that first meeting. And he does not get support from others there. First of all, if you can envision this meeting, its the principals at a table, principals meaning members of the cabinet its cheney, rumsfeld, powell, Condoleezza Rice and wolfowitz is at a back bench. So is not you know, this is a recommendation from the second level and it is, again, shelved at the time. And during those two months while the war in afghanistan is being fought, a couple of noteworthy things happen. One is the anthrax scare. So, in what turns out to be something entirely unrelated to al qaeda as far as we know, people in washington and on capitol hill and so on are opening their mail and finding this powder which may or may not be anthrax, that further really scares the top levels of the administration. And i want to back up for a second there and say that the september 11 attacks had caught the administration in its this is theyre nine months into the administration, they havent paid enough attention to the warnings they got about al qaeda. This administration thought of themselves im talking about the Foreign Policy team, people like cheney and rumsfeld, they are the professionals, theyve served in office before, they know how to run things. The Clinton Administration is a bunch of amateurs, thats their mindset. And they are focused also on old issues involving states, by that i mean countries. So, their issues of Foreign Policy this is before september 11 are getting out of an arms control treaty with the soviet union, maybe dealing with north korea, they have a moment with china, but they are dealing with the things that they have been familiar with in past administrations, country to country, u. S. Versus another country. September 11 hits, and heres the quote that meant the most to me is actually in a memoir by bob gates who says that these guys were traumatized by september 11. They hadnt imagined this kind of problem coming from a nonstate actor, from a terrorist group that wasnt a state. And they spent much of the rest of their time trying to make sure that this could never happen again. And between the lines in gates description is a lot of guilt that they had for allowing september 11 to happen. So, after september 11, were not going to allow this to happen again, they get an anthrax scare. And they developed slowly the and concern that al qaeda could somehow get weapons of mass destructions we have to go further weapons of mass destruction. Yes, theyre concerned about a nuclear weapon, but they are concerned about chemical weapons and they are particularly concerned about biological weapons, that somehow al qaeda could get those. So, thats the second thing that happens. And then theres on the political level, karl rove, the political advisor plays a part in some of this. They developed the language that afghanistan is merely phase one of the war on terror. So, they develop this language about the war on terror, no one can quite define what that is and they call afghanistan phase one. By december, theyve defeated of 2001 theyve defeated al qaeda in, or theyve dislodged it from kabul and the question starts to arise, ok, whats phase two . And there is a period if i did look at this for a few weeks in sort of november, december of 2001 when they are thinking of wait, should we attack, theres an al qaeda unit in indonesia, there are some al qaeda in yemen, and they dont quite work as a National Campaign against al qaeda. These are small units in countries of lesser importance. But meanwhile, theres iraq, its still out there. And the first sign you get of the administration thinking about going to war in iraq is in bushs state of the Union Address at the beginning of 2002, when he talks about the axis of evil. The axis of evil is iraq, iran and north korea. Brian let me just james yes. Brian run seven seconds of a statement of george w. Bushs at that interview during his book tour. [video clip] bush youre asking did i make a mistake for example in the liberation of iraq. And the answer is no, i didnt make a mistake, in my judgment. Brian comment . James yes. He made a huge mistake. To the extent that bush has admitted mistakes, he admits tactical mistakes that were central to the war without ever saying that the entire war in iraq was a mistake. So we can talk i mean, the mistakes he has admitted, hes admitted that he made a mistake in the Mission Accomplished landing on an Aircraft Carrier and he has admitted and others have admitted that the way they handled the postwar was a mistake by allowing the disbanding of the iraqi army, their expulsion of the baath Party Members from government positions. Its true hes never said the war in iraq itself was not a mistake. In fact, what you saw right there is i guess a sign that he doesnt believe it yet, but i think thats profoundly wrong. Brian in your book, you talk about and of course you wrote a whole book on the vulcans from the age around george w. Bush early in 2004, but how much of what george bush became was the fact as you point out that he has a lot of people around him that used to work for his father . And how long did it take him to change that . James i thought it took well into it took into a second term for him to change that. So, if you go back to his 2000 campaign and taking office in 2001, first of all, he gets attacked politically during the campaign for not knowing enough about Foreign Policy. I mean, here is al gore whos been the vice president. He was a Foreign Policy specialist before that. Bush has been governor of texas but hes still, the Foreign Policy. Hes done, as he would joke was he would joke about his experience with mexico, but thats about it. And so he gets attacked for not knowing much and he says, well, ive got i dont have he doesnt say i dont have to know much. But he says, ive got the finest group of Foreign Policy advisors around. And by that hes talking about this group, the vulcans, who are basically people whove served with his father. Secondly, during that 2000 campaign, he chooses cheney as his vice president. And karl rove doesnt want cheney. Karl rove list cheneys list disadvantages. He comes from a tiny state thats already republican. Hes not going to bring votes the way say Lyndon Johnson would carry texas for john kennedy. And hes too conservative. And bush wants cheney mostly because of his experience. I mean hes choosing his fathers advisors and that goes all the way up to and including his own vice president. And once he takes office, he really does rely on them. He has kind of a bridging figure the bridging figure of Condoleezza Rice who was a friend of his to be National Security advisor. But these guys, cheney, powell, and rumsfeld, who cheney has brought in as defense secretary, who are supposed to know how all this works. And he relies on them. He relies on them before september 11. Then, he has this problem as he in the run up to the war in iraq that actually his advisors dont agree with each other. Powell and, excuse me, cheney and rumsfeld are very much in support of and cheney is pushing the idea of the war with iraq. Powell very much the contrary, disagrees with, particularly, with cheney. But in that case hes still relying on cheney and powell. And all the way through that first term, he tends to support cheney, what cheney wants. You get to the end of the first term, the war is not going well. The war turns out to be a bigger and bigger problem. And his advisors are bickering with each other. And he decides at the beginning of his second term that he is going to change the Foreign Policy team and the first thing he is going to do is replace powell. To powells surprise, he thought that rumsfeld would also be replaced, but bush doesnt replace rumsfeld. So youre left with cheney and rumsfeld and rice then becomes secretary of state. That begins to change the dynamic. So the personnel are starting to change. Rice becomes is closer to bush than anyone else in the administration, including cheney, i think. And that changes the dynamic, and then this is followed two years later by replacing rumsfeld. And meanwhile, bush is developing more confidence in his own judgments. It takes a good four years, but he sees how this works. And he sees how things can go wrong. And he gets to the point where i think he doesnt he doesnt rely on cheney, thats for sure. And really is the most important person on Foreign Policy in his own administration. As really, he wasnt at the beginning. Brian im not going to skip it because its not important. But we have very little time, and i want to make sure that youd give us your view of the financial crisis and how that happened and what impact that will have on his legacy. James there are several interesting things about the financial crisis for the, bush and his team. I mean several things that bush did helped play into it, the tax cuts. This is not bush of course. Its the fed, but Interest Rates were kept so low that people kept buying more and more houses and prices just going up and up. You get a classic bubble. Alan greenspan insists its not a bubble. But when it hits, the question is and it hits in september of 1988 with the collapse of lehman brothers. When it hits, bush decides that he needs to intervene and need to intervene vigorously. And what you see in 1988 and theres immediate legacy over the next decade, decade or so is bush refuses to go along with the sort of libertarian right wing. He develops a massive program, tarp, troubled Asset Relief Program to try and buy up these assets that are collapsing as a result of the financial crisis. The right wing opposes him, when i say the right wing i mean in congress, and it was a very, very difficult fight to get congressional approval of this tarp program. He and cheney, himself a fairly conservative republican, are strongly in favor of this. And they succeed mostly with democratic support. This also happens in the middle of the 2008 campaign and actually this is more in the book of dick cheney than anyone else. You get descriptions of this crucial white house meeting where obama comes in. Well, let me step back, mccain has said, im not going to campaign. Im going to stop campaigning. We need to have a major washington meeting to decide what to do about it. And bush allows this meeting. Obama is also there. So you get all the congressional leaders of both parties and john mccain from bushs own party and obama, and mccain really doesnt have a lot to say. I mean hes announced there is this crisis, but comes in and being john mccain, hes very active and sometimes irritable. But he really doesnt have a lot to say, and obama looks fairly calm and deliberate, as he is. Cheney writes that i think that obama was more impressive than mccain. And that was, some of that came through to the public. I mean this was the general perception of the two candidates. And it was a major help to obama. It hurt john mccain. Brian you referenced this in your book, but John Lewis Gaddis was here. This is george w. Bush in retirement, but John Lewis Gaddis was here a couple of months ago. And i want to run what he said because its an interesting take on well, you werent surprised what happened to a president. [video clip] John Lewis Gaddis my wife and i just happened to be in dallas. I think we were promoting the kennan book at that point. And so, i had a student, several students actually who had worked for him. So i just said, wed like to drop by and say hello. And we did. He us come by at some ungodly hour like 7 30 in the morning or something. And so i ask him, how are you . He said, im bored. I dont have enough to do. I said, you should take up painting and told him about the churchill essay painting as a pastime which we use in the grand strategy class. Brian its a gaddis a small brian small book, yes. And the rest is art, as they say. He has turned out to be very good at it. Expresident , bored, would you expect that to happen to many expresident s . James yes. Brian why . James yes. And i think for a good while bill clinton was bored, because youre spending 24hour days whether youre sleeping and playing golf or not, its always with you until youre out. And then i think there is a tremendous sense of decompression. The interesting detail on what gaddis said is that bush began to paint and did so, but only without telling anybody outside his family. And the only reason we know about this is that someone hacked into the emails of family members and found these paintings being sent back and forth. So, it interests me that he took up painting but really didnt want the public to know about it at first. Brian heres another couple of items that you have in your book. You say that he made by the time you had published this book that he had made 140 speeches, kicking off 15 million james right. Brian for him personally. And that he also sold two million books of his own, Decision Point books. But this is not this is in my lifetime that a former president would be able to speak and make that kind of money. And we all know that george not george, but bill clinton has made maybe a hundred some Million Dollars off of all this stuff. James yes, particularly george w. And clinton have had a lot of time to do this. I can remember when right after reagan left office that he went to japan to give a speech and i think he was probably paid 200,000, and that was a big deal knowing that brian i think he might have made about 2 million. James was it . Ok. Brian paid 2 million to make two speeches. James yes. And just the idea of a president speaking was unusual at that point. Brian were you able to talk to george bush on during this period at all . James i was not. I did not interview george w. Brian did you want to and were turned down . James yes. I actually i think i can say i went through James Glassman who was working for him, but i couldnt persuade bush to do it. Brian you think that would have made a difference . James well, we have to go back to the word limit here. Im not sure how much of a difference it would have made. And you mentioned Decision Points. He wrote a book much larger than, longer rather, than this. So, i think i got his point of view on most things. Brian when you did the vulcans book, did people talk to you . James yes. Yes, they did. Brian so of all the sources that you had for this and you do you have the notes in the back, which would be the most valuable for the george bush presidency, george w. Bush presidency . James you mean which brian which book that he read would be the biggest help if somebody wanted to study it, besides your short biography . James well, i brian whats, more to you . James my own book, rise of the vulcans, i consider for Foreign Policy a pretty good book. A and then there are the memoirs. I mean, i think that bush, cheney, rice wrote an interesting memoir. Rumsfeld has a memoir. I think that the memoirs, everybody shades it a little bit one way or another from their own perspective. But they are quite good. The other there is a book about cheney called angler by bart gellman thats an unusually good book too. Brian what did you think of george w. Bushs own memoir . James i thought it was ok. I thought it was actually as a memoir, it was better than bill clinton, which just was not the best thing bill clinton ever did. But i thought it was pretty much pretty runofthemill. Brian our guest has been james mann. And he wrote the book called george w. Bush, which as he said was published by times books through henry holt and we thank you very much for joining us. James thanks. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at qanda. Org. Q a programs are also available as podcasts. Youre watching American History tv, 48 hours of programming on American History every weekend on cspan three. Forow us on twitter information on our schedule. Cspan3 takes you to College Classrooms around the country for lectures in history. Raise your hand if you had ever heard of the juniors murder trial before this class. We will find transformation that took place in the minds of the american people. We will talk about both sides of the story here, right . The tools and techniques of slaveowner power and the tools and techniques of power that were practiced by enslaved people. Watch history professors lead discussions with their students on topics ranging from american war, andn to the civil lectures in history is available as a podcast. Find it where you listen to podcasts. This weekend, American History tv is joining our partners tocable showcase the history of Bryan College station, texas. We continue now with our look at bryan andry of college
vimarsana.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.