Beyond the Bush 43 Caricature

There is the public persona of George W. Bush--the caricature of the current president--incurious, mangler of the English language, butt of late-night comic jokes. And, there is the spin woven by loyal staff aides. The truth about who George W. Bush really is--sitting in the Oval Office, aboard Air Force One, relaxing at his ranch in Crawford, Texas--is somewhere in between.

The AP has a beneath-the-veneer look at George W. Bush that corroborates much of the view reported in Robert Draper's excellent but under appreciated 2007 book on Bush, Dead Certain. Love him, hate him, or indifferent, any reasonable person would have to conclude that the Bush presidency has been one of the most consequential of the modern era, perhaps ever. Though Bush will be retiring January 20, there will likely be a plethora of books and scholarly articles produced on the man and his administration for years to come.