This book is the best of the countless George W. Bush biographies that are appearing all over the place. Minutaglio does a great job providing a well-balanced book about the ups and downs of our President's life and how his family has played apart. It clearly shows Dubya's attempts to move away from his father's shadow in order for him to make a name for himself. It is a great book, full of interesting stories and minimal political jargon that you will find in so many of the other books being written about Bush. If you want to read about our President, I suggest this book.

What an enjoyable, informative read. I didn't know much about George W. Bush other than he's raised a lot of campaign money as a Republican presidential candidate. But like Richard Ben Cramer's classic WHAT IT TAKES, or David Maraniss's FIRST IN HIS CLASS about Bill Clinton's early years, this is a terrific, broad look at the man and where he came from, his family, his personality, his accomplishments and failures. I feel like I know "George W" after reading this book. The author of FIRST SON deserves a tip of the hat, not only for putting together a biography that provides great background on this politician, but also for writing a very entertaining book.

If you are looking for tabloid like Bush Bashing, don't look here (you might try The Father's Son, that one is quite good at trying to instill some what outdated class war fare dribble). This particular book is extremely well balanced. If you love the Bush clan, or hate them, you will find something within. Personally, I found it an insightful and interesting tale of one of our nations most powerful pollitical families. Is George W qualified to be President? Well that is a question that only time will answer. My thoughts are he is as qualified as the guy we have recently given the nod to twice, except, maybe George will actually care more for the country than himself. He does seem to learn and grow. Now that would be a pleasant change. However one thing is for certain, the Bush family is a political dynasty (now more impressive than the Kennedys) and the people of Texas sincerely love both of their Georges.

This is an entertaining collection of the "accidental wit and wisdom of our 43rd president," but it is too lightweight to make a book. This and its predecessor combined are perhaps worth a full book, but 87 pages with only a quote or two on each page is pretty much a ripoff at $ list price. The whole book can easily be read while browsing at a bookstore.

In my opinion, if the cost of a book new is greater than the cost of photocopying it at a public copy machine ($/page), it's overpriced. My suggestion is to read it at a library or bookstore, or purchase it used.

This book, including the first volume, are he perfect way to show the American public just how stupid this man is (George W.) How can you expect some one to run a country when they cant even speak coherently. I laughed at every page yet couldn't shake the feeling that it scares me out of my mind that our leader, who didnt even receive the majority of our votes and is now forgetting our own counrty and turning the attention to a war that will benefit no one but himself and people like him, actually has the support of many Americans whos greatest concerns are God, country, and the American way of life. And to top it off, Bush thinks these books are funny! Hes proud that his words have already been collected and publised. We should not only look at our president with disgust but at our selves as well for giving some one like this the power to ruin our lives. If a total of less than 200 pages with only a couple of quotes on each page can so easily degrade our president imagin what a full length book could reveal.
Patriotism is standing up for what is right, not blindly supporting your country. America, remember that.

Very enjoyable. Better read it now before it is banned by the US!

Dr. Ide should be given credit for his very easy-to-understand writing style. However, if you're looking for a fair and balanced portrait of Bush, you won't find it here. I was disappointed that Dr. Ide was apparently unable to look past his political views. What a pity he should conduct what seems to be very expansive research but chooses to litter his writing with personal sentiments. As an Independent, I picked up this book hoping to learn more about Bush, but realized its design was to "add fuel to the fire" of those who already dislike him.

This is a very well written book made up of short, well-researched, topic-based chapters. These chapters cover a broad range of public policy issues (environment, education, tax cuts, religious right), which Mr. Bush acted on during his short but turbulent career in Texas. For anyone stunned by recent ultra-conservative administration policies that seem at odds with Bush's 2000 campaign rhetoric, this source illuminates the historical origins of America's most recent resident of the White House. It may also suggest that the most dramatic policies are yet to come. This book is an especially good reference work for studious journalists and a thorough primer concerned citizens.

Doctor Ide is a truly gifted writer,and he writes what he deeply knows. No wonder his latest stunning work is so accurate,precise,flawless.

Doctor Ide's book is very detailed and punctual,as in Ide's style,and there are pelnty of useful information.

Go buy this important book. You will not regret it!

A sentimental treatment of Therese's life; I'd look for something more vigorously written, and perhaps for a more contemporary treatment.

As a little girl, I must have read this lovely book at least a dozen times -- the 'divine romance' of little Therese and the difficult life of a cloistered Carmelite convent. Every page thrilled me -- her 'vision' during a childhood illness, her anguished parting from her beloved sisters as they entered the convent before her, her fervor and innocence. Although written in the style of another era, this book captures some profound truths about the nature of children's spirituality, and is a classic from another and more challenging era of Catholic devotion. It is now my pleasure to buy it for my goddaughter for her First Communion; this young lady, with her love of high drama in literature, will no doubt love it as well!

What I loved about this book was I learned about Saint Therese and her "little way" inside a sweet easy read novel rather than an biography on her. Now I can't wait to read the deeper "reads" but this book I read in 2 days and fell in love with her and her family. Her family taught me how my family could model hers. I truly fell in love with this book and have bought it for friends who have loved it--and their older children. I can't wait to read it to my 4 and 5 year old boys in a couple more years when they can have a story read to them without pictures.

His goal for Texans to take "renewed personal responsibility" for their lives was one he took on for himself. Although a lot of the material here can be found in other sources, this is is a very current biography, ending just before Bush's defeat of Senator McCain in the 2000 Republican presidential primary. Wukovits traces W's life from childhood until then using quotes from family, friends, fellow business people, and government officials. Not a white-washed account, the negatives as well as the positives of his life are treated fairly objectively. Black and white photos, notes, index, and a list of works for further reading are included.

"George W. Bush: Our Forty-Third President" certainly brings the Our President series up to date, but it ends early in 2001 after Bush's inauguration. Of course, everything has changed so much since then. Consequently, Ann Graham Gaines's juvenile biography is not about the Bush presidency as much as it is the story of the story of the man who was elected after the controversial 2000 election. In fact, young readers will probably learn more about the electoral process than they will about Bush's political ideology. Compared to other volumes in this excellent series for introducing young students to the lives of the Presidents, this volume is handicapped by the fact that it was published at the start of Bush's presidency. Additionally, the second Bush to serve in the White House has an extremely short political resume, especially in comparison to his father. I thought it was interesting that Gaines calls her subject George W. until he is elected Governor of Texas and then she calls him Bush.

Gaines divides her biography into four chapters: Growing Up, Out into the World, Governor of Texas, and The Race for the Presidency. Pages in each chapter highlight particular topics such as Oil, the Draft, Laura Bush, and the Electoral College. Interesting Facts appear in the margins of many of the pages (e.g., Bush became a multi-millionaire after selling the Texas Rangers and was the first governor of Texas ever elected to two consecutive four-year terms). The back of this book contains a Time Line on Bush's life, a Glossary of mostly political terms, a list of all of Our Presidents and Presidential facts, along with internet sites and books for further information. Young readers will certainly learn about the life of the current president from reading this biography; I am sure they are learning plenty about his presidency from the evening news. Other books in this excellent series can tell them not only about Bush's father, but also John and John Quincy Adams, the first father and son to serve in the White House.

This is an interesting book that takes a look at George W. Bush and how his life shaped him all the way up to his running for President. The main premise of the book is that GW is following in his father footsteps out of love and admiration for him and a strong sense of duty. The author also gives us about 50% of the book on the first George Bush and his life story which is needed to show you how close GW follows in his footsteps. I would have liked a bit more detail on the other Bush children though, as the author states that all the children have a desire to follow in the father's footsteps.

I really did not expect this book to provide me all the details it did about the first President George Bush. That was a pleasant surprise for me. We get a good run down of his overall life and some interesting details about his time as VP and President. I also enjoyed reading how he felt a responsibility and loyalty to Nixon enough to take the RNC post. I actually came away with a better understanding of the father as both a person and a leader. I thought some of the insights also made the Bush handling of the 92 race a little clearer for me.

The fist part of the book makes you think this is a love fest book put out by the GW campaign. To be honest, I really did not get that much out of all the details of him in grade school / high school. The book really started to matter to me when the author got into his time in College and later. Once GW started to move on in life the less then faltering facts started to populate the book. Given that that author gives you so many facts, both good and bad, you get a balanced look and the book, in its totality, comes off as a balanced report. I actually did think the author could have played up some of the questions on the Viet Nam issue and the business failures / bailouts to get a more sensational book.

The one area that I would have liked more detail on was the major successes of GW. The book does a good job of running down his less then stellar business career, but I also wanted more detail on his work on his father's campaign. What the book does say on that point makes GW out to be good at the roll he was a playing - I wanted more detail. I also thought we got shortchanged on his run for the Governor and his service in the office. I wanted more detail on his major accomplishments in office. Basically I felt the author rushed this part through to get to print.

This book will not be the end all be all biography of his years before he became President, it is a bit light for that. What the book is though, is a very readable and interesting look at GW and his relationship with his father. If you are interested in either of these two men then this is a good way to learn some facts and not get bogged down in a heavy work.

Don't be misled by the title! I began this book under the assumption that this book was designed to slam the 43rd President of the United States. Surprisingly, it is no such thing, and from my perspective, the book was a wonderful account of "Dubya" and his development as a human being - just like the rest of us. I found it very entertaining and wonderfully written. I recommend it to all people interested in learning about our president, and I implore those who would chastise one political party or another to be as objective as possible when reviewing works such as these. Simply, this book is educational, informative, and best of all, a pleasure to read.

What a great book. Democrat or Republican, all should appreciate this writing. Not a documentary, but more, a story. Very easy reading. I'll be looking forward to reading more from this author.

Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose chronicle "Shrub"'s political life. What emerges is the unsavory picture of an empty suit for sale to the highest bidder. Shrub's reason for seeking the Presidency is apparently his burning desire to get revenge for his father's loss in 1992. Never mind that Daddy was the most ineffective President of the twentieth century; that the economy grew at less than half the rate it grew under any other administration since 1948. (In 1945-1948, the GNP actually shrunk, because of the changeover from an all-out wartime effort to peace.)

Molly Ivins tells it like it is, giving Shrub what credit is due for not dismantling the improvements in the Texas school system made by the governors who preceded him; but also pointing out that he has successfully fought against implementation of clean air and water in Texas. Under Shrub's "leadership" Houston has supplanted Los Angeles as the city with the most polluted air. The polluters support Shrub and he supports their "right" to pollute. Shrub said that the problem isn't pollution, it's impurities in the air and water.

This book, along with J. H. Hatfield's "Fortunate Son" and Russell Bowen's "The Immaculate Deception" should have been required reading before voting November 7.

One of the things that so often distinguishes Molly Ivins from her D.C. counterparts is that she consistently recognizes that the public OUT there is not necessarily the public DOWN there. In Shrub, her latest opus, Ivins takes a good hard look at the record of Texas governor George W. Bush. Her painstaking assesment of the often Byzantine politics of "The Greatest State" and Bush's ascension to the Governor's office provides readers with a view of the candidate rarely glimpsed in other organs of the media. From land deals to environmental policy and from welfare reform to tort reform, the book examines both the games and the players in Bush's rise to national prominence. The hard facts about Bush's military service and his dealings within the world of Texas oil are reason enough to read the book. They are also proof that the truth is far often more interesting (and amusing) than even the most bizarre fiction. Ivins been nominated at least twice for the Pulitzer Prize. Read Shrub and see why.

George W. Bush, or "Dubya," gets skillfully skewered by political writer/humorist Ivins in this devastating, funny, and highly informative political biography of a leading Republican contender for President. Ivins, with journalist Dubose, presents the embarrassing story of how Dubya avoided the draft and service in Vietnam (with the help of his father's influential friends), his many failed ventures in the oil business (only to be repeatedly bailed out by his father's influential friends), and his dubious activities as part owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team (where once again his father's influential friends helped out) and offers a fairly detailed account of his short tenure as governor of Texas (a state with a weak governor system). Ivins makes Dubya look like the dim afterglow of his more accomplished father, though she does concede that Dubya is an excellent fund raiser and a good campaigner. This biting political biography is well written, witty, engaging, biased, and important. It cuts deep into the flesh of the man who might be the next president of the United States. As such, it is an important book for citizens and pundits alike

The book is fascinating and best described as enjoyable train journey material that neither informs nor offends.
It describes a group of people conversing with one another in a manner that clearly could never have actually occured outside of a bad Bruce Willis yarn. No doubt the lines attributed by Mr Woodward to his principle characters bare some relation to a few tape recorded interviews with the Bush administration, infact some my be lifted in full. But to take this as a historical account would be ridiculous, it's a comic book account of events, and a pretty good comic it makes too.
POW! THWACK! BANG! goes the war, no blood, no reflection, and no reality, it's Top Gun for kids. Rumsfeld providing light relief in the role of the grouchy but good grandad figure will have you laughing out loud as he huffs and puffs when pressed to let the French be involved in his saber rattling. And as for Bush himself, well you'll be falling over yourself when you hear his Buck Rogers style declarations, "I'm not a textbook player, I'm a gut player" he postulates, and indeed he his, and besides, those textbooks can take a frustratingly long time to read.
Bush at war will appeal to anybody who likes there history, clean, fun, and bereft of content, or find victors history important to understand for it's own sake.
To say it's unbiased is a bit like saying the New testament is a secular chronicle of events, the book reads like a State of the Union address.
I await "Bush at War 2" in order to see how Woodwards vacuous prose will again attempt to put a shiny gloss on this administrations undiplomatic efforts to turn the world into America's surplus absorber.

Love him or hate him, George Bush is running a unique White House. His team stays unnervingly tightly on message, fights their battles mostly in private (one gets the sneaking suspicion that public Powell- Rumsfeld disagreements are really Bush trial balloons), is far less susceptible to leaks, and effectively changes decision in the face of adversity.

If you don't like Bush, this book will appear to be glossing over his lack of intellectual curiosity, the macho bravado of his decision-making process, and the extent to which he is a creature of the political interests that backed him in his run for office. I short, if you're a liberal and not of the "inside baseball" political junkie type, your money is best spent elsewhere as this book will just disgust you.

If you do like Bush, you will see here our "Top Gun" president (though I thought the aircraft carrier photo op was more of a "Luke Skywalker at the end of the first Star Wars" production) making decisive decisions, backing his people fully, and creating day-by-day the conditions necessary for victory.

If you're a political professional, student of politics, or lover of a good group dynamics exegesis, you will greatly enjoy this work for its exploration of all the inside dirt, machinations, and organizational behavior quirks of the world's most powerful office politics.

Obviously there are limits to what even the most diligent of journalists can re-create. And this particular perception of events is surely wrong in its particulars in many places. But as a whole, it hangs together very well, and it seems to comport with the dozens of other stories about the functionings, foibles, and folks at the White House.

There is not much in this book for the anti-Bush crowd to like. Woodward, who can hardly be called a Republican stooge, does not portray a goose-stepping Bush taking orders from a shadowy secret cabal of oil industry plutocrats while blowing his nose alternately into the Bill of Rights, the French flag, and the UN Charter.

Woodward gets inside and gets the story. He shows Condoleeza Rice again and again playing intramural referee. He not only gets the basic Rumsfeld - Powell tensions, but also shows how each man, by virtue of his background, predilections, and character, *must* be who they are.

No, this is not grand biography on the sacle of a Chernow or a Caro, and the writing is easy, brisk, and clear. Given the subject matter, time to produce, salience, and access, though, Woodward has scored a real hit.

Woodward quite reasonably focuses on six principals: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Tenet & Rice. This is a simplification and we are certainly missing the slightly broader backstory in which the two dozen closest aides to those six jockey, wiggle, horsetrade and backstab as they provide, deny and spin information to their superiors. But it is a necessary and reasonable simplification that shows us the broader truths. And Woodward provides enough glimpses of these backstage battles to feel real.

Other excellently handled vignettes include the lonely CIA operative in Afghanistan and the essential diplomacy pursued with Pakistan in the weeks after 9/11.

Again, this book is for the political junkie or the partisan Republican only, our friends on the other side of the aisle would be best off saving their money for something less vexing.
Anybody who has experience with small group dynamics will be fascinated by this account at that level alone. I'm certain that Woodward's skill could make a Nebraska state party convention seem just as riveting. The stakes involved amplify the importance, interest and our enjoyment, of the story.

Woodward' account of the post 9/11 crisis, the road to war with Afghanistan and an eventual commentary on an impending Iraq conflict is fluid and informative. For those skeptical of GW Bush, his executive ablities and whether he is "up to the task" this book provides an unbias documentary of the inner functions of the president and his war cabinet. It covers in depth daily NSC meetings, previous undisclosed information, political personalities, relationships, and the overall tone and focus of the White House on its cautious road to war. What I found most surprising was Bush's careful expression and delegation of proper and effective authority; probably his most valuable trait. And secondly the non-dominance of "Hawks" Rumsfeld and Cheney, and the complete absence of Karl Rove from any War Council proceedings. While not a riveting page turner, the book is a must for political junkees, for anyone interested in the active function of the executive branch in time of crisis, and for anyone with previous doubts on Bush' ability to lead effectively.

Mr. Bugliosi has written a book that should be read by every American.

If you are of the opinion that the election of 2000 was a testament to the ultimate power of the individual voter, then you are misguided. This book outlines with irrefutable evidence that the Supreme Court silenced the American Voter when 5 justices handed down their decision and decided our future president. Mr. Bugliosi is never more accurate than when he states the election of George Bush was a "judicial coup d'etat," perpetrated by self-serving justices who held their own beliefs over the laws they were sworn to uphold.

It would also be easy to dismiss this book as having a liberal agenda. However, Mr. Bugliosi is a Conservative and shares this opinion with many other legal scholars who are Republicans as well as Conservatives. This book is about uncovering the truth as to what happened when the Court made their decision.

I cannot recommend this book enough. If you care about your country, then you need to understand the events of this period. Though we are powerless to change that miscarriage of justice, hopefully, because of books such as this, it will never be permitted to happen again.

Not for the politically light hearted, or someone who believed that Bush was the real winner of the 2000 Presidential election, Bugliosi's outstanding book on the stealing of the election should be a must read for every American.

Even if you absolutely disagree with his findings, his passionate, reasoned, and logical arguements are food for thought. This is a no-holds barred examination on how five supposedly "non-political" Supreme Court judges discounted the votes of 50 Million Americans to pick the man they wanted for President.

Clearly one sided, I appreciate his opinions, not because I agree with him, but because in the age where people water their ideals down to mush to appeal to the widest variety of people, it's refreshing to read something written that is clearly black and white.

Bugliosi takes his stand; agree with him or not, but read this book immediately, and remember the lessons the next time you step into that voting booth.

Vincent Bugliosi earned his legal spurs as a tough prosecutor. The trial that made him famous as a young lawyer was the Manson Case, where he achieved first degree murder convictions against the cult's leader, Charles Manson, and his co-defendants in the most famous post-World War Two Los Angeles courtroom epic until the more recent O.J. Simpson Case.

Bugliosi is not known for mincing words, and he is at his acerbic wittiest in "Betrayal of America," writing in angry prose about the tragic injustice rendered by the five members of the U.S. Supreme Court majority in Bush vs. Gore, which handed the election ultimately to petitioner Bush. He accuses the Court majority of circumventing the Constitution and engaging in blind partisanship. He explores the inherent hypocrisy of the majority of using as its legal linchpin the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause, which these same justices disdained using in instances where minority groups and aggrieved private citizens sought relief in more appropriate circumstances.

Bugliosi makes a solid case, his prose ringing with righteous indignation as he calls the Court majority to task for a decision he logically believes was based on blind partisan political considerations, resulting in judicial usurpation of the election process.