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Summary: Review of David Frum's book, The Right Man:
Review: Strengths:* Gives us a better insight into the flavor and direction of the second Bush Administration* Seems to give a decent insight into the character of George W. Bush as president* Provides excellent insight into the presidential speech writing process. * Includes a few genuinely funny touches of humor. Mr. Frum's response to his wife on 9/11 and his immediate actions before the evacuation of the White House is hysterical. Unfortunately, there are too few of these moments. (p 114-5)* The author isn't afraid to provide into a few of his own snafu's.* Correctly defines the president as the right man because of 9/11, not because of his domestic policies. The author doesn't try to cover for Bush's failures with the Senate. Although he does tend to lay the blame on Daschle for not helping get the tax cuts through easier. Weaknesses: * While the author gives a flavor of the character of the president by using personal experience as his guide. We are all too often treated to uninformed character comments of those who differed from the president at some time. Sen. Jim Jeffords - "...weak and vain..." (p 95)Gray Davis - "...Davis at last shook off his passivity and boldly went looking for somebody to blame. He nominated Bush."Colin Powell - "...and Colin Powell would rush to complain to his friends in the press that he had been affronted and insulted." (p 280)* The author makes some absurd comparisons between Powell & Rumsfield's war policies to McClellan and Grant. Perhaps the author would be better off to make such comparisons after the long-term effects of the current administration's policies have played out. * Lack of supporting documentation makes the book weak.* The author uses polls as argument justifications inappropriately.* Use of statistics is very flimsy. He crudely estimates that every airline passenger's time is worth...and that forcing them to wait an extra 1/2 hour in line is costing us millions. Huh?* Chapter 9 Religion of Peace is very weak. The author spends 13 pages describing how conservative elites felt about his approach to the Muslim community after 9/11. He really got off-topic here and should have kept closer tabs on what Bush was doing to unify the community. General Impressions
I picked up this book hoping to find some insight into our president from someone who didn't support Bush right away as per what the jacket blurb said. But sadly, the author spends too much time in his own political opinions to really make the book carry much weight. The lack of a cited references section alone should clue the reader in that this isn't a very scholarly work. Sadly and finally, it was obvious that the author wasn't privy to very many high-level meetings among senior staffers. Look in the indices and you'll see Karen Hughes referenced about as much as Powell, Rice Rumsfeld put together. Paul Wolfowitz is mentioned in name only.The book is not worth the time.
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Summary: Another Dink Stover in the White House
Review: David Frum is a skilled but disingenuous writer. This book ostensibly is about George W. Bush, but Frum admits that he seldom saw him, and it's more of a wide-margin "Washington memoir," of the type that clutters remainder shelves. The cover photo tells more than perhaps was intended, of ShrubCo himself with a bullhorn--a man with no words of his own, amplifying the words written for him by a bullpen of a dozen writers, among whom Frum served for about a year. He patronizes his boss a bit, but also appears to have been briefly dazzled by helping ghostwrite the BMOC's term papers. Though Frum refers to George W. Bush as a "surprise" president, there's no surprise to it at all: Having lost the popular vote, he scraped into office with a 5-4 vote from the Supreme Court. Not one of the Supreme Court justices is mentioned in this short, glib book--check the index. Conversely, a brief exchange with Barbra Streisand (in which Babs comes off surprisingly well) occupies two pages. Frum probably is best known to the outside-the-Beltway masses as one of the authors of Shrub's notorious "Axis of Evil" speech. When his wife disclosed this fact "with wifely pride" in an e-mail to "family and friends," some "friend" leaked the news to SLATE. Though Frum insists that he'd been intending to resign all along, he's going to be remembered outside conservative circles primarily for the amused controversy surrounding his departure from the White House. He writes with disapproval of the flurry of 24/7 worldwide media attention following the e-mail leak, but this is part of the Washington minuet: One pretends to be dismayed by all the time one is forced to take away from one's family. We are not fooled, Frum. Since Frum also stresses the clean, clean living of the incoming Bushies, I have downgraded my review from two stars to one, owing to the fulsome, anonymous, five-star review written by "a reader in Washington, D.C." posted shortly after this book was published. Sounds like Lucy Ricardo got on line again. I recommend reading one of Frum's other books rather than this one. His work is worth a look, though he'll never succeed in dragging me over to the Dark Side with him. The way the world "should" operate looks deceptively simple to a healthy, wealthy white male, especially one who could always retreat in comfort to Canada when Washington gets blown up.
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Summary: Nonsense
Review: Truly, this book is mindless propoganda: "George W. Bush was hardly the obvious man for the job" why was this? And really, are we to expect any sense from the man who wrote the speech portraying North Korea as part of the axis of evil - a move which pushed N. Korea to throw out UN inspectors and develop nuclear weapons. Moronic.
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Summary: Islamphobic
Review: I read the book and found it, especially in the chapter "religion of peace", to be full of Islamophobia. There is a difference between being conservative and islamophobic, which is equivalent to anti-Semitism. But, then one should not forget this is a book written by the coiner of the "Axis of Evil" phrase. Also I frankly doubt the credibility of Jewish writers wanting to tell us about Islam and Moslems, because if i wanted to learn more about the Jews I wont pick a German writer! Especially if a German writer is telling us about all the wrong things with Jews and their culture.
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Summary: What a Hack!
Review: This book is just one page after another of contradiction. Surely this is a work of fiction, not a journalistic portrayal of the White House. How could anyone believe anything written here after reading the absolutely false and outragious assertions concerning the arsenic in the drinking water fiasco early in the book. Studies performed during the Bush administration showed that the Clinton administration's policy and studies were indeed credible and timely. However, the Bush administration could never admit they were wrong and did what they always do when someone disagrees with them, cry "politics." Should I even mention the "Axis of Evil" speech which has proven to be the most uneducated and undiplomatic prose to ever come out of the White House. What a fiasco that proves to be, and this author had the utter lack of journalistic integrity to e-mail the speech outside of the White House to third parties without security clearance. Frum should have been deported back to Canada for that stunt. This author just lacks credibility.
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Summary: Great bk. Also read Careers In Computer Graphics & Animation
Review: This book is good. Also read Gardner's guide to colleges. Gardner's guide to animation scriptwriting.
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Summary: Another speechwriter, another memoir, another good read.
Review: Throughout this book I found the tone similar to David Gergen's "Eyewitness to Power." Whereas Gergen was trying to fit 4 presidents in one book, Mr. Frum deals only with our current president. That focus sets this book apart. On the jacket, the book talks about Frum's "honest admiration" for George W. Bush. This might set alarm bells off for some potential readers. It shouldn't. It is easy to perceive Frum's surprise (and he does tell us outright) at feeling this admiration after his doubts during the 2000 campaign. The book is insightful and intimate. The focus is personal, but you can directly compare this profile with those of Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton in Mr. Gergen's book. The observations are of a similar vein. More than that, it is an opportunity to get to know a president who, as Frum admits, is pretty insular. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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Summary: nothing new here
Review: unfortunately, I share the opinion above. there is nothing new here. Frum is a very skilled writer. But he didn't have much to say here. too bad.
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Summary: Personal Perspective
Review: My feelings are the opposite of the "Reader from Washington" who reviews Frum's book here. I in fact DID want the personal perspective of a White House staffer and that's what I got in this excellently written narrative. If anything, I would have traded some of Frum's political analysis (perceptive as it is) for still more anecdotes. The account of the 9/11 experience of the White House staffers by itself makes the book a worthwhile read. Kaddish on a PalmPilot!
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Summary: Candid--and a classic
Review: I was dazzled by "The Right Man." The writing is gripping, witty, and gives ultimately an honest, yet admiring, view of Bush that helps a reader understand this otherwise inscrutable man, and his otherwise inscrutable administration. Like Frum, I've often been puzzled by how the pre-Sept. 11 Bush transformed into the post-Sept. 11 Bush--and Frum explains it, brilliantly. His chapter on Sept.11 inside the White House is one of the most moving and dramatic accounts of that terrible day I've ever read. This book is going to be up there with the great memoirs of presidential histories--ever. Period.
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