Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism from Inside the Bush White House

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Insider's Look at Terror Response
Review: The first book on President Bush's response to September 11th is a compelling read. Reporter Bill Sammon, who has first-class connections inside the Bush White House, uses first person interviews with president Bush and others in the administration to give their take on the war against Al-Quaeda. Straighforward and just-the-facts, Sammon avoids the polemics and cheap shots that litter many books on the Bush adminsitration.

Rating:
Summary: Fool Me, Fool Me Twice...um.....Won't get fooled again
Review: If this book has one fault it is that there is not a whole lot about the Missile Defense Shield. The author is at his best when he shows the timelines of event hour by hour on Sept 11 and where the president was at the time. Another interesting scoop is how angry Dubya was when the Bin Laden family was flown out that day and how he felt his security team had "missed the mule" by sitting on the terrorist threat, and his personal doubts about being 'selected not elected'.

Another service Bill provides is explaining that Dubya's trips around the US are not campaign fundraisers at the taxspayer's expense but are a way the president can bypass the Washington elites by spending more time with CEO's.

Won't get fooled again fool me twice.

Rating:
Summary: Smash Hit, wonderfully written!
Review: This is another in a long line of conservative books that have reached #1 on the NYT best seeller list. Sammon has gotten the true feelings of the president from inside the White House.

The book is informative, energetic and seems to extract the true personal feelings of a man who is deliberate and single minded in his pursuit of doing what is right and good for America. It is indeed refreshing to see a president who puts the well being of the country and its citizenry before political considerations. Sammons has exactly captured this aspect of the man.

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Summary: Historical Truth of an Infamous Act in the New Millenium
Review: 'Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism from Inside the Bush White House' is the most accurate historical account of events surrounding 9/11 I have read to date. Anyone seeking truth of this infamous act commited against us and our way of life need to read this book. I highly recommend this book to future generations of readers, scholars, and historians of this New Millenium.

Rating:
Summary: what a joke
Review: i enjoy reading good comedy, and this one certainly fits the bill. the book is everything you'd expect...i think it's so interesting that, according to the stats on who is buying this, it's mostly right-wing hawks. but why would you spend time actually reading this and ann coulter? if you're so convinced you're right, why the need to keep driving it home? perhaps it's because when reading a book like this one by bill sammon, you realize that the book's subject, one g. bush, is a total lightweight. you honestly think he has a grasp of the military situation? the guy was never IN the military (yes, i know, he served in the texas air national guard...but read his record, he barely showed up...in fact, his attendence should have garnered him a court-martial). so please, buy this book if only to boost the economy. then you can use it to build a fire with as the winter approaches.

Rating:
Summary: a real President has arrived
Review: There was some doubt when G-W was nominated in my mind on what type of a President he would be. Now there is no doubt that he has all it takes to be one of our best. Most great leaders are such in tough times, and it is a matter of "fate" "timing" or just plane luck that the world puts them in a postion to tap into the deepest of their own charicter. President Bush had the charicter needed to do the job that needs to be done when 9-11 happend on his watch over our nation.

After reading this book, I would like to meet him, thank him, and help him with a few weakneses that if eliminated will set him in stone on Mt Rushmore...

Rating:
Summary: Propaganda Puff Piece
Review: Our so-called "president" gets the puff piece treatment by a typer possibly a bit less illiterate than bush himself. In print form, the WHITE house can clean up and sanitize bush's (often filthy) language. But I personally miss the joy of a live presidential performance--especially the smirk bush gets on his face when he believes he's actually pronounced a big word (i.e. a word with more than 5 letters in it) correctly. At least we can share the comfort that he's a one term president.

Rating:
Summary: Thank You George W. Bush
Review: As an American, I cannot thank you enough for your heroic handling of the events of 9/11, your steady attack on terrorists, for keeping this country safe, for taking out Sadam Hussein and for defeating Al Gore and his democrat croonies and for making this a better country.

Although we may not be where want to be, we are sure as heck a lot better off now than we would have been if Gore was in office. And four years from now, we will be in a lot better shape with you as our Commander-In-Chief than we would be if John Kerry became President (God Forbid!))

Thank you President Bush for your unselfish service and dedication.

Rating:
Summary: 'Somebody's going to pay'
Review: This book, which preceded _Misunderestimated_, is the one in which Bill Sammon began chronicling the presidency of George W. Bush. (_At Any Cost_ -- an excellent book as well -- was an account of Al Gore's attempts to steal the 2000 election, not of Bush's presidency itself.)

I read _Misunderestimated_ first, but this one is every bit as good. It begins with 9/11 and follows the Bush Administration's responses, up to and including the removal of the Taliban from Afghanistan. (The war to depose Saddam Hussein is covered in the next volume.)

Sammon makes no secret of his own support for Bush (and his lack of respect for Bush's immediate predecessor in office). But this isn't a liability, journalistically or otherwise. It isn't that he's not _capable_ of criticizing the Bush Administration (and he does chide the White House for its occasional misstep); it's that he really has come to the conclusion that the Administration is doing a good job and the President has proved equal to his historical tasks. (And as for Clinton, well, let's just say that the ability to see the warts on _that_ presidency isn't exactly a sign of bias.)

Sammon's account is crisp, clear, and briskly paced -- and, since he's been in such close touch with the President, it's the next best thing to being inside Bush's head. It is, in short, a captivating and informative read.

It also incorporates several of Bush's speeches in their entirety -- including his inspiring remarks in the National Cathedral and his stirring 9/20/01 address on Capitol Hill before a joint session of Congress.

Together with _Misunderestimated_, it's a fine account of America's post-9/11 transition from peacetime to wartime. Bush-haters won't like it, but that's their problem.

Rating:
Summary: Sold With Pom Poms
Review: There must be a rule with any author that has a book published by Regnery Publishing and that is that on every third page the book needs to take a negative dig at either President Clinton or Democrats in general. For those of you wondering, this book fulfills the quota with an impressive start on page two. Even though this book is an unabashedly pro Bush book on the 9/11 attacks and the American response, there are more mentions of President Clinton then Osama Bin Laden. The author finds ways to blame just about everything bad in the world on Clinton and then for good measure knocks around his wife at least once per chapter. I knew this book was going to be, in a small part anyway, a bit of a puff piece for Bush. The author wears his love for the President on his sleeve on all his public appearances on the FOX network and he is employed by the rather conservative Washington Times. This was one of the reasons I was drawn to the book. Who doesn't like to read a positive, pro American, rock-um sock-um type book? I thought I would get a nice and interesting look at 9/11 from an author that was probably given more access to the Bush Team because he was going to write such a glowing review. I figured this would be a nice bookend to the Woodward book.

The book does deliver what I was looking for, a very positive and detailed account of the Bush administration from 9/11 through mid 2002. The author does a nice job of giving the reader a great deal of facts that the average author might pass by. This is why I bought the book and on this point I was pleased. My concerns with the book were the rather childish way the author lets his massive dislike for President Clinton invade this book. It was almost as if the author could not stop himself with the rude comments. They added nothing to the main story. If this side show was not enough the author spent about 20% of the book attacking the media and its coverage of the Bush administration. So much so I got to think that maybe the title of the book was somehow related to the Bush Administrations fight with the "Liberal" press instead of Americas fight with terrorists. All of this anti Clinton and press bashing did nothing for the story and took away more from the book then it added.

I guess what really disappointed me was the authors very obvious and not very well done attempts at defending the Bush administration from some of the negative charges or comments made by the press or his opponents. The author covered topics that had nothing or very slightly anything to do with the main focus of the book. Many of the comments were nothing more then bait and switch campaign tactics or well worn GOP standard attack lines usually used at the end of a losing negative campaign. All these comments did for me was to call into question how much of the book as based in solid fact and how much was blind support for the President. What makes the comments sad is that the book did not need them. The President, by almost all accounts, was and still is thought of as performing very well during this time. He does not need this ham handed shading of the facts and cheap shots that this author employs. It actually takes away more then it adds.

Overall I enjoyed the parts of the book that detailed the facts. These sections of the book put the President in a very positive light and were well written. It was just that the negative comment campaign against President Clinton and the press brought the book down to some playground name calling event. Throw in the attack dog dirty campaign style support pieces and the book falls into the middle of the rating scale. If you are an arch conservative you will probably fall in love with the book and the author. If you are more of a moderate and are looking for a book that just covers the facts and skips the rhetoric then I would suggest the Woodward book Bush at War.