George w bush book biography css

President George Bush died late last week.  His funeral will take place in the next few days at the National Cathedral in Washington, before his family flies his body to College Station, where they will bury him on the grounds of his Presidential Library at Texas A&M University.

Bush lived a long life in public service.  He served as a pilot in the second World War, as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, as the US Ambassador to the United Nations, as Vice-President  under Ronald Reagan, and President himself from 1989 to 1993.  Some have praised his temperament, his character, his devotion to service. Some have criticized his failures and his mistakes.

I am ambivalent about much of this.  I agreed with few of his policies, and was disappointed by his many shortcomings, but I also can see the merits in viewing him as one of the most consequential one-term presidents in American History.  While I imagine I would have agreed with him on few issues, I expect he would have been an interesting and interested conversationalist, a man who stands in stark contrast to the current occupant of the White House.

This is the final week of classes at Geneseo, and in my Native American survey course, we will be discussing some of the accomplishments of Bush in the realm of Indian affairs as I rush to do as much as I can to bring us up to the very-near present.

In June of 1991, President Bush issued a special statement on Indian policy.  He would continue the policies of the Reagan-Bush years by “recognizing and reaffirming a government-to-government relationship between Indian tribes and the Federal Government.”  This relationship, he continued, “is the result of sovereign and independent tribal governments being incorporated into the fabric of our nation, of Indian tribes becoming what our courts have come to refer to as quasi-sovereign domestic dependent nations.”  This relationship “has flourished, grown, and evolved into a vi

President of the United States from 2001 to 2009Template:SHORTDESC:President of the United States from 2001 to 2009

This article is about the 43rd president of the United States. For his father, the 41st president, see George H. W. Bush.

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Template:George W. Bush series

George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, he also served as the 46th governo

Commentators consider why George W Bush wrote his memoir Decision Points.

The Washington Post's Book critic Jonathan Yardley says there is nothing new in this memoir, something he is not shocked by as the purpose, he thinks, is to get us to like him more:

"Bush as he presents himself here is calm, deliberative, reasonable, open-minded, God-fearing, loyal, trustworthy, patriotic.

"This should come as no surprise. The presidential memoir as it has evolved, especially in the wake of recent presidencies, is not a memoir as the term is commonly understood - an attempt to examine and interpret the writer's life - but an attempt to write history before the historians get their hands on it."

As if to back up that point, George W Bush's former media advisor Mark McKinnon lists in the Daily Beast his compliments to his former employer:

"I'm glad President Bush has published Decision Points--not so much because I think it will help rehabilitate his image or improve his place in history, though I think it will help on those counts. I'm glad because I believe readers will get a sense of the George W. Bush who I've known for 15 years - a man who is very different than the distorted public image many have come to accept as accurate. Contrary to conventional wisdom, President Bush is very smart, quietly reflective, often contrite, and deeply humble."

Anne Applebaum says in the Telegraph that George W Bush is modelling himself on Harry Truman, who's image was successfully changed over time. However, she warns that it may not work:

"Unfortunately, neither Bush's book nor his publicity blitz can help him attain his real goal, that elusive place in history. In fact, Truman's rehabilitation came about not from his memoirs, but because the unfolding of the Cold War proved he had been right about Stalin, right about Soviet intentions, possibly even right to fight back in Korea. A later, less stuffy generation of Americans was less bothered b