{"id":720,"date":"2018-12-31T13:38:33","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T13:38:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=720"},"modified":"2018-12-31T13:38:33","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T13:38:33","slug":"lone-star-book-reviews-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=720","title":{"rendered":"Lone Star Book Reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lone Star Book Reviews
of Texas books appear weekly
at LoneStarLiterary.com<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n
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Jean Edward Smith<\/span> was a member of the faculty at the University of Toronto for thirty-five years, and at Marshall University for twelve. He has also been a visiting scholar at Columbia, Princeton, and Georgetown. In addition to Bush,<\/span> he is the author of Eisenhower in War and Peace;<\/span> (winner of the 2008 Francis Parkman Prize of the Society of American Historians); Grant<\/span> (a 2002 Pulitzer Prize finalist); John Marshall: Definer of a Nation<\/span>; and Lucius D. Clay: An American Life.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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<\/span><\/span>POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY<\/p>\n

Jean Edward Smith<\/span><\/p>\n

Simon & Schuster<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-1-4767-4119-2, 832 pages,<\/p>\n

(ebook and audio book also available)<\/p>\n

July 5, 2016<\/p>\n

Noted historian and biographer Jean Edward Smith tackles two politically charged questions<\/span>\u2014and much more\u2014in this important, heavily researched life story of Texas\u2019s forty-sixth governor and America\u2019s forty-third president, George W. Bush.<\/p>\n

The questions are: Was Bush \u201cthe worst president in American history,\u201d as many partisans and pundits have charged? And, was Bush\u2019s 2003 \u201cdecision to invade Iraq\u2026the worst foreign policy decision ever made by an American president\u201d?<\/p>\n

In any presidency, it can be argued, good, bad, and sometimes very bad decisions are made in the Oval Office. Many Bush detractors have labeled the forty-third president a \u201cyes man\u201d for Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and others. Smith, however, makes a strong case that President George W. Bush actually was, in most cases, \u201cthe Decider\u201d he claimed to be.<\/p>\n

Indeed, \u201cW,\u201d as he was known, often made choices based on his \u201creligious certitude,\u201d his \u201csingular determination,\u201d and his experience as Texas governor, \u201cwhere he did not deal with department heads and had no executive responsibility,\u201d Smith contends. Once he gained the considerable executive power of the White House, he often froze out the expertise and cautions of his own Cabinet members as he made a decision, Smith adds.<\/p>\n

The biographer quotes Bush\u2019s Secretary of State, Colin Powell, as lamenting: \u201cUnder George W. Bush, decisions seemed to come out of the ether.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith pulls no punches in this hefty, revelatory biography. But he does not shy away from delivering praise, as well.<\/p>\n

The final months of George W. Bush\u2019s second term as president coincided with a stunningly quick meltdown of the American economy that threatened the world\u2019s economies, too. \u201cHis decisions in 2008 to rescue Wall Street and the American automobile industry were acts of genuine courage and statesmanship,\u201d Smith writes. \u201cThe country suffered a severe economic recession, but thanks to Bush it avoided a repeat of the Great Depression.\u201d Smith also credits George W. Bush with having a major role in reducing U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, improving relations with China, expanding free trade and \u201calmost singlehandedly lead[ing] the global fight against AIDS.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith adds: \u201cDomestically, he extended Medicare to include prescription drugs for seniors, improved educational standards with No Child Left Behind, and fought hard for immigration reform.\u201d<\/p>\n

But: \u201cIn 2001, he scuttled the Clinton Administration\u2019s efforts to bring a nonnuclear North Korea back into the family of nations, and two years later led the United States into an unwarranted war with Iraq\u2026that upset the delicate equilibrium between Shiites and Sunnis that existed in the Middle East. The casualties and the cost\u2014estimated in excess of $3 trillion\u2014have been disastrous.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the two big questions that shape this book, Jean Edward Smith delivers compelling evidence that supports the judgments he finally renders about George Walker Bush as President of the United States.<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lone Star Book Reviews of Texas books appear weekly at LoneStarLiterary.com Jean Edward Smith was a member of the faculty at the University of Toronto for thirty-five years, and at Marshall University for twelve. He has also been a visiting scholar at Columbia, Princeton, and Georgetown. In addition to Bush, he is the author of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}