Above All Else, Comfort, a Bicycle and Convenience
Book Tells Of Dissent In Bush's Inner Circle
White House Granted Author Unusual Access
Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, September 3, 2007; Page A01
Karl Rove told George W. Bush before the 2000 election that it was a bad idea to name Richard B. Cheney as his running mate, and Rove later raised objections to the nomination of Harriet E. Miers to the Supreme Court, according to a new book on the Bush presidency.
In "Dead Certain: The Presidency of George Bush," journalist Robert Draper writes that Rove told Bush he should not tap Cheney for the Republican ticket: "Selecting Daddy's top foreign-policy guru ran counter to message. It was worse than a safe pick -- it was needy." But Bush did not care -- he was comfortable with Cheney and "saw no harm in giving his VP unprecedented run of the place."
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Usually 'presidential' tell-all books are enjoyed for their capacity--real or inferred--to get inside the White House and get a first-hand look at a leader's capacity to do the job.
The avalanche of Bush-books peel back the bandages of a wounded presidency, offering insights into an office so thoroughly disfunctional as to be nearly dead-in-the-water.
Noting that he ran into former president Bill Clinton at the United Nations last year, Bush added (in an author interview), "Six years from now, you're not going to see me hanging out in the lobby of the U.N."
No--that's the business of a man who's engaged in the workings of the world.
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