Guardian interviews Draper about "Dead Certain"

[Olney Blue]

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/biography/story/0,,2168980,00.html

Robert Draper was granted extraordinary access when he was writing his book about US president George Bush. And the details he reveals - such as the strict routines and obsessive exercise - are now the talk of Washington. Ed Pilkington meets the author

'You've gotta think, think BIG'
Friday September 14, 2007
The Guardian

Who is George Bush? A gaffe-ridden buffoon? The man who confronts the evildoers? Or is he Bush as Bush sees himself, the decider, a leader who makes the hard choices and sticks to them?

In just 16 months' time, the job of working out who Bush really is will move out of the world's newsrooms and into the book-lined studies of historians. It will be their task to strive for a more rounded picture of one of the most divisive politicians of the postwar era. But in that challenge they will have as helpful source material a new book that provides a mass of detail about the man.

snip

They met for the first formal interview in a little room next to the Oval Office where Bill Clinton did not have sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, and for the following five engagements in the Oval Office itself. Bush would sit for an hour at a time - feet planted on the desk, sucking on an unlit cigar, munching low-fat burgers, occasionally bellowing at an aide for ice cream - and pour his heart out. On other occasions he would fling himself on to the Oval Office couch "like a dirty sweatshirt", as Draper puts it, and challenge his interlocutor to make sense of his life: "You're the observer. I'm not. I really do not feel comfortable in the role of analysing myself."

snip

As the Powell story shows, Bush is capable of cruelty even to those closest to him. Draper recounts an episode from 1999 when Bush was governor of Texas and Karl Rove, his political magician, was waxing lyrical in front of a group of economic advisers. Bush butted in, mid-flow. "Karl. Hang up my jacket." The meeting fell silent as Rove duly did as he was told.

more at link

[alfredo]

1. Damn, he's scary. The 25th amendment anyone?

[AlCzervik]

2. Draper will be on Real Time Tonight.

[Olney Blue]

3. Thanks for the heads up- should be interesting.

I noticed that Draper seemed to be getting more and more careful about defending the chimp- trying to control the negative spin,
as it were. Wonder how Maher will do with him.

[AlCzervik]

4. should be fun to watch, i've seen Draper on several shows this week including

Charlie Rose and that was a good one.