The Bush administration received a ton of criticism during their time. It was one of the more unpopular presidency’s in recent memory and so when George Bush decided to set the record straight, the whole world was willing to listen. It’s wasn’t as if they weren’t listening before but Bush was smart enough to know that telling people what he did wrong as he was still in office, or explaining what they didn’t want to see wouldn’t set anything straight. It would have only fueled the fire.
So as he’s has made the press circuit, he is setting the record straight once and for all. The first thing that he cleared up was probably the incident that got the most attention early and haunted him for the rest of his time in office. The day tragedy struck on 9/11 Bush was at a local kindergarten reading them a story. He got word during the story, but then proceeded to wait for 10 minutes before he ended up leaving the school.
This was heavily criticized to make it look like either Bush was compliant with the events of 9/11 or that he wasn’t smart enough to understand that there needed to be an immediate call to action. It was Bush who has been looking to set the events of that morning straight. Bush revealed that it wasn’t about being ok with the events or certainly not a sense of apathy that caused him to wait. It was about being presidential. It was about not panicking in a very difficult situation. It was about showing a sense of calm to a nation that was certainly anything but calm.
It’s true that Bush is going to be criticized for that and many other events that occurred during his time in office, but what Bush is trying to do is set the record straight once and for all. This book is a very good start in that direction.