Irregular Books

It was years ago that I first read the book Shrub : The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush. Since then, author Molly Ivins has died, and America has endured almost two complete terms of misery under George W. Bush.

How did the book hold up to the test of time? Actually, its warnings were quite well made. Shrub was a well done documentation of Bush’s short and skimpy pre-presidential professional and political life. A string of failed businesses financed by his father’s powerful friends followed by a string of successful elections financed by the same people is what brought young Bush to the most powerful political position on the face of the Earth.

As Bush is quoted in this book as saying, “I’m all name”. We can look back now and wonder how such an incompetent individual could have been placed in the position of President if it weren’t for a new moneyed American aristocracy. A powerful father and grandfather made a lazy slacker out of George W. Bush, and then pushed him into an unsuitable position of power. That almost seems cruel to Bush… almost, if it weren’t for the cruelty Bush has dealt out to the world.

Shrub warned conservative and libertarian voters to be skeptical of Bush’s claims to advocate small government, and now those voters are rueing the day that they gave Bush their ballot. The book explains how when Bush used the money of his father’s rich friends to buy the Texas Rangers, he used his family’s influence over local government to condemn and seize perfectly sound private property, including family farms, so that the Rangers could build a big new money-making stadium. What’s more, he got the local government to pay $191 million for the construction of the stadium as well. Talk about a welfare mother! No poor person ever got a check anywhere close to this size. If only the voters had listened.

It seems that Bush advocates small government only when it means doing away with programs that help poor people. When it comes to governmental power to help his rich friends, he’s he’s a big big big advocate for big big big government. Through its careful investigation of the record, Shrub shows the hypocrisy in Bush’s vision for America.

Although I loved the substance of Shrub, I was disappointed in its tone. At times, Ivins and co-author Lou Dubose let sarcasm replace fairness. Insulting a presidential candidate is not the same as critiquing him. We can all fairly take our potshots at Bush now that he’s wrecked America, but it wasn’t a good place to start.

Read Shrub for its content, not for its style. Although it does not include vital information about the mysterious past of George W. Bush, it does cover his record as a failed businessman and politician in Texas with a brush that is at once thorough and smooth in texture. It’s a great retrospective on what we knew before Dubya was made President… It was enough to predict the disasters that have come since then.