James Madison: Defender of the American Republic Book

Okay, so I said it was time to take a break from books on Iraq for my blood pressure's sake. But this isn't a book about Iraq exclusively; it's about Bush...and exploring his personality and how it has driven his presidency, including in Iraq. That might mitigate this as a "lapse."

There is also something appealling in how Weisberg treats the failures of the Bush presidency, which is to say, he just accepts in his intro that the presidency is a failure, and does not belabor the argument in his text. Instead, moving from that premise, he tries to understand just why and how it became a failure. Ironically, this left me a little less frustrated than the stuff I've been reading on the administration. Weisberg portrays bush unflatteringly, but he doesn't demonize him. He makes an earnest effort to understand him without pulling punches.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I was a little skeptical of the book's central - and not exactly unique argument - that most of Bush's actions and beliefs stem from his relationship with his family and especially his father. And the centrality of Shakespeare's "Henry" plays also made me wary. But it works. Weisberg's analyses of Bush and the people around are three dimensional, well thought out, and overall convincing and insightful. The chapter on Bush's religion is best, neither oversimplifying it nor discrediting its makeup and influence.