Rating: 
Summary: A Fair, Thorough View of the Life of President Bush
Review: Don't believe the packaging of this reprint: Hatfield and his editors have billed this as a broadside against George W. Bush, but it is not. Rather, it is a meticulous, careful report of who George W. Bush is and how he came by a position to run for (and eventually win) the office of President of the United States.For the first 100 pages of this book, I was astonished that the Bushies had wanted it banned in the first place. I did NOT have a high opinion of President Bush as a person when I first picked this book up, but, after reading about his childhood--his father often away working in oil fields, the death of his little sister when Bush was 7--I actually found myself moved and feeling for him. He was a sensitive soul, his mother says, whose smirk and joking manner came as an emotional defense at the loss of his beloved sister. This is a side of Bush I had never seen. This changes, though, when he, like other adolescents, begins to make mistakes, and "Fortunate Son" charts these mistakes as they gather steam and begin to impact other people in a disturbing way. The reader cannot blame Dubya for his ancestors' business ties to Hitler (up to 1943) or for his being born into a privileged economic position. Less easily dismissed are his rounds of philandering and alcoholism and his absolute educational waste of his Yale years (unless you count his making innumerable money contacts), all of which are narrated by FRIENDS of his! The political life that follows is even more informative and troubling; Dubya's no-holds-barred, look-the-other-way campaigning fails at first but quickly gets him elected Governor of Texas. To the credit of both the late Hatfield and this book, the tone of the prose is alarmingly neutral. (The preface and introduction by Hatfield's editors at Soft Skull are NOT neutral, however.) This was, for me, the most shocking thing, as I'd expected a nasty, partisan critique of President Bush. Hatfield is terribly kind to Dubya early on, and if later the book seems less kind, it is no acerbic storytelling voice that makes Dubya look like a not-so-nice guy; it is, instead, Bush's own actions. The reviewers who have been angered by the inclusion, in this book, of allegations about Bush's arrest and community service cover-up, National Guard prioritization, insider-trading, etc., have not read the book. Hatfield is careful to discuss these as allegations, and in fact I was LESS convinced that there had been wrongdoing as re: Bush's Vietnam-era military dodge than I had been before. It must also be remembered that Hatfield originally wrote this for a HUGE New York publisher, and that facts were vetted by a phalanx of lawyers before it went to press and was then pulled. And, at any rate, disputing Hatfield's allegations misses the point. There is enough public-record material in here to make us severely dubious of President Bush's record and sad that such a perennial underachiever has been ushered into the highest office in the land. "Fortunate Son" is all the more useful as a story of tragic compromise, because it tells a story of a once-sensitive soul whose smirk seems to have won out.
Rating:
Summary: interesting...
Review: i recommend this book whether you like or dislike bush. it's got the story of his past. all the shady business deals, all the bonuses he got due to his father's position, how he has basically cheated his way through life... this book contains information that is valuable to everyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Some information for prospective readers
Review: Longtime no distribution for the book, lawsuits, slandering of its author and Bush effectively admitting the truth in more than one of his incoherent ramblings. I just wanted to say that the author of this book recently commited suicide at the age 42, allegedly by prescription medicine, leaving his wife behind. The police are convinced it is a suicide.
Rating:
Summary: A very strong attack on G.W. Bush's pre-presidential life
Review: There has been a lot of debate already on this book, so I won't go into much detail. It is the most broad scoped, in-depth anti-Bush book out there. Why is it that so many of the allegations made in this book have escaped public scrutiny? Why did so many Texas republicans work so hard at trying to keep this book out of print? How could we not take a harder look at who we elect as President? Now, to the pro-Bush crowd out there, I will concede that perhaps some of the allegations are stretched and maybe some are not true, but how can we not take them seriously? This book does not offer a pro-democrat/anti-republican storyline, but what lies underneath the attack on Bush is an attack on the manner in which America allows its leaders to be pre-selected for us by Party heads and Corporate big wigs who simply don't care about ethics or about our great nation. As a democracy we should have a media which takes the time to investigate and debate upon these concerns, not one that limits debate and simply repeats prepared statements. We deserve better. Now if you do pick up this book, do be sceptical. J.H. Hatfield is certainly not the most principled man and he does have a biased stance. But many of the issues at hand do transcend the author's inadequacies. This book will frustrate and infuriate you, no matter what your politics.
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Summary: The book W. hopes you never read
Review: This book isn't for a lot of people. If you want to continue with your head in the sand, pretending that W. is doing a great job running the country, as most Americans have been doing since 9/11, this book is not for you. If you are open to the truth, however, you owe it to yourself to read this book. It won't convince Bush loyalists of anything. They are clearly in denial. But, for the rest of us, it provides in one source details of all those rumours we heard brief mention of during the last presidential election campaign ... all those rumours which our corporate owned media outlets chose to soft pedal on.
Rating:
Summary: Fortunate Son
Review: "Fortunate Son" by JH Hatfield is an exellent well researched biography.It gives anyone that wants to know about the life of GW Bush an insight to a spoiled rich boy.It tells how W coasts through life knowing American laws don't apply to him.From his cocaine arrest,AWOL from the national gaurd during wartime,insider trading with his failing co. Harken.It tells how he is agreedy little man that cares for no one but himself.A very dangerous person if in power.
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Summary: It's an amazing mystery story
Review: It appears that the author hoped to re-enter the mainstream of American life after many legal troubles by writing a truthful but shallow book that would endear him to the conservative mainstream. At the last minute, Bush campaign manager Karl Rove persuaded him to include an anonymous story about Bush getting a cocaine charge expunged. That sank the cocaine rumors plaguing the Bush campaign as Hatfield's criminal past became the media's favorite story. How weird. Bush has refused to deny using cocaine, so why was Hatfield hounded into suicide for speculating that Bush might have gotten busted at some point? In any case, this book is simply a neutral-to-favorable biography. For a liberal, it's not much fun to read because the author often takes GWB at his word and doesn't provide a comprehensive challenge of W's overall pattern of deceit.
Rating: 
Summary: Fortunate son, indeed.
Review: Although this 'biography' of George W. Bush is obviously a hatchet job, and the author quite clearly displays his liberal, anti-Bush bias, this book did contain some interesting information about GWB's young years. Nothing too titillating, just lots of facts about the partying and carousing that Bush did when he was young. If you are looking for a tabloid style biography of Bush, here's your book. For a more even-handed approach, look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Painting a Portrait
Review: Surprisingly, Hatfield treats the young George W. Bush gently, describing his personality in rather endearing terms. But when Bush grows older it would seem impossible not to describe a man who works his father's name for all it was worth. Not that that is a crime, but pretending otherwise is disingeneous to say the least.
The frat-boy Bush personality that later develops in Hatfield's biography is hardly flattering. And then it gets ugly when we find a strange lapse of time in all of Dubya's early history,(and this checks out in other sources such as Mark Crispin's "The Bush Dyslexion", Molly Ivins "Shrub") that strangely out of character few months working with inner-city youth never alluded to by Bush himself, suggesting a deal with a Judge to overlook the cocaine use Bush refused to deny or admit, and the missing year in the Texas Air National Guard. We find an unflattering picture of the young party boy using his father's influence to get out of scrapes with the law, and a greasy move using the family name to raise money for oil ventures that ultimately failed leaving investors holding the empty barrels (a move that strongly smacked of insider trading) a stadium deal with the Texas Rangers that left the taxpayers holding the bag while he came out a millionaire many times over.
Hatfield paints the portrait of a callous man aligned with private big corporate profiteers who would forsee his journey to the Whitehouse. A anti-intellectual, bought and paid for, raised with a silver spoon who amazingly enough, never recognizes the spoon is there, lodged firmly between teeth and tongue (which may explain his verbal disconnection between mouth and brain). The fact that Republicans did everything they could to keep the book from publication, even advocating burning it, would seem to testify to some authenticity. Bush's statements to the press concerning his alleged drug use furthers authentifies Hatfield's contentions that Bush did indeed partake of substances that many Texas prison inmates remain incarcerated for to this day. The portrait is of a spoiled rich boy, who skated through life on family name, distained an education many only dream of, has no real achievements to speak of, who blithly bypassed Vietnam as did many well-to-do young men of draft age, yet did so in mind and intellect as well as physically, who becomes a responsible man at the age of 40 though still sporting no real dimensions or achievements, who has now become President of the United States. I found it fascinating, discouraging, and informative, although the few grammatical errors and the misprint in the introduction caused me to lower the grade one star. I'm glad Hatfield took up the cause to have it printed.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read
Review: I have been doing extensive reading since the election/selection or President Bush. After watching and reading about five years worth of Clinton witch hunts, I have been trying to understand what makes the republican party tick. This book has left me feeling a chill about the credibility of George W. Bush. It is extremely well researched and written and uncovers some interesting things about our president, including the much talked about rumor of his use of cocaine. I read the back cover of the book last for some reason. It stated that J.H. Hatfield was threatened by Bush lawyers and had even received threats to his life if he published the book. A very worth while read for anyone who wants to know the truth about George W. Bush.
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