George Herbert Walker Bush (Penguin Lives)

Rating:
Summary: Journalism, not scholarship (are they mutually exclusive?)
Review: As an avid reader of the Penguin Lives and American Presidents series, I was surprised to see a Penguin Lives biography of a frankly unremarkable president. I have read seven other Penguin Lives (Napoleon, R.E. Lee, Lincoln, St. Augustine, Joan of Arc, Mao Zedong, Wilson) and have been impressed by both the depth of analysis and amount of historical content in these tightly written books.
This book is not up to the same standard and I'm disappointed in the editors of this otherwise unblemished series for putting their label on it. At 240 pages, Wicker's book is also longer than any other Penguin Lives book I have read. By contrast, Thomas Keneally's excellent P.L. biography of Abe Lincoln was 192 pages. Is there really more to say about Bush the First than the Great Emancipator?
First of all, the book is chock full of stupid factual mistakes. Two stood out as soon as I read them and undermined the entire book's credibility: First, Wicker writes that Richard Nixon resigned in 1984 (as opposed to 1974), and toward the end he claims that George W. Bush's presidency began in 2002 (as opposed to 2001). This sloppy scholarship made it less of a surprise to me that Wicker was a correspondent for the New York Times, a journal that after the Jayson Blair scandal has little credibility itself.
Aside from "Check Your Facts," another Writing 101 rule that Wicker ignores is "Provide Evidence For Your Claims." He calls the belief that Reagan's defense buildup accelerated the collapse of the USSR's economy, and thus Soviet communism, "a common misperception." Okay Tom, you claimed it, now back it up. He doesn't even try. I don't mind someone sharing an opinion, but don't insult my intelligence by expecting me to take it for granted! He offers other purely political opinions that he fails to support with any evidence, especially when outlining Bush's political collapse in 1992.
Overall, his thesis is fairly interesting, but also fairly obvious. Bush the First was a president of morals but little conviction who got to office on his friendliness and Reagan's coattails, and he was ultimately rejected by conservatives and the nation's voters because of it. I can think of forty-two other presidents whose biographies I would rather read.
The subject, GHWB's life, is admittedly quite interesting. He held a wider variety of government jobs than any other president I can think of. While George H.W. Bush's presidency was uninspring and thus not a great idea for a biography, it is Tom Wicker's sloppy fact-checking and unsupported editorializing that make this book truly stink.

Rating:
Summary: Not one for the ages
Review: I've read four or five other Penguin Lives biographies besides this one of George H.W. Bush, and I'm generally a fan of the series and the approach. Designed to be summary overviews, writers are forced to choose key elements and facts from their subject's lives and (ideally) extrapolate them into a portrait that, while not exhaustive in the details, at least gives the reader an idea of who he was, why he did what he did, and how it matters to history. Good writers in this series have managed to pull this off. Others haven't done so well. Unfortunately, Tom Wicker's contribution is one of the latter.

The first tip-off, of course, is Wicker himself. As another reviewer points out -- absolutely correctly -- journalism and biography are different skill sets. It may be too much to ask a journalist who has spent years covering his subject up close to then turn around and have the kind of analytical distance a good bio really requires. This isn't to say a biographer can't have opinions. But they shouldn't be *a priori* ones, and it's too easy to suspect Wicker of having had his mind made up about GHWB before he started to write.

Still, Wicker does hit on many of the major themes of Bush's life -- ones other biographers have identified as well: his sense of *noblesse oblige,* his lifetime of high achievement in most everything he's tried, his friendliness, his history of "running to the right" and then governing from the center. Much of this he interprets as signs of overweening ambition, ruthlessness in destroying opponents, and a desire, above all, to be president of the United States. He paints Bush as a man who played at being conservative because he needed to in order to win election, who swallowed his pride and his centrist principles to serve uncomplainingly under Reagan, but who was unable to win the loyalty of conservatives who anyway tanked the GOP's chances with their divisive 1992 convention in Houston.

Along the way, Wicker recounts many of the highlights of Bush's years as veep and in the White House -- not only Desert Storm and the '92 election (though he devotes the most space to those), but also half-forgotten episodes like the John Tower confirmation fight and the Panama invasion. He also devotes a good deal of time to a what-did-he-know-and-when-did-he-know-it of Bush's role in Iran-Contra. All of this is decent history, and of course belongs in any biography of George Bush. But it seemed as much like a chance for Wicker to rehearse old grudges against, and take swipes at, Reagan and the Republicans. This is another problem with writing biographies of your contemporaries.

As a general rule, the Penguin Lives series is a good way to get a quick thumbnail portrait of the men and women featured in its books. But they're not of uniform quality, and some, like this volume, will definitely leave you wanting more. George H.W. Bush strikes me as an interesting historical figure whose legacy (like J.Q. Adams' or William Howard Taft's) will be seen as coming from someplace other than his years in the White House. There's certainly room for a short summary biography of him, but this title isn't quite it.

Rating:
Summary: Less a biography and more a polemic
Review: Wicker does a good job of concisely giving you Bush's early political life, his successful House campaigns, his unsuccessful Senate campaigns and what not. He also gives a decent description of Bush's role as ambassador, CIA director and chairman of the RNC in the 1970s. All through the era, Wicker paints Bush as a good soldier for the Republicans, and he comes off as an honorable man.

But once Bush becomes Vice President, Wicker is disappointed in him. Wicker sees Bush as a sell-out of his moderate Republican leanings for the red meat Reagan policies. He compares Bush to a chameleon that changes his colors to blend into the current campaign strategy. On top of that, Wicker contends that Bush could easily change political stripes because he lacked vision and purpose.

Okay, Bush lacked vision, but Wicker doesn't seem to value vision at all when it came from Ronald Reagan. In fact, in the middle of a biography of Bush, Wicker deems it necessary to tell us that Reagan's vision of a Soviet Free Europe had absolutely no role in bringing down that superpower. He's just got to tell us that Gorby saved the world not Reagan. That Gorby's goal was the opposite of Reagan's doesn't mean anything to this objective journalist. Does that mean that Gorby lacked vision too? Didn't that genius understand that people would be better off out from under his iron boot? Come to think of it, maybe Hitler would have fallen apart too if we'd just given him a chance. History is just replete with examples of totalitarian governments that renounce themselves and become free without outside agitation.

That's the main problem with Wicker's book. It's less a biography of Bush than a step by step criticism of Republican ideology and its failings. How dare a Republican administration treat Saddam Hussein nicely when he was beating up on the hated Iranians. Surely they knew 10 years in advance that he would invade Kuwait and we'd have to go to war with him.

Bush certainly lacked vision compared to Ronald Reagan. But after 8 years of Clinton, a person can sure grow found of decency, loyalty and personal honor. Wicker says as much during the last paragraph of the book. His conclusion is that Bush may have been a mess, but at least he was a brave guy who won the Gulf War. It was almost like the Penguin editors added that at the end so as not to upset Bush enthusiasts.

Every public figure should have positive and negative books written about him/her in order for students of history to get a wide picture. Books are part of the great debate. The trouble with this book is that it's not a good place for conjecture over substance. In a 200 page Penguin Lives' book, I would like to have an outline of the guy's life not a political fight. Wicker could have easily written a larger biography of Bush somewhere else and told us what a numbskull he was. It seems out of place in this series. Am I going to suffer this again if I read Penguin's books on Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther?

Rating:
Summary: Less a biography and more a polemic
Review: Wicker does a good job of concisely giving you Bush's early political life, his successful House campaigns, his unsuccessful Senate campaigns and what not. He also gives a decent description of Bush's role as ambassador, CIA director and chairman of the RNC in the 1970s. All through the era, Wicker paints Bush as a good soldier for the Republicans, and he comes off as an honorable man.

But once Bush becomes Vice President, Wicker is disappointed in him. Wicker sees Bush as a sell-out of his moderate Republican leanings for the red meat Reagan policies. He compares Bush to a chameleon that changes his colors to blend into the current campaign strategy. On top of that, Wicker contends that Bush could easily change political stripes because he lacked vision and purpose.

Okay, Bush lacked vision, but Wicker doesn't seem to value vision at all when it came from Ronald Reagan. In fact, in the middle of a biography of Bush, Wicker deems it necessary to tell us that Reagan's vision of a Soviet Free Europe had absolutely no role in bringing down that superpower. He's just got to tell us that Gorby saved the world not Reagan. That Gorby's goal was the opposite of Reagan's doesn't mean anything to this objective journalist. Does that mean that Gorby lacked vision too? Didn't that genius understand that people would be better off out from under his iron boot? Come to think of it, maybe Hitler would have fallen apart too if we'd just given him a chance. History is just replete with examples of totalitarian governments that renounce themselves and become free without outside agitation.

That's the main problem with Wicker's book. It's less a biography of Bush than a step by step criticism of Republican ideology and its failings. How dare a Republican administration treat Saddam Hussein nicely when he was beating up on the hated Iranians. Surely they knew 10 years in advance that he would invade Kuwait and we'd have to go to war with him.

Bush certainly lacked vision compared to Ronald Reagan. But after 8 years of Clinton, a person can sure grow found of decency, loyalty and personal honor. Wicker says as much during the last paragraph of the book. His conclusion is that Bush may have been a mess, but at least he was a brave guy who won the Gulf War. It was almost like the Penguin editors added that at the end so as not to upset Bush enthusiasts.

Every public figure should have positive and negative books written about him/her in order for students of history to get a wide picture. Books are part of the great debate. The trouble with this book is that it's not a good place for conjecture over substance. In a 200 page Penguin Lives' book, I would like to have an outline of the guy's life not a political fight. Wicker could have easily written a larger biography of Bush somewhere else and told us what a numbskull he was. It seems out of place in this series. Am I going to suffer this again if I read Penguin's books on Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther?