I'm struck by that comment by Neal of "oh, he's the clown," and how W's described as having done anything to make Barbara laugh after his baby sister died .. he hungered to make her smile, take away her pain for awhile, and I think that's where his super tender heartedness and comedic bent was born. Those kinds of painful family situations can set up certain behavior patterns and family dynamics that may continue. I see it in my own kids .. how they were "scripted" by what we telegraphed.
I'm not connecting his descriptions of this motherly closeness with anything like weaklness or wimpiness. I missed a lot of the stuff about LBJ and JFK because I was trying to type what I had already heard.
In all the cases I heard, what I'm picking up in the brief time they had to dissect the book, the sons seem to be very protective of their moms .. in Reagan's case, it would be due to his father's alcoholism, in W's, the pain of losing the little baby girl. I didn't hear Johnson's family situation, but I could see Joe K. wielding tyrranical control over the family and Rose, and the sadness of their retarded daughter and pain that caused Rose, and maybe there was a special closeness between Rose and JFK, as I think he was sickly as a child.
He starts with Washington and goes through a whole bunch of them, the Adams, the Pierce's, the Roosevelts .. describing in very interesting, but very brief, snippets about their family dynamics and the subtle and not-so-subtle and positive and negative impact on the futures of their offspring.
The last comments he made were in reference to how W wanted to be called. When he (Weady) was on the staff of 41, W referred to himself as George Jr. Then, when he became governor, he called Wead and said, " I don't want to be called George, Jr. anymore .. I want to be called George W.," obviously having changed his perception of himself and making it clear how he wanted to be known. I thought that was a very interesting insight. He even played a tape where W is saying this is George Jr. That was the only tape I heard .. if any were played of the current controversy, I missed them.
I must have missed the tape. W once said that his father's ideal son was Al Gore! Speaking for myself and others I have known, the affinity with one son seems to be when they are so similar to you and even think like you. It is a closeness that can not exist with a husband because they are a part of you.