Posted on 09/05/2007 9:04:38 AM PDT by COUNTrecount
WASHINGTON --Under that famously self-confident exterior is a president who weeps - a lot.
President Bush told the author of a new book on his presidency that "I try not to wear my worries on my sleeve" or show anything less than steadfastness in public, especially in a time of war.
"I fully understand that the enemy watches me, the Iraqis are watching me, the troops watch me, and the people watch me," he said. Yet, he said, "I do tears."
"I've got God's shoulder to cry on. And I cry a lot. I do a lot of crying in this job. I'll bet I've shed more tears than you can count, as president. I'll shed some tomorrow."
Bush granted journalist Robert Draper several extended interviews in late 2006 and early 2007, as well as unusual access to his aides, for the book "Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush," which went on sale Tuesday.
Draper's account of the bulk of Bush's presidency sheds light on a loyal and secretive inner circle that, at least privately, was not always on the same page. Draper tells of an April 2006 dinner at which Bush asked aides for a show of hands on whether his divisive defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, should be fired.
The vote: 7-4 to get rid of him, with Bush siding with those who wanted him kept on for the time being. Rumsfeld was replaced after the elections that fall switched control of the House and Senate to Democrats.
White House aides who wanted Rumsfeld out were privately dismayed when retired generals called publicly for his ouster, fearing that would steel Bush's resolve to keep his defense chief, the book says.
Bush, without addressing that meeting, suggested to the author that the ex-generals did get under his skin.
"My reaction was, 'No military guy is gonna tell a civilian how to react,'" he said.
Also in the book, Bush:
-Acknowledged that sectarian violence after the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein was "something we didn't spend a lot of time planning for. We planned for what happens if Saddam and his people dug into Baghdad," and we figured the Iraqi leader was fomenting ethnic divisions that would ease when he was gone. The opposite happened.
-Said he wants to make money - "replenishing the ol' coffers" - after his presidency. He said he could make "ridiculous" money on the lecture circuit, citing the experience of his predecessor, Bill Clinton, as well as his own father.
-Recalled his drinking days and how faith gave him the discipline to stop.
"I wouldn't be president if I kept drinking. You get sloppy, can't make decisions, it clouds your reason, absolutely. I still remember the feeling of a hangover, even though I haven't had a drink in twenty years." He said he ate chocolate in the evenings after he swore off booze, because his body missed the sugar.
-Told of a false alarm the night of Sept. 11, 2001, when he and his wife, Laura, were in bed in the White House after the day's traumatic events and a Secret Service agent came to the bedroom and told them to get to the bunker. "They're coming," the agent said. "We're under attack." The couple hurried to the bunker, the president carrying a dog under one arm and a cat under the other, with his wife slipping on a bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, feeling blind without her contact lenses. The source of the alarm - a plane in closed airspace over the Potomac River - turned out to be an authorized flight.
Draper, a national correspondent for GQ magazine, is a former editor at Texas Monthly, where he profiled Bush when he was Texas governor.
Being a President of the US is a weighty job on anyone’s shoulders with responsibilities far reaching around the world. Many heavy decisions to be made, whether it risked life or limb. The presidency is a noble and grand place to acquire, and not to be taken lightly by anyone. We all have our armchair quarterbacks saying they can do this or that when, in reality, the cain’t do squat. We all humans have our destiny, which is laid out before us. It is a map of our life, we follow it unknowingly, and reap the benefits both good and bad. Can you fill the job of the presidency, without shedding a few tears? I bet you the Great Bent One did! I can’t said Clinton brought his wrongs all on himself. He was fulfilling his destiny before the world.
Bullfrog
Deemed unlikely by morons. To the rest of the world it was a known, you might even say, a likely threat. Hell, a lot of people DID say it was a likely threat.
Provide a quote please.
Crying about it doesn’t get the job done, Mr. President.
Just google it and you’ll find all you could want.
Here’s a story from 2002 that says:
“It is quite possible that if we went in, took out Saddam Hussein, and then left quickly, the result would be an extremely bloody civil war,” says William Galston, the director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Maryland, who was a Marine during the Vietnam War. “That blood would be directly on our hands.” Most people I spoke with, whether in favor of war or not, recognized that military action is a barbed hook: once it goes in, there is no quick release.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200211/fallows
But that’s just the first one that came up. I’m sure there’s plenty of statements out on the web by Joe Biden and others.
The Cheney ‘94 video.
The part I don’t get about this whole thing was a supposed excerpt from the book saying Bush has read 87 books this year.
If he’s reading 87 books and crying all the time, then it’s no wonder our borders are so open.
Are you for real?
They used the worst case scenario to justify an immediate military action...and the rosiest scenario for what would come after.
Ridiculous.
If the overall strategy was to change the whole middle eastern dynamic by establishing democracy there..then they tried to do it on the cheap.
Gen.Shinseki was right about needed troop levels...and Rumsfeld and Co. were dead wrong...3,500 and counting wrong...not to mention the 1,000s of maimed.
No accountability.
Shameful disgrace.
Mind expanding what you mean here?
Aslo - are you suggesting that the ~3500 American soldiers killed in Iraq so far would be alive today if we had more troops in the area?
“I cry when I think of what hes doing to our country as opposed to what he said he was going to do.”
Me too!
ping
“Aslo - are you suggesting that the ~3500 American soldiers killed in Iraq so far would be alive today if we had more troops in the area?”
This is indisputable. Had we had more troops, and crushed the insurgency and militias immediately, then of course there would be less casualties on our side. Do you disagree?
Amen——”who who is without guilt, cast the first stone”-—
Amen——”he who is without guilt, cast the first stone”-—
I disagree with the claim that we would have no casualties - which is exactly how his claim was worded. It's preposterous. People that make claims as such are crazy.
While I may not agree with him on immigration and some other things, he is a stubborn man and DOES love his country and the people in it. He takes his responsibility seriously. He has a heart.
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