INSIDE THE WEIRD WORLD OF GEORGE W. BUSH
From Richard Wallace, US Editor In New York
GEORGE Bush is bad-tempered, ignorant and desperate for approval from his mother, according to an extraordinary new book.
His former speechwriter David Frum, a Canadian right-winger who coined the infamous phrase "axis of evil", paints a disturbing picture of a president and his White House.
And in curious parallels with his arch enemy Saddam Hussein, the world's most powerful man comes across as confused, tightly wound, prone to mood swings and obsessed with petty detail.
"He is often uncurious and as a result ill-informed," says Frum, whose description of Iraq, Iran and North Korea set the administration agenda after September 11.
And he discloses: "Bush had a poor memory for facts and figures."
The book - The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush - is the first insider account of the Bush regime and reveals how the White House is run on strict, almost military lines, a so-called "culture of evangelism".
When Frum joined the president's staff he discovered "this was a White House where attendance at Bible study was, if not compulsory, not quite uncompulsory".
He reveals that Bush, "an intense Christian", credits God with keeping him off the booze and that cabinet meetings routinely begin with a prayer.
Shortly after the September 11 attacks, the president summoned five religious leaders - three Christian, one Muslim and one Jewish - to the Oval Office and asked them to pray for him.
Then he offered this confession: "You know, I had a drinking problem. Right now I should be in a bar in Texas, not the Oval Office.
"There is only one reason that I am in the Oval Office and not in a bar. I found faith. I found God. I am here because of the power of prayer."
Frum, 42, repeatedly mentions how Bush and various aides are constantly thanking God, beseeching God's help and urging others to pray on their behalf.
It mirrors Saddam's habit of regularly referencing Allah in his every action and speech.
Bush aides may not drink, swear or smoke, and late-night fast food is forbidden. Even a mild 'damn it' is frowned upon.
In a series of Saddam-style dictats, men must wear blue or grey suits and women must try to avoid brightly coloured clothes.
The president, who likes to be in bed by 10.30pm, is also obsessed about saving electricity, often walking around the White House turning off lights.
Frum jokes: "The television show The West Wing might as well have been set aboard a Klingon starship for all it resembled life inside the Bush White House." [Note: Having read Frum's book, this comment was intended to be a slam at the "The West Wing" in pointing out the utter normalcy of the REAL White House of GWB. Mr. Wallace clearly doesn't get it...He probably finds normalcy to be disturbing.]
He goes on: "In private, Bush was not the easy, genial man he was in public. Close up, one saw a man keeping a tight grip on himself. Bush was a sharp exception to the White House code of niceness. He was tart, not sweet." The speechwriter reveals the president's private views are extreme and boorish.
Bush describes al-Qaeda as "a bunch of nuts" and environmentalists are "green-green- lima-beans." Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is "thuggish". And he would often say sarcastically of Europeans: "They just lurve Arafat." Frum also reveals: "Bush had a much more strained relationship with his mother than is often acknowledged. Barbara can be a difficult-to-please woman.
"Bush married a woman as unlike his mother as possible. His wife was his mother antidote."
Frum says that before the terrorist attacks, Bush was preparing to launch a series of bizarre social engineering measures called Communities of Character.
The issues to be tackled included: "Obscene music lyrics, children not eating dinner with their parents...and so on."
Frum says only Bush's chief political adviser Karl Rove and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have above average intelligence within Bush's inner circle.
But he pays tribute to Secretary of State Colin Powell's political skills. Powell is "the deadliest bureaucratic knife-fighter in the whole administration".
But it's Bush, the man, who surprises - and Frum's final verdict after all the barbs.
He says: "George W Bush is a very unusual person: a good man who is not a weak man. He has many faults. He is impatient and quick to anger; sometimes glib, even dogmatic, more conventional in his thinking than a leader probably should be. But outweighing the faults are his virtues: decency, honesty, rectitude, courage and tenacity."
He adds: "He was a rather unfamiliar type of heavyweight. Words often failed him, his memory sometimes betrayed him but his vision was large and clear.
"And when he perceived new possibilities, he had the courage to act on them - a much less common virtue in politics than one might suppose. Bush's vision is not occluded by guilt or self-doubt." Frum quit his £60,000-a-year job soon after last January's axis of evil speech. Insiders say the president was upset that he had taken credit for the address.
But Frum concludes that the president has performed well. "He was hardly the obvious man for the job. But by a very strange fate, he turned out to be, of all unlikely things, the right man."
And yesterday he claimed: "The more I got to know Bush the more I got to like him."
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Bush and I would not coexist in proximity. When anger I can clear entire football stadiums by force of profanity is five languages.