For much of this book, Frum seems disengaged from Bush’s policies. He refers to the president’s “energy plan fiasco,” calling it “an incoherent mess” and a “pseudoscandal.” He contends Bush “could never quite bring himself to deny that climate change was very likely real and man-made.” He says of Bush’s faith-based initiative, “instead of drawing new people to the Republican Party, it had repelled them.” Prior to Sept. 11, 2001, writes Frum,
"I began avoiding parties where I expected the questions [of Bush’s capacity for the presidency] to be posed too persistently by conservative friends, for I was not sure I would know how to answer."