Robert
Draper (Sept 12th, 2007)
Draper, a national correspondent for GQ Magazine, had
unprecedented access to the Bush family. Jon was so impressed that he
opened the interview with the following statement:
"I'm not quite sure how you did this. How you had access so far into
his presidency. It is the most unvarnished, natural, seemingly
unaffected view of this President. He was either disarmed by you or
didn't think you were writing this stuff down."
Draper, who knew George W. since the 90s, had intention of writting
a biography which showed the sitting President as he is while avoiding
another book filled with arguments for or against his policies.
Some highlights:
-Jon: "The beauty of this book is the distilling of this character, of
this President... after reading this book I get the sense of a man who
is very proud of the person he believes himself to be, but he is in
fact the opposite of that person."
-Jon: "This is what is so interesting about him[Bush], when you sit
down with him...he says 'I'm not a guy who thinks about myself'...I
dont analize it', and then he proceeds to go down the road of a string
of declaratives of a man who clearly..'this is who I am, this is what I
do, this is what I like, but I'm telling you...I don't think aboout
it'".
-Draper:"And again, I think he has this clarity of purpose that has
served him well and also the ability to distill things down simply has
caused his adversaries to, as he will put it, misunderestimate him".
-Jon: "One quote, which sums up this President...'You can talk me out
of freedom is a good thing'. And it is a quote that he makes when he is
talking about his father and his friends and how they might not think
Iraq was a good idea...and I thought: he is inventing arguments. This
is the classic straw man. Who has ever try to discuss freedom as not a
good thing?...other than Stalin"
-Draper: "Except he says right before then that there is no need to
argue about the freedom agenda. Now, there is something to argue about!
So, it is the President certitude, his unwillingness to move off his
marker. In fact, a lot of people would say 'freedom is a good thing,
but trying to apply it to American diplomacy, particualry in thot beds
like Middle East can be problematic'"
-Jon:"Right. He consistently seems to take very worth while arguments
and makes a blank statement that is unassailable. You'll want to argue
about the Iraq war and he will say 'a lot of people can't handle
democracy'. Nobody said that! What they have said is 'you f*** this up
royally'. But he does not deal with that part"