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Summary
Summary
In many ways George W. Bush did not seem built for the presidency or the paces necessary to win it. He was a laid-back good-time guy with little appetite and limited talent for formal oratory, someone who often projected affability more easily than authority. He was a homebody who seemed to prefer surroundings and situations that were utterly familiar to those that were risky and unpredictable. His interests could be narrow and his efforts to expand them only fitful.
But he got there, and after September 11, 2001, confronted a challenge more daunting than many of his predecessors had faced. In the wake of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Bush was left with the responsibility to lead Americans through a time of unusual anxiety and uncertainty, to inspire and reassure them. Could he do it?
In Ambling Into History, Frank Bruni, who covered Bush's presidential campaign and first eight months in the White House for the New York Times, mines the countless hours during which he observed and interacted with Bush to explore that question, and to present sides of Bush that readers have never encountered. He looks to small moments for big truths, going behind the scenes and offering fresh insights into Bush's oft-chronicled weaknesses, sometimes overlooked strengths, and his journey-alternately earnest and reluctant-from an innate levity to a newfound gravity.
Bruni also takes readers on his own trip through the strange maze of presidential politics, wryly chronicling life in the insular "bubble" of political reporting and its frequently dispiriting effect on the coverage that politicians get. It is a candid, eloquent, and illuminating adventure that shows why Newsweek called Bruni "probably the most influential" reporter on the Bush beat.
Author Notes
Frank Bruni has been an op-ed columnist for the New York Times since 2011. He previously worked as the newspaper's Rome bureau chief, Sunday magazine staff writer, one of its White House correspondents, and its chief restaurant critic. He has written several books including Born Round, Ambling into History, and Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Bruni, White House correspondent for the New York Times, aims to entice readers who want to know more about their commander-in-chief, yet he focuses on the seemingly trivial aspects of Bush's personality, small moments that he believes "reveal every bit as much about Bush as large ones": Bush sticking his fingers in Bruni's ears to indicate something is off the record. Or Bush holding his pinkie to the corner of his mouth la Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies. Most of these observations reside firmly in the Bush-as-intellectual-lightweight tradition. But Bruni also acknowledges many times when Bush surprised him with "flashes of cleverness" as when, reflecting on his patrimony, Bush offered stabbing insights into the similar advantages of top New York Times executive Arthur Sulzberger Jr., whose family has owned Bruni's newspaper for generations. Taken together, Bruni's minute observations do present a cohesive portrait of George W. Bush. The problem is, it's Bush the Candidate, not Bush the President who appears only briefly at the end. For the most part, the book focuses on the 2000 campaign, the last period during which reporters had open access to Bush. Thus, Bruni finds himself writing about Bush on the wrong side of September 11. What does remain interesting are the glimpses that Bruni provides of the journalistic side of the campaign, which the author says reached "new depths of disingenuous behavior" (e.g., reporters manufacturing arguments between candidates in order to trump up stories, as Bruni admits he and others frequently did). These insights are surprising and instructional and far more likely to remain relevant than any caricature of the wartime president as a "timeless fraternity boy." Agent, Lisa Bankoff. (Mar. 25) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Insightful memoir of Bush's 2000 presidential campaign by a New York Times correspondent. Traveling with the candidate, Bruni initially found him superficial, childish, and largely unknowledgeable about world affairs-unprepared and even unmotivated to be president. As they became better acquainted, the journalist began to see and appreciate Bush's basic goodness and kindness toward others, his flashes of wit and compassion, his devotion to family, the loyalty he engendered in friends and associates, and his deep religious faith. Bruni shares the fruits of many close encounters with the Bushes: wife Laura is either extremely reticent or very dull; Mom Barbara is not above making catty remarks about the Clintons; daughters Jenna and Barbara barely pay attention to the campaign; George W. himself gets painfully homesick for Texas and is likely to fly off the handle at anyone who gets between him and his favorite meal (a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich). The author offers sharp, informed views about the troubled nature of big-money politics, from the unhealthy predominance of spin over substance to the complicity of the reporters who know better but participate in the frenzy for breaking stories anyway. Bruni watches Bush mature first as a candidate, then as president; he begins and ends with discussion of September 11, favorably rating his response and growth under trying circumstances. Bush was not ideal presidential material, suggests the author, but he's not much kinder to candidate Al Gore; Bruni's conclusion seems to be that for a variety of reasons, Americans in the year 2000 wanted a president who did not seem particularly eager or qualified for the job. The subject and many of the incidents discussed here are familiar, but this economically written and tightly organized account is a pleasure to read. One of the few insider accounts of an American political campaign to successfully reveal the immense impact the process itself has on shaping candidates and, in the end, public officials.
Booklist Review
Given the events of September 11, it is possible that George W. Bush will exercise greater executive power than any president since Lyndon Johnson. Thus, his character is paramount. Is he, as his more strident opponents claim, an intellectual lightweight, a bumbler, a man lacking the gravitas to wield power in a crisis? Bruni covered Bush's presidential campaign from the outset for the New York Times and later served as a White House correspondent. Given his familiarity with Bush, one would expect his book to contain revealing insights, and this superb, incisive, and surprising account does not disappoint. This is a generally favorable view of Bush, and it is likely to infuriate hardliners on the Left. Bruni sees Bush as an intelligent but not intellectual leader who possesses genuine warmth and an intuitive ability to get to the heart of complicated issues. Perhaps his greatest strength is his ability to laugh at himself. For example, he often pokes fun at his frequent malapropisms since he knows that verbal eloquence and intelligence are not the same things. Although Bush is certainly conservative by instinct, he refuses to be trapped in an ideological straitjacket, which often dismays his supporters on the Right. This is a well-written, fair, and very interesting look at an important man who is now at the center of a historic struggle, and librarians should expect demand. --Jay Freeman
Library Journal Review
Respected New York Times reporter Bruni, who covered the Bush campaign in 2000, brings insight, wit, and intelligence to this effort to understand the makeup and character of the 43rd President of the United States. While this is a campaign chronicle, it is also an attempt to get to the roots of who George W. Bush is and the President he is becoming. Bruni portrays Bush as a more complex and contradictory man than he appears on the surface, with unrecognized strengths and obvious limitations. No intellectual, Bush is presented as a man of quirky intelligence with a capacity for applying his core values to problems but whose misuse of language and repeated malapropisms (e.g., Bush's saying that he sympathizes with the difficulties some Americans face in trying "to put food on your family") gives the impression of a man lost in the world of ideas. Full of insider stories from the campaign, this book will likely become one of the earliest available keys in deciphering the true character of George W. Bush. Michael A. Genovese, Loyola Marymount Univ., Los Angeles (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
