Thaindian News

November 14, 2010 (Pen Men at Work): George W. Bush, during his Presidency of eight years, was a controversial figure, who divided public opinion, and engendered revulsion for America in certain segments of the Arabic world on account of his courageous and exceedingly divisive decisions to invade Afghanistan and Iraq in the aftermath of the attacks on 9/11, which represented the bloodiest terrorist attacks on American soil. Of course, during the second term of his Presidency, Bush attempted to soften his aggressively right-wing stance that looked at the world in two ways, either as endorsers of America in its righteous war against Islamic terrorism or as detractors of America. Ever since the conclusion of his Presidentship in January 2009, what has been observed is that Bush has been involved in a diplomatic exercise to build a constructive image of him in the minds of the world. One of the methods that Bush has utilized is a time-honored one. He has discharged a book of his recently that is labeled, ‘Decision Points’, via which Bush has attempted to put forth a defense of some of the contentious decisions of his Presidency, which had domestic as well as external repercussions.

However, Ryan Grimm, associated with The Huffington Post, has detected numerous passages in Bush’s tome that Grimm has alleged have been plagiarized from the books of the consultants of Bush. Nevertheless, it needs to be remembered that Bush’s memoir narrates countless chapters of his Presidency that have already been published in innumerable books and magazines. Therefore, his backers would state that it is inevitable that some stories of his advisers would be unintentionally repeated by Bush. Some passages in his book reflect episodes of his Presidency in which he was a player, but which have already been divulged by persons like Gen. Tommy Franks and Bob Woodward in their books.

Let us get into the specifics. Grimm has voiced that the book of Bush involves Bush’s narration of his comments at a conference in the situation room. But Bush’s narration, Grimm deems, is equivalent to Woodward’s narration of the same conference in ‘Bush At War’.

Example: Bush’s book: At a National Security Council meeting the next morning, I said, ‘just want to make sure that all of us did agree to this plan, right?’ I went around the table and asked every member of the room.

Woodward’s book: The next morning, Bush arrived at the White House Situation Room for the NSC meeting…’I just want to make sure that all of us did agree to this plan, right?’ [Bush] said.

It is indubitable from additional examples of Grimm that Bush could have depended on other persons’ books for direct citations of some conversations. Gen. Tommy Franks’ remembrance, for example, of one conference of the national security team consisted of quotes from both Bush and Franks that are replicated verbatim in Decision Points. It appears that, while composing the book, Bush’s canvassers corroborated the citations against Franks’ book and fine-tuned them to match, obviously supposing that Franks’ version was precise.

However, the legion of supporters of Bush will state that the narrative in his book is distinctly that of Bush himself.