Tell you about him, what would you say . James i would say he was a guy who was the son of a president , had trouble dealing with that fact for the first 40 yearsplus of his life and then got his own personal life together enough to be a quite successful and shrewd politician to be elected governor of texas, and then became president of the united states. The first thing he would be known for then at the time of his presidency now and forever more will certainly be the fact that he was president at the time of the september 11th attacks and chose to wage a war in iraq that turned out to be a disaster. Brian what were his early years like . James well, he followed in his fathers footsteps and i say that quite literally, because he was forced almost to go to prep school at andover. He went to yale. He did many of the things his father did. It really in his mind, i think, it was not him. He once said many years later there were differences between him and his father starting with the fact that he went to Sam Houston Elementary School and his father went to Greenwich Country Day School in connecticut. He grew up in texas where his father had not and he identified with and i think took comfort in the idea, the image of himself as a texas good old boy, and he became very good at playing that role. Brian how about his schooling . James well, so, he went to texas schools until eighth grade and then his parents sent him to prep school at andover. And by his own account, i think he said many years later that making the transition to andover was the hardest he ever did in his life until he ran for president. He didnt like it there. There are painful, funny stories of him writing his First High School essay in his first weeks there and he took out the thesaurus that his mother had given him, because he didnt want to use the word tears so he wrote the word lacerates as in the lacerates were running down my cheek. I mean, he just didnt like it there and he reacted by becoming kind of the fun guy in the class. There are pictures of him as a cheerleader. There are pictures of him as a cheerleader dressed up as a woman leading the taunts. He was the goto guy for fun. Thats at andover and then that very much continues at yale where he is the head of a fraternity, delta kappa epsilon. He is the guy who organizes the toga parties. The first time george w. Bushs name ever appears in the new york times, i found, was to defend his fraternity from something, it may have been his hazing practices, i forget what it was. But he was the spokesman for the old Fraternity Life at a time, and this is the context, when yale itself was changing. There were certainly fraternities and parties there and there were certainly lots of other students at yale traditionally who were the sons of former yale people. Yale was gradually becoming in the early 60s a meritocracy, like many other schools like yale. People were admitted on the basis of their test scores and so on. It was becoming a more intense place. The faculty were more professional than the old genteel faculty in the past. And he didnt like it. He developed such an antipathy to yale that he went even three years into his presidency before he was willing to come back to the campus. I mean, he did not give and he didnt like it. He eventually during his presidency made a kind of peace with it, but it took a long time coming. Brian when did he apply to law school and why wasnt he accepted . James a couple of years after he when bush left yale, he lived a kind of singles life down in texas. His father his parents actually left texas in the early 1970s. First, they went to china. Well, they went to the United Nations and then they went to china, but they werent around. Bush lived in a singles apartment. He went into the Texas National guard. Theres more of a story to that because, he, like the sons of other texas politicians, went into a special Texas National guard unit that was really for politicians sons and members or members of the dallas cowboys. And this is during the vietnam war. It meant that he really didnt have to fight. And there have been disputes going back decades about how much pull was used. I found in researching the book that no one has ever found his father, george h. W. Bush, intervening or making calls to get him out of the guard, but friends of his father and texas political leaders did so. James where did he apply for law school and, again, why wasnt he accepted . Brian where did he apply for law school and, again, why wasnt he accepted . James im having trouble remembering that. Maybe, its probably in my own book but i cant remember now. Brian i thought it might be texas, university of texas. James thats correct. Bush at first when he was applying for college actually, kind of asked to go to austin and see the university of texas. And it might have been a wish, but he ended up at yale. And then youre right, when he tried to go to law school or thought about applying to law school and he applied to texas at austin. Brian do you know why they didnt accept him . James i do not at this point. Brian you point out in your book that there are two words to describe his change in life. One of them is drinking and the other is religion. Explain that. James these come together in the mid1980s, and in the period of 1985 and 1986, first lets talk about what happened and then whats in the background. As far as drinking, in 1986 he celebrates his 40th birthday with friends. Hes off in colorado at the broadmoor hotel. He stays up late drinking with his friends. He wakes up with a terrible hangover. And hes had a drinking problem. He sometimes describes it that way, sometimes not, for a good while. Hes also been arrested for driving under the influence. This has been a chronic problem. He wakes up the day after and says thats it, im not going to drink, and he doesnt. He gives up drinking. The second thing that happens is that he develops, he becomes an evangelical christian, and during this same period begins to turn to religion regularly. Now, theres, in my view, an interesting political component to this which is that both of these things happened within a couple of years after his father decides to run for president. So, the sequence is that in 1984 Ronald Reagan wins reelection. Hes obviously not able to run again in 1988. George h. W. Bush is his Vice President. And in april of 1985, his father calls the entire bush family together in a meeting at camp david and he brings out lee atwater, now sort of now famous political consultant, scoundrel, great political tactician. And he says this is lee atwater. And lee atwater addresses everybody and says i think its atwater himself warns people, your father is going to be running for president , you got to be careful. Anything any member of the family does could come back to hurt him. And george jr. , that is george w. Bush, and jeb are very mistrustful of atwater. They pull him aside and they say how do we know we can trust you . They asked that question because atwater is a political consultant, some of his partners are consulting for a rival politician, jack kemp. And atwater keep swearing and finally keeps swearing he will and jeb bush says what we mean is, if someone throws a grenade at our father, will you jump on it . So, they were mistrustful of this consultant but hes telling them stay clean. And in the middle of these bush thisorge w. Is only a year before he decides to give up drinking altogether. And so, thats the background on drinking. Hes had these warnings. He doesnt want to get into trouble. As far as religion, now i dont want to im not going to say if someones religion has a political component to it in its origins. But i will say that as soon as george w. Bush becomes an evangelical christian, he becomes the liaison for his fathers president ial campaign with the evangelical christians. Its a role he plays throughout the 1988 campaign and up to and through the 92 campaign. Brian how often did he run for office before he ran for governor of texas and in the mix of all that, when did he meet laura welch and marry her . James first, he ran for office once before his Texas Gubernatorial Campaign and that was in the late 70s. He ran in 1978 for a seat in congress and he lost. He lost to a guy named kent hance. Its interesting in light of what we later know and think of george w. Bush that in that campaign, his opponent, hance, attacked him for being this east coast preppy guy from out of town who couldnt possibly know texas well. So, he portrayed george w. Bush almost like his father. And bush began to develop responses to this, i mean, bush definitely, one thing that i think many people agree is he had a good sense of humor. Finally, when he got tired of being attacked, hance at one point said weve got a candidate who was born in new haven, connecticut and hes an outsider, and bush said i was born in new haven, connecticut because i wanted to be with my mother that day. [laughter] brian what about laura . James he married laura in the late 70s. Brian he met her where and under what circumstances . Es oh, he met her at friends arranged to get them together at a barbecue. They were in midland and she was a local librarian. I found, its interesting to me that even his choice of a spouse reflected this kind of antielite, i mean, he chose someone from texas, not someone from the social set of his parents. And, in fact, if you read laura bushs memoir closely, she says quite gently, it took me about 10 years to be comfortable with barbara bush. Barbara had an acid tongue and laura is quite the reverse. Brian what was your assignment these are small books, under 200 pages, theyve done them on all president s. James yes. I joke to my friends that the assignment is if you write more than 50,000 words, well cut off your arm. [laughter] brian what was your assignment and what did they want you to come up with and who did it . James who did the book . Brian yes. James the book, like all of the others in the series, is published by henry holt. Its called the american president s series. And they want you to briefly discuss the background of president s, then cover their presidency and briefly their life after their presidency. And, in fact, the fine editor if this book, paul golub, at first asked me for an outline before i started writing and i turned it in and there were eight chapters and two were getting him into the presidency and the last one was postpresident ial life. And he laughed and said yes, you hit on it, thats what all of these books are with one exception, and that one exception to divert in history for a minute is William Henry harrison who was president for only 30some days before he got a cold and died. And paul laughed and said, in that book the epilogue was the presidency. [laughter] brian what is your background and what are you doing now . James i am by profession a journalist. I spent more than 30 years of my career in journalism. Actually, this is now the 50th anniversary of the day when i decided that i wanted to be a journalist. I was about to go to medical school and i asked for a leave of absence, and 50 years ago this week, i believe, i was granted a years leave of absence from medical school. I went off and i started at a small newspaper, not a very good one, in new haven, connecticut and i never had so much fun in my life. And so, i may have taken another year of leave, i dont even remember now, but the minute i started, i liked newspapers and never went back. I worked for, over the next couple of decades the new haven paper briefly and for the Washington Post for three or four years, and eventually was that the Los Angeles Times for over 20 years both in washington and overseas. Brian and youre doing what now . James so, since then, ive been writing books full time. I did that first at a washington think tank called center for strategic and International Studies. I wrote a book that covers the george w. Bush administration called rise of the falcons. And i moved in 2004 to Johns Hopkins school of advanced International Studies and have written books there since. Brian so, here are some videos, very brief, from 1988. George w. Bush is here in this town working for his father in april of 1988. Its a short interview that we did with him. I just wanted you to hear him talk about texas. [video clip] its a state that encourages growth and its a state that has got a certain sense of pride to it that i like. I just happen to think that texas has got problems, although its growing out of them, but the opportunities in that state are just enormous and im a person whos always seeking opportunity. Brian that was 1988. What was george w. Bush doing during the campaign and what do you think he was thinking at that point about his own future in politics . James very interesting question. Thats a continuation of the story i told about lee atwater and mistrusting him, because george w. Bush at that point, he kind of was out of the oil business. He was relatively free. And when he expressed some mistrust to atwater about how his Fathers Campaign would be run, atwater said if you dont trust me, why dont you, he said to george and jeb, one of you can come to washington and work alongside me, watch me every day. And george w. Bush did. And so, he went and worked alongside lee atwater for over a year. So, he actually moved to washington and helped. And his role in the campaign, his first role he called it was loyalty enforcer. So, with all these politicians and political figures running around, he was the guy watching out for his fathers interests. Im sure atwater was, too, but he wanted to double check. His own ambitions, i think, i became convinced and wrote that he had his own ambitions at the time and so to move ahead for a second, in 92 after his father lost, hes running for governor of texas. Everybody says that he developed his ambitions after his father lost. No. I think he held his ambition in check while his father was president. In fact, barbara at one point discouraged george jr. From running for governor of texas in 1990 because she thought it wasnt a good idea while george bush sr. Was president. Anything that one of them did could reflect on the other. Brian how difficult was it for him to get elected governor of texas . James the best line on that came from his father, george h. W. Bush. He wasnt always full great quips, but said that for george w. Bush to get elected to president after he was governor of texas was like a sixinch putt. It was harder for him to be elected governor. There was a very popular, wellremembered now democratic governor, ann richards. She was the one who said of george h. W. Bush that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. And richards was quite popular, but bush jr. , george w. , ran hard against her. He had a very good political advisor, good at politics, karl rove, and together they worked out the strategy to be in to beat her. And one of the tactics that they had which people saw when he was president , was incredible message discipline. This was one of the characteristics of bush as a politician. He would never have particularly penetrating or very long answers, but he would develop a handful one sentence, two sentences, three sentences and deliver them over and over. And years later, ann richards said in frustration, she meant this as a political compliment, but she said if you ask george bush the time of day during that campaign, he would say we must teach our children to read. He would give the same response to everything. Brian how did he get elected president . James how . [laughter] lets talk about his political tactics and successes. He learned from his fathers loss in 1992. He developed what he felt were strategies to win where his father lost and, too, he noticed his fathers errors. So, he needed to bring together within the Republican Party three different constituencies. One of them is the traditional republican conservative constituency, the Old Country Club constituencies, the people who wanted their taxes cut. Lesson number two was dont raise taxes. Thats what his father did. He needed to develop much better support from evangelical christians than his father had, and he needed support from the hawks or the neoconservatives, but that was an important faction in the party. And all of those wings of the party needed to give strong support to the republican candidate. People forget now, for example, but the evangelicals were not always a solid, a constituency in the Republican Party. In fact, they had supported Democratic Candidates for many decades. Richard nixon made some inroads getting some evangelical support. They ran back to jimmy carter, a Southern Baptist democrat. Reagan developed much more support from evangelicals. And then his father lost that kind of support. Bush worked both for his father and then for himself to bring evangelicals into the Republican Party. So, that was one part of his political tasks that he succeeded in. As far as what i call the hawks of the Foreign Policy, the neoconservatives, hard for people to remember now, but in the 1992 campaign, they tended to support bill clinton. They were so unhappy with his father. This had to do with the fact that his father supported gorbachev, that he supported the breakup of the soviet union, didnt support an independent ukraine for a long time, a lot of other things. And bill clinton supported the neoconservatives. Some of them went to work for him. Bush jr. Goes to work and develops their support as well. So, he pulls together all the wings of the Republican Party and then he campaigns, he has no trouble winning at all, winning the republican nomination. And then running against al gore, he runs against bill clinton and the lewinsky scandal. I am going to bring george w. Bush says im going to bring honor and dignity to the white house. And after all that, we talk about all these great political stratagems, after all that, it was enough not to win a majority of the country. It is enough only to produce a deadlock in the Electoral College and a Long Supreme Court battle. So, it wasnt as though it was some overwhelming victory, it wasnt at all. As you look back on the bush v. Gore