From
http://www.gnn.tv/articles/article.php?id=761, Russ Baker details the results of his interviews with Mickey Herskowitz, a journalist for the Houston Chronicle and highly published auto-biographer.
Herskovitz had been hired by Bush's team to assist in ghost-writing an auto-biographical book about Bush's first presidential campaign.
QUOTE
In 1999, Herskowitz struck a deal with the campaign of George W. Bush about a ghost-written autobiography, which was ultimately titled A Charge to Keep : My Journey to the White House, and he and Bush signed a contract in which the two would split the proceeds. The publisher was William Morrow. Herskowitz was given unimpeded access to Bush, and the two met approximately 20 times so Bush could share his thoughts. Herskowitz began working on the book in May, 1999, and says that within two months he had completed and submitted some 10 chapters, with a remaining 4-6 chapters still on his computer. Herskowitz was replaced as Bush’s ghostwriter after Bush’s handlers concluded that the candidate’s views and life experiences were not being cast in a sufficiently positive light.
In his review, several very damaging statements are made about the current president, including this regarding Bush's plans for Iraq:
QUOTE
“He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. “It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade….if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.”
And this might explain his aversion to the "mistake" question:
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“He told me that as a leader, you can never admit to a mistake,” Herskowitz said. “That was one of the keys to being a leader.”
Eventually, the contract with Herskowitz was terminated over "language issues":
QUOTE
In 1999, when Herskowitz turned in his chapters for Charge to Keep, Bush’s staff expressed displeasure —often over Herskowitz’s use of language provided by Bush himself. In a chapter on the oil business, Herskowitz included Bush’s own words to describe the Texan’s unprofitable business ventures, writing: “the companies were floundering”. “I got a call from one of the campaign lawyers, he was kind of angry, and he said, ‘You’ve got some wrong information.’ I didn’t bother to say, ‘Well you know where it came from.’ [The lawyer] said, ‘We do not consider that the governor struggled or floundered in the oil business. We consider him a successful oilman who started up at least two new businesses.’ ”
On an interesting note, Karen Hughes was assigned to write the book after Herskovitz.
Questions for debate:
1) Given that this article likely won't get legs in the national media before the election, if the American People knew Bush had planned on invading Iraq long before 9/11, would that have affected their support of the war? Of the President?
2) Does this article lend any credence to the case that Iraq was invaded for political reasons vs. being a genuine part of the War on Terror?Doc
edit: Fixed formatting