Posted on 05/10/2004 12:06:38 PM PDT by publius1
Just got the book, but I read the first chapter and want to recommend it to my colleague Freepers. I read "Plan of Attack," which is okay, well reported but badly written. By contrast, I've finished Sammons' first Chapter--"Rise of the Bush-Haters"--and it's terrific: well-written, well-conceived, exciting (which "Plan of Attack" never was).
Not just thumbs up on this--my whole hand!
One interesting fact--W's grandfather, Prescott Bush, helped Bill Paley raise money to buy CBS in 1932. Of course, it was CBS Radio back then. That might be Prescott's biggest mistake of his life considering how CBS is treating his grandson.
I just started reading "Misunderestimated" tonight. Read the first and second chapters. Sammon got me hooked in the first paragraph. The first chapter was exciting and infuriating. I don't remember this event being reported in the news. It's shocking and very disturbing that the SS almost lost control of that mob of violent morons.
Bill's books are always well done. I've been looking for it but haven't run across it. Guess I'll have to break down and actually go to a book store ;o)
I strongly agree!
Sammon was interviewed tonight by Britt Hume who also mentioned that first chapter.It concerns a presidential visit to Portland during the 2002 election year during which there was a quite frightening attack on the presidential motorcade, the Portland police, and guests to a Republican fundraiser. Here is a small part:
A thousand angry demonstrators -- maybe more -- were rampaging through the streets of Portland, Oregon utterly overwhelming the meagre contingent of police trying to restore order. The motorcade was headed directly into a melee so chaotic that the Secret Service could no longer guarantee the president's safety. Indeed, three minutes before Bush's limousine was supposed to make a final approach to the hotel, police lost control of Taylor Street altogether. They radioed the Secret Service, frantically directing the motorcade to a secondary route. Furious, the agents swung the president south and tried another approach. But the sophisticated protestors, using scouts with cell phones, got wind of Plan B. They rushed to head off Bush before he could penetrate the barricades surrounding the Hilton. Street cops joined in the footrace, hoping to prevent a calamity at Sixth Avenue. . . . They were seething with hatred-- there's no other word for it. Bush could see it in their contorted faces as they lunged toward the limousine, shrieking at the top of their lungs and extending their middle fingers.
It gets far more intense as the chapter progresses
...when leading journalists first learned that the president wasn't personally poring over their articles, they were crestfallen.
"I hear you don't pay attention to the press", one of them said to the president at the ranch on another occasion.
"Not really," Bush replied.
"Why?" the reporter asked.
"Well, because sometimes your opinion matters to me and sometimes it doesn't," the president said.
"Well, how do you know what the people think?" the reporter persisted.
"People don't make up their mind based upon what you write," Bush replied.
Dismissing the press as an institution of questionable relevance had a liberating effect on the president...
I LOVE THIS MAN!!
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