It’s no state secret that Pres. George W. Bush had to go back through transcripts and other White House records to put Decision Points together. How else would you put together an almost-500-page book about your eight-year tenure as president? So I don’t know why the HP is beside itself over the former president having some material similar to other books out there. Yet, ludicrously, the piece they are leading with now seems to accuse the former president of plagiarizing his own memories and quotes.
For example, we are to understand that the former president lifts from Bob Woodward. Never mind that the president was once a Woodward source — that’s the whole point of Woodwarding, getting some inside White House insta-history.
Here is an example of a smoking gun from The Huffington Post:
From Decision Points, p. 148: “One man yelled, ‘Do not let me down!’ Another shouted straight at my face, “Whatever it takes.’”
From Bob Woodward’s Bush At War, p. 68: “‘Whatever it takes,’ they shouted. One pointed to [Bush] as he walked by and yelled out: ‘Don’t let me down.’”
As former Bush deputy press secretary Tony Fratto tweets (directed to the HP piece’s author):
You’re saying 43 “borrowed” his own recollection of his own quote? & do you know how many times Karzai told that story?
I’m sorry, but to anyone who has actually read the book, the accusation that the president was too lazy to write his own memoir (or have his own memories?) will be nothing more than another angry laugh line.