Assessing the historical significance of a presidency barely into its fourth year is a tricky business. At this point in his administration, Wilson was promising to keep us out of European war; Nixon, dazzling the world with his China expedition, was on the path to landslide reelection; Reagan, facing a still-monolithic USSR, was moderating his anti-Soviet rhetoric and calling for “a constructive and realistic working relationship” between the superpowers. Which makes John Podhoretz’s achievement in this new book all the more impressive: His portrait of George W. Bush’s character and his conduct of the presidency is utterly convincing. It draws the breathtaking arc from December 2000, through September 11, 2001, Afghanistan, and Iraq, to the present day—showing how this particular combination of man and moment changed the course of history. And they will have done so, regardless of the outcome of the 2004 election and whatever setbacks occur in succeeding years.
To begin at the beginning: Podhoretz
Comments