Reagan's Disciple: George W. Bush's Troubled Quest for a Presidential Legacy [Hardcover]

Lou Cannon (Author), Carl M. Cannon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 29, 2008

George W. Bush ran for office promising to continue what conservative icon Ronald Reagan started, and two years into his first term, Bush was still being described as "Reagan's son." Today, with the Iraq War spinning out of control and the Democrats in charge of Congress, Republicans and the conservative movement have all but abandoned George W. Bush. What happened? Did Bush change, or did his party's perceptions? Has the war and Bush's performance on other issues derailed the larger goals of the Reagan Revolution— and even undermined its foundations? Or does the nation remain on a conservative path despite Bush's low standing with his fellow Americans?

In Reagan's Disciple, two widely respected reporter/ historians provide an authoritative and concise investigation into these issues. They describe the essence of the 40th and the 43rd presidencies, and compare them to shed new light on the history of the past three decades. They show both how extraordinary a leader Reagan was, and how preposterous the expectations for Bush were from the beginning. As Americans look toward choosing a new leader in 2008, Reagan's Disciple will serve as an instructive tale for Republicans, Democrats, and independents alike.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Reagan's Disciple is the ideal antidote for the superficial and imitative analysis that seems to dominate the coverage of George W. Bush. For those looking for a deeper and fairer understanding of the strengths and flaws of his presidency, and for penetrating observations about Ronald Reagan's enduring influence on this country, this is the book to read." -- U.S. Senator John McCain

"A fascinating and timely comparison of two important--and very different--U.S. presidents, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, by two of the nation's top political reporters. Lou Cannon, Reagan's preeminent biographer, and his son, Carl M. Cannon, compare their philosophies, actions, and personalities. By March 2003, the authors tell us, George Bush was `No longer Reagan's disciple, he was his own man--for better or worse.'" -- Martin Anderson and Annelise Anderson, fellows at the Hoover Institution and co-editor of Reagan, In His Own Hand and Reagan: A Life in Letters

"As George Bush's presidency draws to a close, biographers are scrambling to capture its essence between hard covers. Few will do as good a job as Lou and Carl Cannon. The Cannons are canny, diligent reporters steeped in American politics. Mr. Cannon senior has written five books about Ronald Reagan. Carl, his son, was until recently the White House correspondent for the National Journal, a weekly magazine for Washington insiders. In "Reagan's Disciple", they have produced as subtle an account of the past seven years as you could wish for." -- Economist, February 28, 2008

"Did George W. Bush ratify or derail the Reagan revolution? No two people are better placed to answer this important question than Lou and Carl M. Cannon. They do so with elegance and conviction in this fascinating book." -- Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Dean of the Kennedy School of Government and author of Soft Power

"Disciple is packed with backroom stories and insider details that political junkies will lap up." -- Rocky Mountain News , February 29, 2008

"If you want to understand the long political shadow President Ronald Reagan has cast over the Bush administration, this is the book for you. The Cannons have written a deeply informative and lucid analysis of how Reagan's freedom-tinged Cold War policies have influenced post-9/11 decision making. A truly important and wise book." -- Douglas Brinkley, professor of History and Baker Institute Fellow at Rice University, and editor of The Reagan Diaries

"Lou and Carl, as usual, get it right. Uncommon anecdotes, insights, and analysis that catalogue why one president soared--and one didn't. They tell it like it was, and like it is." -- Kenneth M. Duberstein, former Reagan White House chief of staff

"The Cannons write well and...deliver splendid passages full of fresh insights. Along the way, even the politically attentive will learn some interesting new facts. For me, they included the fact that the bomb that leveled the US Marine encampment in Lebanon in 1983, killing hundreds, was at the time the largest nonnuclear explosion ever detonated. And my favorite fact of all: that the Los Angeles County Democratic Central Committee rejected Ronald Reagan as a candidate for Congress in 1952 because he was too liberal. That's just one of many seismic political shifts you'll find chronicled in these pages." -- Christian Science Monitor, March 4, 2008

"The Cannons...are reporters, not bloggers. Their tone is dispassionate. Their prose is measured, with nary a pejorative adjective. They are devoted to "analysis based on facts and historical context," and that is precisely the strength of this book, which interweaves the Reagan and Bush narratives (the father covered Reagan for The Washington Post; the son covered Bush for the National Journal) and arrives at judicious findings based on the weight of the evidence." -- Washington Post Book World, March 9, 2008

"[A] sharp and discriminating account." -- New York Times Book Review, March 2, 2008

About the Author

Carl M. Cannon is the White House correspondent for National Journal, the author of The Pursuit of Happiness in Times of War, and co-author of Boy Genius: Karl Rove, The Architect of George W. Bush's Remarkable Political Triumphs. He lives in Washington, D.C. Lou Cannon covered Ronald Reagan for thirty-six years, first as a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, later as The Washington Post White House correspondent. The author of five other books on Reagan including President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime, he lives in Summerland, California.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: PublicAffairs; 1 edition (January 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1586484486
• ISBN-13: 978-1586484484
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,336,582 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Gipper's mantle doesn't fit on his self-proclaimed heir, March 23, 2008

By 

Andrew S. Rogers (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Reagan's Disciple: George W. Bush's Troubled Quest for a Presidential Legacy (Hardcover)

Lou Cannon, journalist and historian, is one of Ronald Reagan's most prolific and reliable biographers (I think his President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime is still about the best bio yet written of our 40th president). Carl M. Cannon is a resourceful and clear-eyed reporter in the Washington of Bush 43. Together, they have produced an interesting book that gives us some valuable insights into the motivations and actions of the Bush presidency. It also, perhaps unexpectedly, shines a fascinating light on Ronald Reagan.

For years -- before, during, and after his time in the Oval Office -- Ronald Reagan was portrayed by his opposition as a dim ideological cowboy. In recent years, however, he has been granted a Strange New Respect (as R.E. Tyrrell might put it) by the Left -- in part, no doubt, to try to seize a bit of his own still-strong popularity with the American people for their own purposes, but also to use as a cudgel with which to beat the new, dimmer ideological cowboy, George W. Bush. To use the inevitable cliché -- so inevitable that even the Washington Post Book World review quoted on this page made use of it -- "George W. Bush, you're no Ronald Reagan."

It's one of the many paradoxical features of today's political scene that it's now the Left who sees in Ronald Reagan a nuanced, deliberative statesman, while the Right (or at least the neocon, Bushian right) honors a one-dimensional, caricatured memory of who Reagan was and what he believed. One of the most valuable parts of "Reagan's Disciple," I thought, was the Cannons' accurate portrayal of Reagan as a leader far more practical, realistic, and conciliatory than ideological; far less willing to put American lives on the line or rely on military muscle than anyone thought; and far more willing to draw on a broad range of advisers and opinions than is his ostensible philosophical heir, President Bush.

I found the most interesting parts of "Reagan's Disciple" to be the comparison of the two presidents' approach to warmaking. But the authors also discuss in some detail Supreme Court confirmation battles, the politics of White House personnel decisions, and what it means to be a "decisive" leader. There's also an interesting exploration of the validity of George W. Bush's current preferred presidential comparison, himself with Harry Truman: scorned and unpopular when he left office, but ultimately vindicated by history and honored in the memory of the American people. The Cannons find this comparison also ... imprecise.

As this primary season has shown, Ronald Reagan is still a touchstone of Republican politics. As the Cannons and other historians have noted, if all the presidents since 1945 operated in the shadow of FDR, the presidents since 1989 have operated in the shadow of Ronald Reagan -- a shadow that seems likely to stretch, like a movie gunslinger's at sunset, for a considerable time yet. With George W. Bush having so explicitly claimed the Reaganite mantle, a book like "Reagan's Disciple" was both necessary and inevitable. That it was done so well, and by two writers so well-qualified to draw conclusions, is something to be thankful for. With so many books written about the Bush presidency, from so many different directions and viewpoints, how can you tell which ones are worth reading? Here's my helpful hint: this is one of the good ones.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars George Bush's role of a lifetime, March 28, 2008

By 

Jon Hunt "musician, teacher" (Old Greenwich, Ct. USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Reagan's Disciple: George W. Bush's Troubled Quest for a Presidential Legacy (Hardcover)

Lou Cannon, author of several books about Ronald Reagan, has co-written "Reagan's Disciple", with his son Carl. A highly insightful, yet somewhat uneven book, it nonetheless makes some great comparisons between our nation's fortieth and forty-third presidents. Guess which one fares less well?

The authors state in the preface that this is a book with "a fair and balanced point of view". In many respects it is, but it's hard not to notice (at least with the elder Cannon) a sense of awe regarding his subject. Granted, Reagan's star has been rising in past years and the Cannons take full measure of it. That legacy is still in dispute with many of us, but this offering certainly makes Bush look inadequate in contrast. If Reagan brought the Republican party into unanimity a generation ago, Bush has almost singlehandedly squandered it, as the authors point out.

Much of "Reagan's Disciple" deals with war, beginning with a look at Woodrow Wilson's idealism, and subsequently how Reagan and Bush looked at war differently. Reagan, ever cautious about foreign entanglements, would almost certainly not have invaded Iraq as Bush did, much to everyone's chagrin today. The narrative of the Cannons is crisp but the subject matter tends to bounce around leaving a less than unifying story line. Yet the contrasting style of Reagan and Bush is the most fascinating part of the book and the authors tell this one well. While Reagan sought broad consensus and a balanced view, Bush has retained a small coterie of yes-men with hardly divergent views.

As we reach the end of the tragic Bush years, "Reagan's Disciple" is a reminder of the bookends of the Republican domination since 1980. The "Morning in America" brand of Ronald Reagan has been wiped clean by the miasma of the past several years. As the authors rightly suggest, when Bush comes on tv people either change the channel or put on the mute button...Americans stopped listening to him a long time ago. People will invoke Reagan's name for years to come, but Bush's legacy, undoubtedly, will be something quite different.

1 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Talk About Dramatic Irony..., January 19, 2010

By 

Joe - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reagan's Disciple: George W. Bush's Troubled Quest for a Presidential Legacy (Hardcover)

I haven't read this book and don't intend to. I'm only writing this because these two nitwits clearly haven't a clue what Regan thought of George W. Bush. There is quote from the Regan Library archives in which Ronald Regan mentions George Senior asking the then President to find a job for his son (George W.) and Regan's personal thoughts, written in his diary, was nothing short of George W. Bush as a "Ner' do well son" of Bush senior and in fact Regan considered the "boy" as not too bright and possibly being able to "work in the mailroom"!

Ronald Regan would have rolled in his grave had he seen what little Bush did to this country. To even allow that jackass' image to grace the cover of a book with a man that history is proving at the very least, to be one of the most couragious leader's of our modern time is a pure disgrace! Bush is a far cry from Regan's disciple and wasn't even allowed in the oval office when Regan was President!

What is it that makes these Yahoos an authority on Regan? These two bumbling idiots should put down their crayons and actually visit the Regan Library, it's quite remarkable, as it what Regan did for our country to end the Cold War and squash Communism.