First Son: George W. Bush and the Bush Family Dynasty (Hardcover)

by Bill Minutaglio (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
The first of several Y2K biographies on Texas governor George W. Bush offers an in-depth look at both the Republican presidential candidate and his political family: Bill Minutaglio interviewed more than 300 people for First Son, including Bush and many members of his inner circle. The book focuses on the life of "Dubya" (the nickname used by the press and others to distinguish him from his father) and includes a combination of original material and information that has been reported elsewhere. It is neither pro- nor anti-Bush, simply reportorial and largely nonjudgmental. Readers won't find an answer to one of the season's most burning questions: Has Bush ever used illegal drugs? In a preface, Minutaglio piously says he won't stoop to such low levels. Yet one gets the sense that he won't go there because he doesn't have any hard evidence, as stories of Bush's heavy drinking are related without apparent reservation. Minutaglio, a writer for The Dallas Morning News, spends most of his time describing Bush's amazing and unexpected rise to fame. Dubya's own family, for instance, thought that younger brother Jeb would be the first to win an important public office. Yet Dubya exploited his family ties and personal charisma to have a successful business career in the 1980s and then beat a popular incumbent in 1994 to become Texas governor. (Jeb became governor of Florida in 1998, while his brother won a second term in Austin.) Minutaglio's narrative goes light on Bush's gubernatorial record and ends before his formal entry into the presidential race in 1999. Readers hungry for an overview of the man who would be president, however, could do much worse than start by looking here. --John J. Miller

From Publishers Weekly
How did George W. Bush, "the turbulent cosmos inside every family gathering in Maine," rein in his impulsiveness and his temper, his resentment and his considerable wild side, to become the smiling prophet of "compassionate conservatism," two-term governor of Texas and current front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination? In a detailed but poorly organized biography, Minutaglio, a reporter at the Dallas Morning News, delves sympathetically into the blessings and disadvantages that George "Dubya" experienced growing up as the grandson of the formidable Connecticut senator Prescott Bush and as the son of the 41st president of the United States. Bush's youth was not normal: President Nixon once ordered a military plane to pick up Bush for a date with his daughter. Minutaglio presents Bush as a man who has overcome the burdens of crushing expectations and a recurrent identity problem, a man with strong Texas roots, superior political skills and hot emotions. Readers who care about the summer's most popular political question (Did Bush snort cocaine?) won't find an answer here, though Minutaglio is quite candid about the first son's former proclivities for liquor (Bush says he has be