Molly Ivins - Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush

Acclaim for Molly Ivins and Lou Duboses

SHRUB

Thank God for Molly Ivins.... That we even know the seamy underside of Bushs career is due to the patient and careful analysis of Ivins, who reports the reality behind the rhetoric.

Newsday

Bush gets a pruning in Shrub there are passages that should elicit a smile from even the staunchest Bush partisan.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A lively, lucid look at a man who may be our next president.

Dallas Morning News

Colorful, popular and very Texan. Ivins and Dubose lay out plenty of well-documented dirt on GWBs career.

Publishers Weekly

Hilarious.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

George W. Bush, or Dubya, gets skillfully skewered by political writer/humorist Ivins in this devastating, funny, and highly informative political biography. Well written, witty, engaging and important.

Library Journal

Themselves Texans, Ivins and Dubose know Bush as welland feel as strongly about himas the rest of us do Bill Clinton. Shrubs claims are convincing and amply reasoned.

The Washington Post Book World

Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose

SHRUB

Molly Ivins column is syndicated to more than two hundred newspapers from Anchorage to Miami, including her home paper, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. A three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, she is the former coeditor of The Texas Observer and the former Rocky Mountain bureau chief for The New York Times. She has a B.A. from Smith College and a masters degree in journalism from Columbia University. Her first book, Molly Ivins Cant Say That, Can She?, spent more than twelve months on the New York Times bestseller list.

Lou Dubose has been active in Texas journalism for seventeen years, as both a newspaper reporter and a freelancer, and has covered the Texas Legislature for the past thirteen years. He has a masters degree in Latin American studies. Since 1987, he has been the editor of The Texas Observer.

ALSO BY MOLLY IVINS

Molly Ivins Cant Say That, Can She?
Nothin but Good Times Ahead
You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You
Bushwhacked

This book is dedicated to The Texas Observer and to all who have sailed in her for forty-seven years. The scrappy little magazine covers Texas politics and social problems under the following flag: We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all interests, to the rights of man as the foundation of democracy; we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. Of course, it has never paid much.

T his book contains no news about the sex life of George W. Bush, nor about the drugs he has ingested, nor about whatever dark psychological demons drive him to seek the presidency of the United States.

No sex, no drugs, no Siggie Freudso why would anyone read it? For one thing, its sort of funny. Because its about Texas politics its funnytheres nothing we can do about that, and its not our fault. Numero two-o, the conventional wisdom, which is often wrong, says George W. Bush is the next Leader of the Free World, an arresting concept. The quality of leaders does change history, even in a world supposedly dominated by economic and technological forces. Just for example, Nelson Mandela and Slobodan Milosevic were elected within a few years of one another, each at a point when the unity of his country hung by a hair. They got different results. Since there appears to be a shortage of young Abe Lincolns about these days, its a mercy America is at no such dire divide.

Young political reporters are always told there are three ways to judge a politician. The first is to look at the record. The second is to look at the record. And third, look at the record.

The method is tried, true, time-tested, and pretty much infallible. In politics, the past is prologue. If a politician is left, right, weak, strong, given to the waffle or the flip-flop, or, as sometimes happens, an able soul who performs well under pressure, all that will be in the record.

So here we are, with a record about property-tax abatement and tort reform, and if thats not a by-God recipe for bestsellerdom, you can cut off our legs and call us Shorty. Cant you see it now, poor ol Random House touting this book: Read all about George W. Bushs thrilling adventures with the school-equalization formula, his amazing reversals on the sales tax, and most exciting of all, his tragic failure to take a stand on the matter of 150 versus 200 percent for the CHIP program.

The political career of W. Bush is a fairly funny yarn, on account of being the son of a former president is not how to put this not actually sufficient job training for the governance of a large state. Fortunately, in Texas, this makes no difference.

Unqualified to govern Texas? No problem! The single most common misconception about George W. is that he has been running a large state for the past six years. Texas has what is known in political science circles as the weak-governor system. You may think this is just a Texas brag, but our weak-governor system is a lot weaker than anybody elses. Although the governor does have the power to call out the militia in case of an Indian uprising, by constitutional arrangement, the governor of Texas is actually the fifth most powerful statewide office: behind lieutenant governor, attorney general, comptroller, and land commissioner but ahead of agriculture commissioner and railroad commissioner. Which is not to say its a piddly office. For one thing, its a bully pulpit. Although truly effective governors are rare in Texas history, a few have made deep impressions and major changes. Besides, people think youre important if youre the governor, and in politics, perception rules. Of course Texans still think their attorney general, the states civil lawyer, has something to do with law enforcement too.

During Bushs first term, the lieutenant governor was a wily old trout named Bob Bullock. By virtue of the constitution and the Senate rules, plus knowing where all the bodies were buried and outworking everyone else, Bullock was the major player in state government. Dubya got along just fine by doing pretty much what Bullock told him to; Bullock became Dubyas mentor, almost a father-son deal. The day Bullock announced his retirement, Bush stood in the back of the room with tears running down his face. Bullock, after a lifetime in the Democratic Party, endorsed Bush for reelection in 1998. Bullock died in June 1999, to mixed emotions from many. At his funeral, one fatuous commentator said of the rainy weather, The skies of Texas are weeping because we bury Bob Bullock today. This caused a state senator to inquire sotto voce, So what did Bullock have on the weather god?

A political record is a flexible creature, and by custom the pol is permitted to burnish his own and to denigrate his opponents. The record is often used to fool voters. You say your man was for a certain bill, but was he for it before the amendments or after the amendments? Did the amendments gut the bill or strengthen it? In the case of an executive, you can say your man favors such-and-such a measure, but if he does nothing to help it passno phone calls, no face-to-face, no threats, no promises, no pleading about how we really, really need to win this one for the Gipper or the greater good; indeed, if the pol quietly lets it be known that no mourning will ensue in his office should the thing die a premature deaththen of what merit is his public statement of support?