Mark Crispin Miller: The Bush Dyslexicon

By GILBERT WONG

For a while it was easy to take cheap shots at George "Dubya" Bush, but then he got into the White House and fired up Star Wars. The Russians are the most nervous they have been since Yeltsin took power and whatever you do, don't mention the word spy plane to the Chinese.

Miller's point is that in deconstructing the Bushisms, we can know what lies at the heart of the most powerful man in the world. Rather than easy soundbites he takes the trouble to run whole interviews, giving context and taking due care to not reduce his message to a series of silly gaffes.

Bush might well be a bumbler with a third-rate education and a loose grasp of global politics. But as this book points out, we should not let his good ol' boy charm distract the public from the real issues. We have to remember where he comes from. As he told a dinner honouring him in New York, "This is an impressive crowd, the haves, and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base."

Bantam

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