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Doyle McManus: GWB Plays Defense

[Doyle McManus, Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times, has reported on national and international issues from Washington for more than 25 years. His weekly Op-Ed column delivers original reporting and analysis on a wide range of national issues.]

Spare a moment of sympathy, if you can, for George W. Bush.

The former president has spent much of his life assuming an air of frat-boy insouciance, as if he didn't much care what people said about him.

But it turns out that was largely a pose. Like almost every other modern president, Bush went straight from the White House to the writing desk to turn out a memoir that would — as they always say — "set the record straight."

The book he produced doesn't engage with the political debates of the moment. Rather, as the former president explained in a television interview this week, he's focused on "how history will judge the decisions I made."...
Read entire article at LA Times