What, you may ask, is this doing in the reviews pages of Fortean Times? In an age when a surprising number of people apparently believe that elected leaders are shape-shifting alien reptiles, it comes as a relief to find out that the truth is far, far, worse than that. And “Dubya” Bush’s reign of error has already done so much to stimulate parapolitical research (and good old down-and-dirty conspiracy theorising) that it’s hard for a dedicated researcher to ignore this book, now that it has been published in an English edition.
Fortunate Son is, of course, Hatfield’s withdrawn, sued and suppressed biography that made the NY Times bestseller list. As the blurb to the Vision edition proudly announces: “The entire text has been updated, but no information about Bush has been retracted or expurgated.” Some may see this claim as a bad omen. They will be pleasantly surprised, since Fortunate Son is a reasoned and even scholarly work. It’s certainly thorough: the source notes alone run to over 40 pages of close print.
Disregarding the width, how’s the quality? Fortunate Son opens with a publisher’s note that, referring to Bush’s “war unlike any other”, poses the following series of eyebrow-raising questions:
“• What is the truth about [Bush’s] background? • How did he reach the position he is in today? • Does he have the experience to lead the world’s only superpower? • Is he a man of hidden talents whose support is justified, or is he just an inarticulate opportunist who will soon be found out? • Does he really know what he is doing?”
As Lytton Strachey once said: flippin’ heck.
The first two of these questions occupy much of the book. Since most attention will be focused on the scurrilous details about Bush’s background that Hatfield has uncovered, here’s a random cherry-harvest (you’ll note that the word “allegedly” does not appear once in this list): Yale’s infamous Skull and Bones secret society is honourably covered; there’s the existence of a photograph of a 20-something Dubya dancing naked on a bar (it’s out there somewhere: be afraid); serial promiscuity; alcoholism; insider trading; drunk driving; and a record of executions that makes Clinton’s cynical termination of the brain-damaged Ricky Rector look like beatification material.
Most staggering is the revelation of Bush’s 1972 arrest for cocaine possession, for which (after a bit of crony-calling by his old man) he served one month’s community service, the entire episode being purged from Bush’s record shortly before he ran for president. The passage in which Hatfield rings Scott McLelland (Bush’s campaign spokesman) to raise this little matter is worth the cover price alone: “There was a moment of electric silence, and then McLelland muttered an almost inaudible ‘Oh, shit’, and after hesitating for a moment, finally said, ‘No comment’”. Hatfield’s adventures (with shadowy ‘Deep Throats’ and frightened citizens) are a delight straight out of The Parallax View.
So much for the background: How did Shrub reach his present position? Well, it’s frequently only after taking a break between chapters that the scale of what you’ve learned begins to dawn. You have an upstart whelp who has done little except lose other people’s fortunes while stuffing himself full of intoxicants for the best part of 40 years. He then is persuaded to run for governorship of Texas, by a coterie of moneymen and fixers who figure that he has a useful name.
He is then effectively used as a “windshield mascot” by the engine of interests that drives America’s right-wing political juggernaut – the National Rifle Association, the Christian pressure groups, the banking cartels, the oilmen – who, despising Clinton, want their own candidate in the Oval Office. To this end, Bush’s “Pioneers” side-step statutory limits on campaign contributions, whipping up an unprecedented amount of cash to foist their stuffed shirt of choice onto the nation.
They also play national politics with the future of Florida, pumping money into the gubernatorial campaign of Bush’s brother Jeb. The fact that irregularities in Floridian voting in 2000 turned out to be crucial in Dubya’s seizure of power may, cough, simply be coincidental, cough. A postscript by David Cogswell is less satisfactory than Hatfield’s text, being long on rhetoric and short on details of the Florida fix-up – readers are referred to the first chapter of Michael Moore’s Stupid White Men, or, ahem, to this reviewer’s modest article ‘How to fix an election’ in Lobster 43. But usually, money simply talks: here, in Hatfield’s book, it yells and screams. You always thought they ran things this way? Well, they do.
We are left with a portrait in silhouette: Bush as the embodiment of Peter Sellers’s autistic president Gardener, a man who rose without trace simply by being in the right place at the right time (in Bush’s case, with the right name, too). But, like a damnation scene by Bosch, the real stars of the book are the myriad little devils acting out tableaux wherever you look. One quote tells us more about the situation than we can comfortably live with. Asked about George Bush senior’s membership of the international think-tank the Trilateral Commission, “Junior shot back that he was averse to ‘one world government and one monetary system, and if the Trilateral Commission supports those things, I’m sure my father is a dissenting voice’.” Yes, er, thanks, George.
The final three questions from the publisher’s preface turn out to have answers that lie on a different plane of reference altogether, and simply challenge the reader to assimilate them. “Does he have the experience to lead the world’s only superpower?” Apparently, yes, although this answer is far from reassuring. “Is he a man of hidden talents whose support is justified, or is he just an inarticulate opportunist who will soon be found out?” In fact, he is an inarticulate opportunist and knows it, and this is his “hidden talent”. Finally, the last question – “Does he really know what he is doing?” – is only answerable by another question: “What does he think he’s doing?” Do we know even that?
Conspiracy theorists will be baffled that the truth is at once far more complex and far more mundane than any amount of baroque speculation would suggest; parapolitical researchers will find the book a rich seam of information, leads and insights; and any reader will be first amused, then perplexed, and finally disturbed. As such, this is a book to keep close at hand until 2004. And possibly until 2008.
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