George W. Bush and the Mak­ing of an Amer­i­can Pres­i­dent
by J. H. Hat­field
2001, Soft Skull Press
ISBN 1887128840
383 pages

From the Publisher

Why was this book burned? What is in it that war­rants censure?

Despite a spec­tac­u­lar thrash­ing in pub­lic after For­tu­nate Son was first released by St. Martin’s Press, author J.H. Hat­field has retracted noth­ing. He stands by his three sources that allege Bush was arrested for cocaine pos­ses­sion in 1972. Under­neath heavy fire in the media, the for­mer pub­lisher pan­icked. But as Jenny Lyn Bader points out in The New York Times, “If he’s merely a con­victed felon...that doesn’t pre­clude him from being a suc­cess­ful writer. Indeed, St. Martin’s Press under­es­ti­mates the for­give­ness of the Amer­i­can peo­ple. Peo­ple might not mind a for­mer con­vict writ­ing a book as long as the book is really good.”

For­tu­nate Son was #30 on The New York Times Hard­cover Non­fic­tion Best-Seller list. Reader responses on the web show Amer­i­cans out­raged at this title’s sup­pres­sion: some say­ing that this book has changed their vote, while oth­ers don’t accept that a metic­u­lous, fact-checking biog­ra­pher should be “baby seal-clubbed” with alle­ga­tions about his past.

Soft Skull reprints For­tu­nate Son to allow the vot­ers to judge for them­selves. We hope to prove that democ­racy can still exist despite the pref­er­ences of the privileged.

About the Author
J.H. Hat­field was a syn­di­cated colum­nist, free-lance Texas jour­nal­ist and fre­quent con­trib­u­tor to sev­eral Lone Star State news­pa­pers and mag­a­zines. In addi­tion, for over a decade he was an exec­u­tive offi­cer in a finance and invest­ment Man­age­ment com­pany that on sev­eral occa­sions con­ducted busi­ness with George W. Bush and his associates.

THIS BOOK IS IN PRINT.
Avail­able com­mer­cially. Learn more about J.H. Hat­field.