I want you all to buy the book Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President by J.H. Hatfield. I bought and read this book while on vacation last week. It is a biography of our current president. It is well-researched (50 pages of bibliographic notes), well-written, and even treats its subject somewhat sympathetically. The author is an accomplished biographer, and skillfully handles the potentially cumbersome task of making the book thorough yet interesting. There are some editing glitches, but I find typos in almost every book I read.

Originally published in 2000, Fortunate Son was pulled from the shelves within a week of publication, and the copies were quite literally burned. The publisher, St. Martin's Press, retracted the book when it was discovered that the author had committed a felony earlier in life, a crime quite unrelated to the book or its contents. The author should not have committed the felony, and should perhaps have been more candid about the fact that he did. But the publisher should not have retracted the book. Save for the fact that the author has (rightfully!) respected the wishes of certain of his sources to remain anonymous, at no point has anybody called his journalism into question, only his background. In the introduction to the new edition, he explains his crime in detail, so I'll let you get the dirt yourselves.

The book has now been republished by a less prestigious house: Soft Skull Press. I bought my copy at our almost-locally owned bookseller Pages for All Ages. Likely it is also stocked at Borders, Barnes and Noble, or whatever major corporate bookseller you find the least reprehensible.

On the book's last page, the author is warned (and not for the first time) by one of his anonymous sources: "Be careful and watch your back every step of the way... I think I would be amiss if I didn't remind you that George's old man was once director of the CIA.... Besides, W.'s raised almost a staggering sixty million dollars for his White House run in only a matter of a few months and his corporate sponsors and GOP fat cats aren't going to roll over and play dead when  you expose the truth about their investment."

The author was found dead about a month ago, having reportedly committed suicide by drug overdose. I found this out from Publishers Weekly - a news source concerned only with publishing - but I believe there has been no investigation of possible foul play.

How mysterious. And what a convenient coincidence for Bush.

And the reason I want you to buy it (as opposed to borrowing or stealing it) is because its current publisher, Soft Skull Press, has just announced that it is folding due to financial reasons. What a convenient coincidence for Bush. Golly, I guess this book is just bad luck. I think it's worth the cover price to help out the publisher and to get as many copies into Urbana as possible before the book disappears forever.

My fantasies of expatriation have never been so vivid. As far as I'm concerned, the tax cut is infuriating, drilling for oil in Alaska is infuriating, but the repression of this book is terrifying. It's easy to take our freedom to criticize the government for granted. After all, authors who criticize the ruling elite are discredited and ignored, but never tortured or killed, at least not in *North* America.  As I have become fond of saying, actual book burnings are rare.

Cut the publisher a check (www.softskull.com), read this book, and learn what we're up against. Nader was wrong: there *is* a difference between Bore and Gush. If you're poor, black, pregnant, or on death row, there is a significant difference.

Admittedly, reading this book did not change my feelings about Bush, but now I can articulate in encyclopedic detail why I think he is a criminal, a stooge, a bigot, a liar, and a bastard. [And, above all, an old spoiled rich boy, who will never have to suffer the consequences of his failures, be they bad grades, failed businesses, lousy governmental policies, or drug charges.] Yes, W. is a puppet for the super-rich, but make no mistake: he is not so stupid as to be without agency altogether.

To put it more sympathetically: as a person, W.'s central failure has been his failure not to follow in his father's footsteps.