Fighting back

From Barnes & Noble

In Fighting Back, Washington Times White House correspondent Bill Sammon takes us behind the scenes to show us President George W. Bush facing a new kind of war. Using his access to the president and his closest advisers, Sammon discusses the inner workings of the White House from the first news of the September 11th attacks through the first 100 days of the war on terrorism. That the tone of the book is unabashedly sympathetic to the administration should be no surprise: Sammon authored the bestselling At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election.

Publishers Weekly

George W., this one's for you. In Washington Times correspondent Sammon's inside account of the Bush administration's reaction to 9-11 and the resultant war on terror, readers are tendered a breathless, highly complimentary portrait of the president and an overly simplistic moral tale about the great merit and unwavering moral vision of his inner circle. What could be an extremely interesting if one-sided account is often undercut by Sammon's penchant for editorializing (Bush was "more directly affected than most Americans by the attacks themselves"; Osama bin Laden "giggled" when speaking about the attacks; and the president often "twinkles" when he speaks) and novelizing (Bush "never thought he would be so relieved to see the White House again. He scanned the magnificent curve of the South Portico...He gazed at the Rose Garden"). Nor does Sammon seem to appreciate the irony of quoting some of the president's less eloquent statements, such as: "The role of a president is to seek great objectives for the country, big goals." Sammon, author of the bestselling At Any Cost, largely writes for the converted, so the intended audience for this volume will no doubt love it. Those more skeptical of the government's policies, however, will find his narrative more hagiography than history, and will want to wait for Bob Woodward's forthcoming Bush at War, which covers the same territory from a different angle. (Oct.) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.