Kitty Kelley, bestselling author and celebrity biographer, is no stranger to controversy. Her sordid, tabloid tomes have targeted media icons such as Frank Sinatra, Jackie Kennedy, Nancy Reagan and the British royal family, the latter being so controversial that it was actually banned in the UK.
Kelley's sprawling new book, "The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty," is unfortunately certain to generate a similar frenzy in the upcoming months, not because it is a deep, probing historical inquiry into Bush's past, but because it appeals to the American obsession with scandalous gossip and titillating rumors.
Ironically, the parts of the book focused on George W. are by far the least interesting and center mainly on the same allegations that have already cast a shadow over Bush's political career -- his long-unbridled use of drugs and alcohol, his questionable military record and rumors concerning his infidelity. Significantly more interesting is Kelley's exploration into the political and personal lives of the two preceding Bush patriarchs, George Herbert Walker and his father Prescott.
While Kelley's hatred for George W. is clear, she paints his grandfather Prescott with a brush of underlying admiration. A political moderate who supported civil and reproductive rights, Kelley writes that "unlike his son and later his grandson, Prescott did not sell out on principle for political gains." Prescott, like his grandson, struggled with alcoholism, but overall, he is portrayed as a politically savvy, upright man of notable ingenuity and resolve.
Kelley expresses none of this admiration in her examination of Prescott's middle son, George. She writes, "There is no question that Prescott stood up on the cutting issue of his day, something George would never do ... The rest of his [George's] political career reflected only the most opportunistic stands on racial matters, so unlike his father."
Kelley's goal is to paint the Bush family as a contemporary American aristocracy, and she succeeds in doing so. "To heir is human," she writes, "even more so in the Bush family." Over the course of her intergenerational narrative, Kelley illustrates how each Bush patriarch became increasingly more privileged, increasingly wealthier and increasingly more imperious. The cycle culminates with George W., who she clearly portrays as a child of irrefutable privilege and unspeakable iniquity: "As far as George Herbert Walker Bush had strayed from his father's political principles," Kelly writes, "his firstborn son had begun to stray even further."
The Yale motif serves to shape this portrayal of aristocracy and privilege. Prescott throughout the course of his life, was firmly committed to Yale as both an alumnus and a member of the legendary Skull and Bones Society, a fact which helped him get George W. admitted despite his apparent failure to qualify based on academic merit. Prescott considered Yale an essential right of passage for the Bush males.
Prescott: "George, Yale is not a choice; it is a commitment. Do you know what that means?"
George: "I think so Senator. It means sticking with something no matter what."
Prescott: "It is the difference between ham and eggs. The chicken is involved. The pig is committed."
Kelley's book is full of humorous anecdotes like this one, although there are indubitably more regarding the earlier Bush generations than the later ones. The only humorous anecdotes attributed to George W. seem directed at bringing to the forefront a lack of intellect and an adolescent attitude. While Kelley does not portray any of the early Bush characters as admirable, she does, at least, point out certain commendable characteristics -- Prescott's intelligence and charm and his son's congeniality and energy. Her portrayal of George W., however, reveals only an arrogant, immature prankster of academic and moral inferiority and a heightened sense of entitlement.
Kelley's book will certainly generate a lot of attention in the upcoming weeks as the presidential election looms closer. However, Kelley has done little more than write an expansive tabloid of questionable veracity and little applicability in the contemporary political climate. Her most shocking factoid -- that President Bush did cocaine at the Camp David Accords -- has already been refuted by Kelley's only named source on the matter, Sharon Bush.
Like recent journalistic accounts of dubitable integrity directed at John Kerry, Kelley's book will function as little more than a distraction in the presidential campaign, shifting attention away from Bush's current stance on policy in favor of titillating and salacious gossip. Save your time with what is sure to be this gossipmonger's magnum opus and opt for something with a little more journalistic probity.
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