A Charge to Keep: My Journey to the White House Book

The political biography, complete with life-altering turning points and apolitical philosophy for leading the United States into greatness, has become obligatory for those running for president--just one more thing to check off the "To Do" list on the way to the Oval Office. A Charge to Keep is George W. Bush's offering: a light and breezy book mixing personal and political remembrances that prove heavy on chatty anecdotes and light on policy prescriptions. If you read the last chapter you'll sort of learn where George W. stands on most things but still not really discern how he would actually run the country. There are no revelations, either personal or political; Bush's wild side and youthful indiscretions, like stealing a Christmas wreath from a New Haven hotel for his Yale fraternity, are touched on lightly to the extent that he discusses them at all. A Charge to Keep is so upbeat and positive that, in describing the Houston woman to whom he was engaged in college and from whom he "gradually drifted apart", Bush says simply, "I still think the world of her and our parting was friendly. We were very young, we lived in different places and we gradually developed different lives."George W. has been labelled a lightweight by some; A Charge to Keep will do nothing to dispel that notion. It features lots of Bush family memories and numerous mentions of George W's famous parents, including letters from his father, the president. George W. has followed closely in his father's footsteps, attending the same prep school and the same college. He even belonged to the same secret society at Yale, Skull and Bones. From college it was on to flight school and the Texas Air National Guard, Harvard Business School and then (again, like his father) the Texas oil business and politics. George W. seems mostly in sync with his father on policy issues as well. "A thousand points of light" is transformed slightly to become "compassionate conservative", which pops up in the final chapter more than ten times. Readers will come away knowing many of the experiences and events that have helped shaped George W. but his future is still an open book. --Linda KillianRead More