From: Sander Hicks <sander at softskull.com> Sender: softskull at softskull.com
for immediate release 2.11.00
Bush Tactics Fail to intimidate McCain or Soft Skull Press: Soft Skull presents five point plan highlighting new relevance of Fortunate Son.
MEDIA UPDATE: Soft Skull Spokesman Sander Hicks and Author J.H. Hatfield to appear on 60 Minutes 2.13.00 and Fox News' The Edge 2.14.00.
Bush lost by a whopping 18 points in New Hampshire; it's clear that American voters are rethinking their attraction to the man. Bush is now lashing out wildly at John McCain, twisting and attacking the man on veterans rights and push-polling, similar to the way he orginally attacked J.H. Hatfield. But this time, the opponent is too strong, and the media and voters aren't buying in.
60 Minutes will broadcast the story of this book and its republication this Sunday (2/13). Soft Skull does not expect it to be a puff piece, but welcomes it as a critical look at publishing standards today. On 60 Minutes, Hatfield will at last discuss the truth of his crimes in 1988. But Hatfield's criminal past is not directly relevant to the biography that many readers now have found to be balanced, critical and fair.
Soft Skull has never been vulnerable to Bush camp intimidation. We have contextualized the character assassination and the lawsuits that have landed at our doorstep because of our republication of Fortunate Son. While St. Martin's caved in to legal threats and recalled the title last October, Soft Skull counts as frivolous the defamation suit filed in Dallas last week by other rich, powerful Texans.
With Bush in a panicked tailspin, we have the opportunity to reexamine the five points that make Fortunate Son important and timely:
I. Research
J.H. Hatfield clearly does have credibility as an author and a researcher, but only as an unacknowledged feed to mainstream journalists. Joe Conasson and Michael Isikoff used information about the "the Pioneers," Bush's fund-raisers, and Bush's skirting of campaign finance laws in recent feature articles in Harper's and Newsweek. This information was featured in Fortunate Son, and at the time of original publication, rekindled media interest in the subject.
II. Campaign Strategy
Fortunate Son shows an adept George W. Bush well versed in the tricks and spins of modern politics. In 1988 George W. Bush and Lee Atwater aggressively created the spin on Iran-Contra and Willie Horton for Bush Senior's campaign.
In New Hampshire recently, though, Bush's strategy backfired. He appeared with his father who repeatedly referred to him as "this boy" and Bush suffered in the polls after the endorsement of Dan Quayle. Associations with the losers of the 1992 Campaign only served to wither support.
III. Pragmatism over Principle: Bush in tailspin indicative of character
After his trouncing by McCain in New Hampshire last week, Bush underwent a political makeover. He retreated into seclusion with key advisors, and emerged with a new stump speech on morality and the military. To make his point clear, he opened by using the word "conservative" six times in a minute.
Bush unveiled this revamped statement at South Carolina's Bob Jones University, an unaccredited far-right Fundamentalist Christian school. The choice of location is telling. In 1975 Bob Jones University did not officially admit minorities until 1975, after a court-order brought on by a lawsuit from the IRS. BJU subsequently lost their tax-exempt status for outlawing inter-racial dating. At BJU, most non-instrumental popular music created after World War II is banned on campus. Chaperons are assigned to most dates, and it's lights-out every night by 11 PM.
Bush's relationship to Bob Jones University is similar to his friendship with the NeoConfederate Movement. Fortunate Son's new introduction by Toby Rogers and Nick Mamatas first pointed out the relationship between G.W. Bush and the white-supremacist, United Daughters of the Confederacy:
"While most would be shocked at the thought of an organization allied with an apologist for the Ku Klux Klan, George W. Bush has congratulated the United Daughters of the Confederacy for its "dedication to others" and for the group's "high standards" in a letter which appeared in UDC Magazine in 1996."
In this context, Bush's recent refusal to condemn the flying of the Confederate Flag over the South Carolina Statehouse takes on a second meaning. His claim for "states rights" seems to mask another agenda: racial insensitivity.
IV. "Compassionate Conservative" is Oxymoron
Further corroboration of Bush's insensitivity, and appalling lack of compassion first existed in the main body of Fortunate Son.
In an effort to appeal to the Religious Right of his party, Bush opposed Hate Crimes legislation, even after the graphic racist murder of James Byrd, dragged and dismembered by three Texans in the desert outside Jasper.
Texas Governor Bush told the Houston Chronicle that he believed there was no place in heaven for anyone who did not accept Jesus Christ as his "personal savior." In 1998, before departing on a high-profile trip to the Middle East, Bush sophomorically joked with U.S. reporters that the first thing he would say to his hosts in Israel would be that they were all "going to hell."
V. Bush's Record as a Businessman Nothing to Bank On.
Fortunate Son exists as an essential antidote to campaign propaganda. It presents the entire story of George W. Bush, all the "horns and halos," and with an even, non-partisan eye. Fortunate Son lets the career of George W. Bush speak for itself, countering Official Bush Campaign spin.
In the heated 1992 race for Governor, incumbent Ann Richards asked why all the businesses Bush had been a Director at since 1979 had lost a total of $371 million. Bush countered with a televised, hurt plea to not engage in "personal attacks." Even Republican political strategist Matt Broyles recognized, "It was sanctimonious for the Bush campaign to run six weeks of television commercials attacking the governor's record in office and then get outraged when she examined his business background."
Conclusion
The Bush Campaign and its media supporters continue to gnash their teeth over Fortunate Son's reissue, contending its contents are "ridiculous, false and libelous." Yet the American Public has welcomed the book's return, and the publisher has received almost unanimous support and praise from buyers of the title.
Soft Skull is proud to be behind Fortunate Son. George W. Bush does have charisma and talent, and Fortunate Son recalls how the Governor became known for a casual, friendly style, spontaneously visiting his fellow lawmakers in Austin. However, this single baby-boomer-style element of his legacy is overshadowed by the results of "compassionate conservatism:" a ravaged environment, growing disparity between rich and poor, Texas style cronyism, property tax reform that benefitted landlords and ignored tenants, diminished popular rights to abortion, and legalization of concealed handguns despite protest from law enforcement.
George W. Bush's own words in 1989 are true eleven years later, "You know I could run for governor but I'm basically a media creation. I've never done anything. I've worked for my dad. I worked in the oil business. But that's not the kind of profile you have to have to get elected to public office."
Sander Hicks Chief Operating Officer Soft Skull Press, Inc.
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