Status Updates From Days of Fire: Bush and Chen...

Brutally grim mood in the White House toward the end of Bush’s second term. Baker captures the fatigue well.

You feel the exhaustion of Bush’s second term at this point in the book. And you can’t help but wonder what Bush’s legacy would have been if not for the omnipresence of Iraq overshadowing everything else he tried to accomplish.

So far this feels balanced in a way that discussions about Bush never are, and is as exciting as a political thriller. It’s challenging a lot of my preexisting ideas about events and people from the administration. How Iraq and Guantanamo Bay are treated will be crucial to my overall opinion of Baker’s reportage.