Book Review: How The Left Swiftboated America: The Liberal Media Conspiracy To Make You Think George Bush Was The Worst President In History

Author: John Gibson
ISBN: 978-0-06-179289-2
Publisher: Harper
Genre: Politics
Publication Date: December 1, 2009
Hardcover; 280 pages
Price: $26.99
4 out of 5 stars – Review by John Dorsey


After Republican challenger Scott Brown defeated Martha Coakley for the Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts senate seat in January 2010 in one of the biggest upsets in modern political history, President Obama rationalized the stunning defeat as a result of generalized anger and frustration "not just because of what's happened in the last year or two years, but what's happened over the last eight years."

It’s still all about blaming George Bush. Even a year after he’s been out of office.

Clearly, the left in America wants to continue to blame all our problems and all their failures on George Bush. But how much blame should be placed on him? Bush has been greatly maligned over the past 9 years ever since his controversial election in 2000. A new book by Fox News host John Gibson called How The Left Swiftboated America: The Liberal Media Conspiracy To Make You Think George Bush Was The Worst President In History goes a long way towards setting the record straight and sifting through all the left’s propaganda to reveal what was true and wasn’t.

Of course, the word “swiftboat” comes from the 2004 election when the Swiftboat Veterans ran ads questioning John Kerry’s war record and achievements. As a result, “swiftboating” has become a word, meaning to undermine character and credibility. And this is what the left has done viciously and mercilessly to George Bush.

Gibson argues that there were two media people with tremendous influence that led the charge to discredit Bush. The first was John Stewart, host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central. The second was New York Times columnist Frank Rich. Gibson makes a fairly good case for Stewart being a fairly big influence, as Stewart used his comedic news to distort everything Bush did, getting away with it by having the excuse that he is an entertainer, not a journalist. However, Gibson does not succeed as well with Rich. True, Rich was incredibly vicious towards Bush, but so were many columnists throughout the country. I’m not sure he stands out much more than any of the others.

It has been argued by the far left that the Iraq war has been a complete waste of time with zero rewards for the United States. Gibson points out the positive results that most people simply aren’t aware of, such as how Libya was well on its way to developing a nuclear program but voluntarily gave it up when U.S. troops invaded Iraq.

Perhaps the biggest piece of propaganda has been the assertion that Bush knew there were no WMDs in Iraq and lied to the American people. In reality, it was simply an intelligence failure. Many intelligence agencies across the world believed Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons, not just our own. Saddam wanted to world to believe he had WMDs because that may have been the only thing that prevented Iran, perhaps his biggest enemy, from invading. So Bush made a mistake, but a somewhat understandable one. He did not lie.

And while Saddam wasn’t directly linked to 9/11, the whole point of invading Iraq was to prevent the next 9/11, a fact that many people have forgotten. Saddam may have not had WMDs, but he certainly intended to develop them once he got the UN sanctions lifted. By removing him from power, we were cutting the snake’s head off before it had a chance to strike.

Fortunately, the book exposes all of the left’s propaganda for what it is. The 2000 election, Valerie Plame, Hurricane Katrina, Abu Ghraib, the number of Iraqi casualties, the torture issue and the waterboarding of only three people (all of them top Al Qaeda leaders) in six years – All of these issues are discussed in detail.

But Gibson doesn’t gush over Bush. He is critical where warranted, and one of his biggest criticisms of Bush is one that I also share: That Bush didn’t do enough to defend himself from all the attacks against him. A common mistake that honest people make is they believe that simply stating the truth is enough. The problem is that most people in this world are not interested in truth. They are only interested in gain, profit, winning, etc. To them, truth is often a danger because it threatens their whole position. So it isn’t enough to simply state the truth. You have to really reinforce it and back it up, because your opponents will do everything they can to label it as being false.

Bush failed to do this, and I believe I know why. Fox news host Bill O’Reilly has said that he once privately told Bush that he should take a stronger stand against the people attacking him, to go after them and call them out. His response was, “That’s not what a president should do.” Apparently, in Bush’s mind, he was taking the high ground, staying above the fray. That’s all well and good, but it allowed his opponents to frame the debate and consistently smear him without adequate response. The end result was the triumph of falsehood over truth, and it severely damaged the country, paving the way for total Democratic control of both Congress and the Presidency.

The final chapter of the book is probably the best. Gibson tells you how to win a debate about George Bush with anyone, listing all the typical Bush accusations and then providing clear, fact-based responses to each one.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. As a person who regularly follows the news, I was already aware of a lot of what Gibson was talking about, but there is still a lot of things in the book I didn’t know that I found fascinating, such as the history of MSNBC and the background of Keith Olbermann (and all the temper tantrums he throws). There are many specific examples given of attacks on Bush that I hadn’t heard before, some amusing and some just disgusting. But it all serves well as a reminder to just how dishonest and untrustworthy the liberal media has become.