Review: 'Bush,' a Biography as Scathing Indictment … If Mr. Bush eventually gets a more sympathetic hearing by history, as he hopes, it will not start with Jean Edward Smith's "Bush," a comprehensive and compelling narrative punctuated by searing verdicts of all the places where the author thinks the 43rd president went off track. –New York Times

This review of a biography of Bush tracks some of our criticisms of the former president in a recent article, "Nothing to Admire in Bush's Attack on Trump." You can see it HERE.

However, the review is positive about Bush's compassionate conservatism whereas we were not.

Smith is a longtime political biographer and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

The review describes both his first sentence and his last so we get a sense of Smith's approach.

The first sentence of his book: "Rarely in the history of the United States has the nation been so ill-served as during the presidency of George W. Bush."

The last: "Whether George W. Bush was the worst president in American history will be long debated, but his decision to invade Iraq is easily the worst foreign policy decision ever made by an American president."

In between are more than 650 pages of fast-paced if harsh biography … "Believing he was the agent of God's will, and acting with divine guidance, George W. Bush would lead the nation into two disastrous wars of aggression," Mr. Smith writes. "Bush's personalization of the war on terror combined with his macho assertiveness as the nation's commander in chief," he adds later, "were a recipe for disaster."

So far, so good. But Smith, the review informs us, "is more approving of his main subject in moments where Mr. Bush follows his original campaign doctrine of compassionate conservatism."

Smith gives "high marks" to Bush for the No Child Left Behind program.

Also, for expanding Medicare "to cover prescription drugs and for leading an ambitious fight against AIDS in Africa."

Smith even suggests that Bush had helped "save" the economy through "bold and counterintuitive intervention after the financial crash of 2008."

Smith portrays a "gracious and warmhearted" Bush who helped make Obama's transition successful."

Surprisingly, Smith's view is that  Bush's worst mistake was doing too much after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"The events of 9/11 were tragic, but scarcely catastrophic," he writes. And the Patriot Act might be, "the most ill-conceived piece of domestic legislation since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798."

One would hope that Smith mentions that the Patriot Act was very obviously prewritten – long before 9/11.

Smith believes Bush had a kind personality but as we pointed out in our previous article, his wars literally murdered millions and so irradiated Iraq that women in certain regions were told by doctors not to have children.

As for Bush's compassionate conservatism, we pointed out it was a ruse.

He further expanded fedgov's embrace of authoritarianism. His social spending helped bankrupt the country. None of this is in the least admirable …

He cultivated America's decline into fascism and corporatism – and did so while pretending these were somehow "conservative" values.

Smith is positive about "no child left behind," but he may be missing the point of this legislation.

Bush, like Hillary, is part of a globalist cabal that uses US legislation to advance its own purposes.