The latest tell-all from a Bush administration aide, speechwriter Matt Latimer’s long-awaited “Speech-Less,” hits stores next week. Byron York teased the book’s content on Tuesday, and now GQ is out with the first actual excerpts.
In it, President George W. Bush weighs in, according to Latimer’s recollections, on several of the players in the 2008 elections, and does so scathingly.
After Barack Obama blasted his administration in a speech, Bush spouted off in the West Wing: “This is a dangerous world, and this cat isn’t remotely qualified to handle it. This guy has no clue, I promise you.”
Vice President Joe Biden didn’t escape Bush’s candid assessment, either. “If bullshit were currency, Joe Biden would be a billionaire,” Latimer remembers Bush quipping to his staff.
But according to Latimer, Bush’s sharp political instincts were best on display in his assessment of John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin to be his running mate. “What his she, the governor of Guam?” he asked, when informed of the choice.
“You know, just wait a few days until the bloom is off the rose,” he continued. “This woman is being put into a position she is not even remotely prepared for,” he said. “She hasn’t spent one day on the national level. Neither has her family. Let’s wait and see how she looks five days out.”
