TEXAS TITANS
Excerpts
On Bush’s Consequential Presidency:
A sea of change engulfed the world during Bush’s single term as president, testing his resolve like never before as a series of cascading events unfolded. The Berlin Wall — a symbol of human oppression — was torn down after thirty years. Saddam Hussein invaded tiny neighboring Kuwait, throwing the Middle East into turmoil and panic. Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of the Soviet Union, was placed under house arrest in an attempted coup. And the Soviet Union ceased to exist on December 26, 1991. Events no historian or political operative could have accurately predicted, nevertheless, moments in history that placed George Herbert Walker Bush and James Addison Baker, III front and center on the world stage.
On the 1992 Presidential Election:
Baker admits that the loss “was devastating. He [George H.W. Bush] was devastated by that loss.” Baker is also quick to point out that “I read a lot...comments, pundits and so forth saying, he lost because he broke his no-new-taxes pledge. That’s not why he lost...Everybody ought to get that straight. I ran that campaign, and I saw it every day in the polling. He lost because of a little guy from Dallas, Texas, called Ross Perot, who took nineteen percent of the vote. And we knew from our polling he [Perot] was taking two out of every three votes from us. We got 38, Clinton got 43. You add two-thirds of 19 to 38, and we get 51.”
On Friendship:
“I have always been proud that George Bush used to describe our relationship as one of big brother and little brother. He used to say that one of the things he liked best about me was that I would always tell him what I thought, even when I knew he didn’t want to hear it. Then we would have a spirited discussion about that issue.”
“But he had a very effective way of letting me know when the discussion was over,” he continued. “He would look at me and say, ‘Baker, if you’re so smart, why am I president and you’re not?’
TEXAS TITANS
“With vivid detail and piercing perspective, Charles Denyer tells the story of ‘two of America’s most consequential statesman’ of the last half century. George H.W. Bush and James A. Baker III became the closest of friends on the tennis courts of the Houston country club gentry, forming a bond that would evolve into a political partnership and ultimately catapult the former doubles partners to the world stage where together they would bring America to new heights in a momentous time. Denyer delivers a fascinating saga of friendship, power, triumph, and loss at the highest levels.”
– Mark K. Updegrove, President & CEO of the LBJ Foundation and author of The Last Republicans: Inside the Extraordinary Relationship Between George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush
