Talk:Decision Points

Latest comment: 9 years ago by Faux-pas Pete in topic Honest Questions: from a Republican

Sales edit

"The book surpassed sales of two million copies less than two months after its release, nearly matching sales his predecessor's memoir took six years to achieve."

Does a comparison to the sales of Clinton's book really need to be the second sentence of the article? I think it is relevant information worth including, but making it so prominent doesn't sounds very encyclopedic to me —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.56.128.154 (talk) 19:56, 3 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Hi edit

If you reading this than welcom to this books article if you can Find Reliable sources please expand it Weaponbb7 (talk) 03:51, 26 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

This article is terribly written. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.173.192.5 (talk) 08:08, 10 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

This article is a complete disaster. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.42.95.107 (talk) 21:38, 10 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

Remember almost all articles on Wikipedia are works in progress. The book is just being realeased today Give us time and it will look a alot better The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 21:52, 10 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

'Lifted From Numerous Sources' edit

I propose we either remove the sentence "Ryan Grim, writing for Huffington Post, asserted that Bush had lifted numerous passages from other sources without attribution," or balance it by pointing out that Grim's critique is patently absurd. Grim's blog post focuses on two areas: First, Bush and Gen. Tommy Franks in "American Soldier" both use identical quotes. Of course quotes are going to be identical. That's why they're in those little things called "quotation marks." Second, a few anecdotes in Bush's memoir sound like Bob Woodward's "The War Within." Well, there's a shocker. Bush recalls noteworthy events in the same manner and same words he as he described them in his interviews with Woodward. Grim's blog post is hardly authoritative, his 'reaction' is baseless tripe, and including the libelous accusation of plagiarism in the wiki does absolutely nothing to improve the quality of this article. DocHolliday (talk) 10:26, 13 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

I think just pointing out that the Huffington Post is a liberal publication will give people with half a brain the reaction that this guy is probably full of it.- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.125.28.238 (talk) 18:30, 13 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

Removed section. Why? All the same reasons here: Talk:Dreams_from_My_Father#Bill_Ayers_as_Obama.27s_ghostwriter - WP:FRINGE, UNRELIABLE SOURCE, WP:UNDUE WEIGHT. (That and it seems to not be plagiarism.) TuckerResearch (talk) 05:23, 14 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

Only in the looney universe of the Huffington Post would quoting yourself be considered plagiarism. I'm not surprised someone tried to add this to the main article. glad this has been dealt with appropriately. Anthonymendoza (talk) 18:32, 30 December 2010 (UTC)Reply

Honest questions, from a Democrat edit

  1. Why is Pres. Bush's researcher noted in the lead paragraph of this article, but Pres. Clinton's own researcher is buried in the body text of the article on his memoir? This smacks of attempting to make Pres. Bush look like he needed some kind of "tutoring" or something to write the book, when researchers are quite common when writing a memoir.
  2. Why is Pres. Bush's advance compared to Pres. Clinton's advance in the second paragraph of the article? It again smacks of using the article to attack Pres. Bush, which is not acceptable.
  3. Lastly, the reactions section seems to be filled mainly with those criticizing the book. There have been positive reviews as well, but these seem to be completely ignored.

I guess what I'm saying is this: either this article needs to be cleaned up, with the above questions dealt with, or it needs to be stubbed. I don't have the time necessary to do the former, but if it is not done soon, I will -- by necessity -- do the latter when I stop by to check the page again. Lithistman (talk) 11:19, 14 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

I moved (1) down in the text. The refs do all seem to be from leftist sites that maintain the guy is Bush's ghostwriter. (2) Doesn't bother me any. (3) Can be worked on. TuckerResearch (talk) 18:21, 19 November 2010 (UTC)Reply

Edit edit

I've removed the paragraph concerning the reviewer who stated that the book must have been entirely ghost written, that Bush was not present at some described events, and that what isn't a lie is at most a half-truth. I understand that the paragraph was properly footnoted, but all that means is that somebody actually said those things. There is no evidence to show someone else wrote the book, no detailing of what is a lie (and proof that it is a lie), and no proof that Bush was not present at some events where he states in the book that he was present. I don't believe that a rabid anti-Bush diatribe written by an irrational Bush hater has any place in an encyclopedic entry about a book, no matter how well known or "respected" that writer is.74.239.2.104 (talk) 22:57, 5 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Honest Questions: from a Republican edit

First of all, I'm hyper-aware of the two prevailing opinions in world, and in the Wikisphere, pertaining to former President George W. Bush: A) He's Satan; and B) He's Jesus Christ reincarnated. Such extreme opinions of Bush impair people's judgment and prevent them from analyzing him objectively. I hold neither opinion of Bush and am here only with the intention of improving the article in an NPOV manner.

Absent from this article's synopsis of President Bush's book is his admission that none of the WMD's that he and his administration claimed were in Iraq were actually there. In view of the fact that President Bush's principal argument for immediate U.S. military intervention in Iraq was Saddam's supposed possession of WMD's, should we not at least include it? While he does seem to buttress his decision to invade Iraq based on the supposed existence of Iraq's WMD's by saying that many others, including Democrats, also voted for the War resolution based on WMD's, he nonetheless expresses his frustration at the post-invasion revelation of their non-existence.

After the release of the Kay Report, which revealed that the intelligence about Iraq's WMD's, upon which the justification of the War was based, had been flawed and misleading, President Bush appeared on television on January 20, 2004 for his State of the Union Address and said quote: "The Kay Report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities". It was a startling statement from the President, since he didn't, as most people would've expected one to do, express regret and apology for initiating a war that turned out to be based on fictitious data. It was like he was saying that: "Even though the stockpiles of WMD's that I and our intelligence community claimed Iraq had turned out to be nonexistent, the fact that Saddam COULD have manufactured these weapons is just as good of a reason for us to have invaded the country anyway." Even devoted Republicans like myself can admit that such a statement is akin to a police officer arresting a strong man with big arms and hands simply for having the POTENTIAL to choke someone to death. Now we can all, Democrats, Republicans, libertarians and undecideds alike, admit that ALL Presidents are stubborn and carry on with policies even when those policies have been shown to be flawed. Was President Bush any different by carrying on with his flawed Iraq policy? Of course not. However, that's not the issue. The issue is the inclusion in this article of his book's reference to WMD's that weren't there (there being Iraq of course). So I ask - how shall we go about including it?

Thanks in advance. Faux-pas Pete (talk) 19:18, 16 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Reactions edit

Is Kanye West's reaction of any relevance to the issue? He is neither a journalist, nor a politician, nor of any significance outside of his small influence to American culture. For now I'm cutting him out, if you disagree then edit it back in (including it here): "

Kanye West, as one who had criticized Bush publicly during the Hurricane Katrina aftermath for "not caring about black people" was reported to have said "I really connect more with [Bush] just on a humanitarian level" after learning more of Bush's post-Katrina feelings from the book release.[1] Bush, however, in an interview termed the original West comment "one of the most disgusting moments” of his presidency and West was dissatisfied in his first efforts to respond further.[2]

"

References

  1. ^ Baker, Peter, "Now Appearing: George W. Bush", The New York Times, November 6, 2010 (November 7, 2010 p. WK1 NY ed.). Retrieved 2010-11-07.
  2. ^ Itzkoff, Dave, "UPDATED: Kanye West Criticizes ‘Today’ Show for ‘Brutal’ Interview", The New York Times Arts Beat blog, November 10, 2010, 2:25 pm. Retrieved 2010-11-10.