The President's Therapist: And the Secret Intervention to Treat the Alcoholism of George W. Bush

by John Wareham

Book Overview

Insurgents within the White House secretly retain a uniquely gifted leadership psychologist to help United States President George W. Bush address a clandestine addiction to alcohol and reverse the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1566490529
• ISBN13: 9781566490528
• Release Date: April 2010
• Publisher: Welcome Rain Publishers
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

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Multi-talented John Wareham, leadership counselor, writer, poet and sophisticated Freudian has created a self-help guide for presidents, or perhaps just for one. The President's Therapist, an in-depth examination of George W. Bush's travails--inner and outer--is wise and insightful. In spite of--or perhaps because of--being a compassionate, apolitical study of W, the work is ultimately devastating--and, of all the Bush books, the most informative so far. Wareham reveals a deeply troubled individual who never left childhood: a boy who for sport blew up frogs with firecrackers; a man, (allegedly, deeply religious) who chose to start a mindless game of "shock and awe" that sent 4000 young U.S. soldiers--and countless Iraqi citizens--to their deaths; a born-again Christian proud to be semi-literate. Wareham's insights are based on succinctly stated scholarly searching and researching, a meticulous trolling of the disconnections of W's words and deeds. We watch in awe, as Wareham brilliantly and gently holds up mirror in which the naked cowboy suddenly catches sight of his own impotence. Along with W, we are shown precisely how and why he handled his role so badly. As noted, Wareham is a savvy Freudian analyst, so be prepared for passages that reference that theoretical framework. Readers hoping for a full color portrait will be gratified. This work is lucid, honest and laced with a darkly wicked wit reminiscent of Truman Capote's "non-fiction novel", In Cold Blood. In this case, however, using novelistic license, and his alter-ego self in the form of the fictional Dr. Mark Alter, Wareham delivers empathetic, authentic insight into W's otherwise inexplicable mix of fundamentalism, cockiness, truculence, didacticism, obsequiousness--and alcoholism. Of particular interest is how Wareham characterizes much of the American public and media as enablers, responding as children to an alcoholic parent. Dr. Alter's encounters with Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove--and some delicious marital counseling sessions with Laura Bush--offer even more chilling insights. In all, The President's Therapist is a heady confection of piercing insight and black humor that presents the reader with a sometimes frightening but always tempting cocktail from which every truth-seeker of should drain the last drop

Political, Insightful and Entertaining

Highly recommended for any politics buff, but doubly so for opponents of the Bush administration. Wareham allows the reader to live out the liberal's fantasy of debating George Bush into submission on the most controversial issues of his presidency. The author's psychological analysis of the president is brilliantly formed. The book uniquely casts what could just as easily have been a dry academic paper as a thrilling suspense novel. You'll have a hard time putting it down as the pace is set from the first few pages and never lets up.

I couldn't put it down!

As the administration of George W. Bush slips into history, many people are happy to be done with him. The man inspires vitriol as few can. One recalls Cindy Sheehan's media events outside his Crawford ranch during the summer of 2005 when each enunciation of his surname was a veritable expectoration. His almost unprecedented unpopularity reached its symbolic nadir with the November 2008 ballot initiative in California known as Proposition R which proposed to rename the City of San Francisco's Oceanside Water Treatment Plant after him. So to write a piece of historical fiction about him runs twin risks: to focus attention on a subject most people are only too eager to forget or to be seen as piling on long after the heavy hits have been made and the play has been whistled dead. I believe these reasons may dissuade readers from buying The President's Therapist and that would be a shame because it is a fascinating read without being tendentious or cruel. In the beginning of the story the author engages our interest by introducing Dr. Alter, a sympathetic protagonist. In addition to being very good at what he does, he has also suffered two huge personal tragedies with grace. We like him and want him to succeed, but can he? He faces a tough challenge with a very brief opportunity to work the problem. So far we have an ordinary work of fiction, but then as Dr. Alter assembles the mosaic of Bush's life from pieces everyone knows and some that very few people know, we come to realize that we are reading something that goes far beyond mere storytelling. Through Dr. Alter's analysis the author leads us to see with startling clarity the culminating event of Mr. Bush's life. (It was not an election victory.) The truth of this insight gripped me, made me believe in Dr. Alter, and kept me turning pages to find out how the story will end. I heartily recommend The President's Therapist. The psychological insights are profound and the story is well crafted. The dialogue always rings true; I could not help but hear George and Laura Bush speaking their lines as I read them. The author maintains dramatic tension throughout the plot, and this kept me reading until I had finished it in one sitting. Buy the book even if (especially if) you don't like George W. Bush.

A "WHAT IF" SCENARIO WRAPPED IN LAYERS OF REALITY

The PRESIDENT'S THERAPIST (And the secret intervention to treat the alcoholism of GEORGE W. BUSH) John Wareham - Welcome Rain Publishers, New York, 2008 John Wareham's staging of a "what if" scenario, wrapped in layers of reality offers an unnerving "case study" of alcoholism in the White House. We enter into a series of psychological and forensic intelligence forays engendered by the U.S. Secret Service along with a certain Dr. Mark Alter, leadership psychologist and wizard at "coaching" damaged C.E.O.s into restoring their acumen and performance, with the "patient" being none other than President George W. Bush. It gets even better. We become a fly-on-the-wall in Dick Cheney's office; the private quarters of the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas; and, within the ranks of the president's high echelon secret service agents. Like a calculated hornet's nest, the movements of all these characters are fine tuned into a plot in which the restorative treatment expertise of Dr. Alter circuitously sways President Bush into writing an EXECUTIVE ORDER constituting a global message of apology for the war in Iraq and an announcement of the immediate withdrawal of all troops. (I will leave the fate of Dr. Alter to you). This striking possibility theory classic will leave the reader roiling in a rapture of the truth and the comics. Even those Bushwhacked among us will find this book offering an antidote to the nightmare of the Bush years. Moreover, Wareham has deployed a new generation version of Keats' 1817 perspective of negative capability now so popular in today's leadership training. Eureka! The anxious phantoms that provoke our intuition are not foes but friends after all. Like the missing final piece to a puzzle, Wareham's 231-page bonzer will continue to delight your future parlor games. I would further submit that, The President's Therapist, is one hell of a collector's item Jess Maghan, PhD Professor and Director Forum for Comparative Correction Chester, CT - December 29, 2008

A brlliant examination of the President's inner soul

If you are looking for a deeply insightful examination of some of the reasons why the second Bush Presidency was such a failure, John Wareham's book is a must read. Not only does the book examine many aspects of President George W Bush's early life and personality that have not been widely reported, it also analyzes these events in a way that is both surprising, funny and ultimately very convincing. When you finish this concise and thoughtful book you will walk away not only with a deeper understanding of President Bush, but also and perhaps more importantly an understanding of how the roots of all of our ambitions develop throughout our lives. In short the book is good therapy.