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Jeb: America's Next Bush
Tarcher/Penguin All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Preface
Jeb Bush is going to hate this book. Yes, hate is a strong word, but I do not use it lightly. Jeb does not kind of dislike things, or not be crazy about them. You’re either with him or against him, and this book clearly is not with him. I know Jeb. I know how he thinks. And what he thinks is that an independent, unauthorized biography of his Florida tenure written by the guy who had become the biggest journalistic thorn in his side cannot possibly be a good thing, particularly when, sooner or later, he runs for president. Now, I can completely appreciate Jeb’s irritation and displeasure with me over the years. I was one of the handful of reporters in Tallahassee who would go deep into the internal documents and statistics of his own agencies to compare his rhetoric against the facts. I was the only one who did it so regularly that Jeb felt compelled to punish me and my employer, The Palm Beach Post, by restricting our access to him and his staff. When Jeb claimed, for example, that students in his voucher program for disabled children were getting superior educations than in the public schools, I found out that 77 percent of the schools in that program did not even have any teachers trained to teach disabled children. When Jeb claimed his massive tax cuts on the state’s wealthiest residents had produced new jobs, I wrote how his own employment agency’s records showed that Jeb had the lowest job creation rate of any governor going back to 1970. When Jeb claimed that “rounding down” the fractional cent part of a drink tax would save restaurateurs accounting headaches, I pointed out that according to his own Department of Business and Professional Regulation, the drink tax was actually paid by the gallon, and that the “rounding down” would simply not make anyone’s math in the least bit easier. And so it went, on and on, for eight years. ~~~ If Bush family past is prologue, at first the Jeb machine will ignore this book, might even pretend that no one among them has cared enough to read it, in the belief that any comment will only serve to enhance its “buzz.” If, by chance, it nevertheless finds a growing audience, then Jeb and his people, or more likely, just his people, will explain why my deep-seated “bias” against Jeb should render all of my conclusions suspect. So let me state my bias as a journalist: I have a bias in favor of the truth. I believe that reporters generally, but particularly political and government reporters, have a responsibility to gain the expertise necessary so that they can make an informed quest for the truth in matters on which they write, and then convey that truth, or as close to it as they can possibly get, in their reports. If a source lies to you – that is, utters something that is provably false – then you as a journalist have a responsibility either not to print the statement or, if for some reason you do print it, to make sure that you immediately follow it with the correct information that belies it. Why not just print everything, and let the reader sort it out? Because I am not a stenographer, whose job it is merely to take down what I hear and transcribe it. If, after two decades in this business, I have not acquired the ability to separate actual facts from PR “spin” and deal with them accordingly, then I am offering no added value to my readers and would do everyone a favor by retreating to my workshop and taking up cabinetry or some other honest craft. The fact of it is, I came upon Jeb as a complete blank slate. I had covered NASA for the Orlando Sentinel for four years, and then had taken a sailing sabbatical with my wife. When we returned to the States, Jeb had lost his first bid for governor and was regrouping for his second run. I began covering the statehouse for the Associated Press by the time he was again in full campaign mode. I saw him as a high-energy, intelligent individual who had obviously spent a lot of time studying the issues. I personally disagreed with some of his stands on those issues, but in general I had a neutral to favorable impression of him by the time he took office. Not terribly long into that first term, though, Jeb’s relationship with the press, and with me in particular, began to deteriorate. It became abundantly clear that Jeb was not remotely interested in adhering to the spirit of Florida’s “Government in the Sunshine” laws as he set about recasting state government according to his own vision. I think his particular displeasure with me was based at least in part on my peculiar style of reporting, which is heavily based on public records. As I will happily tell cantankerous sources: I do not care if they want to talk to me or not. As long as I have access to those documents to which I have a legal right, I can go ahead and report and write the quantitative analyses that I enjoy doing whether a dozen sources give me interviews, or no sources. I would prefer, for the sake of thoroughness, that politicians and government officials do choose to talk to me. But if they do not, it’s no great loss, and the paycheck comes on Friday either way. This style generated instant conflicts with Jeb and his staff for two reasons: First, Jeb Bush has no use for public scrutiny, and his administration went out of its way to devise new and ingenious methods for withholding what historically had been public records. And second, Jeb’s press office used as its primary means of manipulation – of which they developed a good many – a carrot and stick approach that rewarded good media behavior with improved “access.” I wasn’t remotely interested in access to Jeb or his minions. I only wanted full access to public records, as Florida law permitted. Jeb wasn’t remotely interested in giving full access to public records. He only wanted to “work” with reporters who would “work” with him – meaning trading favorable or toned-down articles in return for “face time” with Jeb or off-the-record tips for upcoming events. You see now the basis of the irreconcilable differences. What’s important here is that my impression of Jeb, my entire impression of Jeb, is based on my daily coverage of him through his two terms. It is not based on any dislike of his father when he was president – in fact, I rather liked his father when he was president. It is not based on ideas fed to me by Democrats or other Bush haters. It is based on what I’ve seen of Jeb with my own two eyes, and what I’ve heard with my own two ears during his eight years in office. It is, obviously, my point of view – but I will respectfully submit that, given my background, it is an informed point of view. ~ ~ ~ If and when the Bushies really want to get nasty with me, they will no doubt call me a liberal – the vilest epithet in the family lexicon going back five decades. Naturally enough, a book – as opposed to a newspaper article – is told through the prism of the author’s worldview. Readers will certainly discern mine in these pages, but let me just state them briefly up front: I believe government should provide a real quality education to all children, and that the wealthiest nation on the planet can afford to make sure that its poorest and unluckiest have decent medical care. I do not believe any taxpayer should have to subsidize anybody else’s religion. I believe that everyone in government, local, state and federal, works for us, and that we have a complete right to know what they are doing on our dime. I believe in the New Testament idea that to whom much is given, much is expected – even in the area of tax policy. I do not believe winning an election gives you the right to rule as a despot. And I believe that our nation should treat other nations the way we would have them treat us. Finally, in all of these things, I believe in facts, and the idea that humans can improve themselves through the study of history and the natural world. If these views make me a liberal – well, okay, as my ten-year-old would say: what-ever. ~~~ Full disclosure: In December 2003, Jeb banished me and my Palm Beach Post colleagues from a round of year-end interviews with him in the governor’s office. This action, my editors and I believed, was in retaliation for a long series of articles a colleague and I had written exposing fraud, abuse and a complete lack of oversight in Jeb’s beloved school voucher programs. Jeb insisted that my articles had nothing to do with it, and that it was because I had offended his press office spokeswoman by using the word “goddamned” in an argument over their stonewalling the Post on the release of various documents. Never mind that I had immediately apologized months earlier, when the incident had taken place. What made the whole thing more than a little ridiculous was Jeb’s own penchant for cursing a blue streak, when that seemed the most effective means of bullying a hesitant legislator. (Indeed, a decade and a half earlier, he had bragged to a Miami Herald reporter how he and his brothers could beat the Kennedy kids in baseball, football, “any goddamn sport” they wished to play.) That year and also in coming years, Jeb’s press office also let it be known to other reporters at the Post that it wasn’t the newspaper per se they had a problem with, but me personally. And if only Post management could do something about their staffing in Tallahassee…. ~~~ In spite of all this, I must confess that I do not dislike him personally. To the contrary, and somewhat inexplicably, I find myself empathizing with his frustrations in dealing with a world that does not agree with his vision, that does not reward his intellect and his hard work by handing over the keys to the kingdom and making him benevolent despot for life. As much as my personal interpretation of history and human nature and justice differ from his, I nonetheless admire his seemingly inexhaustible energy and intensity. A look at a day’s worth of his e-mails tells the story. He got hundreds of them, from a broad cross section of humanity, and did a yeoman’s job of reading pretty much all of them. Many he answered personally. Many more he directed to his staff to deal with. Still others, those from his staff to him seeking guidance, showed his level of involvement in the minute details of his administration – whether the Department of Education, for example, should move “Fred” from the graphics design office to a community college position. “Fred has been approached about his interest – and is very interested. He would get to travel more,” Jeb was informed in an e-mail seeking his permission. Then there were the many other queries he directed to his staff based on something he had read, either in the stacks of policy notebooks he took home with him at night, or – perish the thought – in the newspapers that day. We can debate the wisdom of this micromanagement style. If you are paying someone a quarter million dollars a year to run the education shop, surely that person should be entrusted to hire a $40,000-a-year employee. Still, the dedication to his job was phenomenal. He was not afraid of hard work, and he was not afraid to get into the muddy details of an issue to understand it properly. He is conversant on a wide variety of topics, and can even be thought of as an expert in a few. This is a person who has done a lot with what was given to him, and that deserves respect. Part of my affection for him, I think, is also that I see in Jeb some of the qualities I see in myself, both the good and the bad. I like to think I work hard. I like to think I’m reasonably bright. Yet I know I can be impatient, and sometimes I can be frustrated by lack of progress or setbacks. Jeb also has a biting, at-time sarcastic sense of humor, which, as a writer of biting, at-times sarcastic novels, I can appreciate. Perhaps naively, I believe that under different circumstances he and I might have been friends – strangely competitive friends, perhaps, but friends nonetheless. (This is, of course, absurd. Jeb has little use for any journalist. We are no more than mosquitoes, bothersome irritants that, because of the liberal EPA, cannot be exterminated with good ol’ DDT.) ~~~ A quick note of explanation regarding the lack of “dirt” about Jeb’s immediate family: Jeb’s wife, Columba, did not run for office. Nor did their children. In Florida they had no role in setting state policy, and therefore I could not see why it was any of my readers’ business what problems any of them might have been having. Columba, as first lady of Florida, had a quasi-public role, and so I touched briefly on that, as well as the conventional wisdom about her desire for, and value in, a presidential run. Finally, throughout this book, I refer to members of the Bush family by their first names. This does not keep with the conventions of the journalism business, where it is normal to refer to a person by surname on second reference, unless you are the New York Times, in which case it is Mr. Surname. I do not do this to suggest some easy familiarity with Jeb – during his entire time as governor, I never called him anything other than “Governor” – but because of the confusion calling him “Bush” would create in a book that frequently mentions George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, Barbara Bush and Prescott Bush, among others. This is what happens when your family is bent on global domination. ~~~ Readers may note that this work is somewhat different from the typical political book in that it focuses on actual public policy and governance style, rather than personality and election strategy. There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that there are only a handful of journalists who have had the honor and privilege of covering both Jeb’s successful run in 1998 as well as his full two terms in office. I have seen how he works and what he has done, and that is what I can bring to the national conversation about the man. Second, and more important: Unlike many politicians, who want to rule primarily for the sake of ruling (Jeb’s father is a good example), Jeb will seek the presidency with a forceful and clear agenda. If we learned anything in Florida, it is that he is relentless, and will not stop until that agenda is accomplished or he is forced out of office. And if you want to see what he would do with the nation, take a good look at what he did here in Florida. It’s important. ~ ~ ~ It probably goes without saying that Jeb chose not to cooperate with the writing of this book. Not only did he not want to sit for interviews, he generally put out the word to his allies that they also should not talk to me. Because of this, all of my interviews with his current and former staff had to be done on a not-for-attribution basis. When I asked him questions for articles for the newspaper, he was – except for those occasions when he was particularly mad about something I had written – generally civil about answering them. But when I asked for time with him specifically for the book, he declined. He told me in an e-mail that he might have considered doing so had he thought I would be fair, but that I had proven myself to be “the least fair” of all Tallahassee journalists. I would respectfully suggest that his and my views on what’s a “fair” journalist are substantially different, and would further suggest that my definition is correct and his is not. Based on how he dealt with the media during his campaigns for governor and then during his two terms, I would suggest that his idea of a fair newspaper article is one that showcases his side of the story – notwithstanding whatever the actual facts of the case might be. Beyond that, though, I believe that Jeb would not have given extensive interviews to any journalist with the possible exception of the few who accepted a symbiotic relationship with him and his press office. Jeb is above all a control freak. He would lash out at his staff in e-mails when articles appeared in newspapers quoting actual employees of his agencies, rather than the designated spokespeople. Given that the only real campaigns left in his life are ones for the presidency or vice presidency – John McCain approached him in December 2005 about serving as his running mate in 2008 – Jeb had absolutely nothing to gain and a lot to lose by lending any sort of legitimacy to any sort of book other than a glowing hagiography. I think it is important to note that Jeb’s ostensible reason for not cooperating with me was my lack of fairness, not my lack of accuracy. I work hard to get it right, and over the years have made very few mistakes in my reporting about him and his administration. When I have erred, my newspaper and I acted quickly to correct the record. Finally, I will point out that this volume is not merely my idle musings. It is based on the underlying research that produced for The Palm Beach Post a body of work about Jeb’s elections and administration that topped 800 articles over a decade. I have read tens of thousands of pages of original government documents about Jeb’s policies, and many thousands more pages of e-mail messages to and from Jeb and his top aides. I have conducted hundreds of interviews with both Jeb lovers and Jeb haters. I have participated, cumulatively, in hundreds of hours of formal and informal news conferences in which Jeb has answered thousands of questions. And so, yes: Jeb Bush is going to hate this book. But as I hope I will show in these pages, he is going to hate this book not because it is inaccurate, but because it is not.
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