Low expectations

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MISUNDERESTIMATED: THE PRESIDENT BATTLES TERRORISM, JOHN KERRY, AND THE BUSH HATERS

by Bill Sammon, Regan Books, Harper-Collins, $27.95, 351 pages

In doing research for this book, Bill Sammon interviewed President Bush.During the course of the interview, the president invented a new word when he told the author that the media and his political opponents had constantly "misunderestimated" him. Despite the flawed vocabulary (probably deliberate), the body count of Bush foes who have misunderestimated him has risen in a manner proportional to British casualties on the Somme in World War I. Hence, the premise and title of Mr. Sammon's latest book.

Like Bob Woodward, Mr. Sammon had unusual access to the president and his inner circle in doing his research. Not surprisingly, Mr. Sammon, the White House correspondent for The Washington Times, has a very different interpretation from that of Mr. Woodward. In "Misunderestimated," he portrays Mr. Bush as a "hands on" political operator and not the passive mouthpiece of his staff that many of his adversaries accuse him of being.

Along the way we get a "warts and all" portrayal of Mr. Bush and his staff. The book opens with a fund-raising trip that -- through a series of gaffes between the White House, the Secret Service and the police in Portland, Ore. -- resulted in the Bush staff spending a night under siege, locked down in their hotel with a homosexual softball league. Despite the fact that the situation was potentially explosive, Mr. Sammon recounts it with wit and in a smooth style that permeates the book.

This is a compelling account of the 18 months of the Bush presidency during which Mr. Bush led the country into two wars. Along the way, we get the inside scoop on such events as the president's handling of the capture of Saddam Hussein, his surprise visit to Baghdad last year and his take on the U.N. Oil for Food program.

Mr. Sammon feels that there is a very real leftist plot in the press and among Democrats to get Mr. Bush. He documents this with quotes from the alleged perpetrators at press conferences. The quotes are damning. Some of the participants are very senior and respected White House and Pentagon correspondents. The reader suspects that Mr. Sammon's relations with some members of the White House press corps will be frosty at best now that this book has been published.

This is a highly readable book; in this, it is subversive. It may open up the market to folks who wouldn't normally pick up a book by Richard Clarke or Mr. Woodward. It puts a more human face on the sometimes mischievous and always wry president, who has had to subdue himself in public in the post-September 11 environment.