A time to lead.(Rebel-in-Chief: Inside the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George W. Bush)(Book review)

Rebel-in-Chief: Inside the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George W. Bush, by Fred Barnes (Crown Forum, 224 pp., $23.95)

FOR over a quarter-century, the engaging Fred Barnes has provided essential political analysis, in print and on TV, that cuts through the Washington cant. It should therefore surprise nobody that even in a work that is not his best effort, Barnes provides exceptionally wise insights on current politics.

Rebel-in-Chief in its analysis of George W. Bush's presidency, reads too often like a pure paean--and a slightly disorganized one at that. In Barnes's telling, Bush "is a president who leads," "a visionary," a "moralist and an idealist"--a "president of consequence" who "achieved big things" and "delivered five or six of the most important and eloquent presidential addresses of the last half-century." Barnes even excuses, explicitly and repeatedly, the president's "fondness for federal spending" and his disdain for "small-government conservatives." In short, a reader might just get the impression that Barnes ...