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Father, Son, Freud and Oedipus
...Members of the usually media-wary Bush family seem surprisingly unguarded in talking to the authors, and some of their remarks could well disconcert a White House in campaign mode or ratify opponents' worst fears. For instance the Schweizers quote one unnamed relative as saying that George W. Bush sees the war on terrorism "as a religious war": "He doesn't have a p.c. view of this war. His view of this is that they are trying to kill the Christians. And we the Christians will strike back with more force and more ferocity than they will ever know."

The Schweizers write that with the war on terrorism, family members saw "the Walker genes literally coming out in him," referring to the Walker side of his family — "aggressive risk-takers who wanted to win at all costs." They describe what they call George W.'s "addictive personality," which "required him to fix in on something and maintain a hold on it." And they quote a relative who says: "With terrorism, he's like a dog with a bone. He won't give up on it."

For that matter, the authors argue that the post-9/11 demands of office were a perfect match with George W.'s personality: "Because of his addictive personality, it was the sort of presidency that suited him well. Unencumbered by domestic issues, with their detail and ambiguity, he was now free to speak naturally in a way that reflected the way he viewed the world: black and white, good and evil. Life had been for him a struggle to conquer those things that had a bad hold on him; the struggle between good and evil was something that he had experienced in his own life."...