Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House

by Peter Baker

While the vice president maintained a deferential respect for Bush, the people around him engaged in long discussions about when exactly the president changed. Some thought it was as far back as 2003 when it became clear Iraq did not have banned weapons and Bush grew disenchanted with the path Cheney had led him down. Others pointed to the fight over reauthorizing the surveillance program when Bush felt blindsided, or the “last throes” comment when the vice president looked out of touch, or even the shooting accident. And then there were some close to the vice president who pointed to Lebanon, seeing it as a metaphor for Bush’s drift from his own record—the president who defied world opinion to take down the dictator of Baghdad was now more intent on currying favor with foreign leaders than doing what was right and standing by Israel against terrorists.