Hatfield, J.H. Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President. New York: Soft Skull Press, 2000. 375 pages.

When this book was published by St.Martin's Press in October 1999, mistakes were made by both St.Martin's and the author. The afterword of this book includes circumstantial evidence, confirmed to the author by three unnamed sources, about Bush's arrest for cocaine possession in 1972, and how daddy got the record expunged after Junior performed community service. St.Martin's chose to sensationalize this tiny portion of an otherwise solid book, and found itself under tremendous pressure as one interview after another was cancelled. Then the author falsely denied to a Dallas reporter that he was the same as one James H. Hatfield, a convicted felon. With Hatfield's continued refusal to name his sources for the Bush cocaine story, this false denial was just the excuse that St.Martin's needed. They promptly took their cue from the other rats in our major media, and abandoned ship. All copies were recalled and burned.

The book itself, however, is responsible, thoroughly-researched, and well-documented, and nothing about the author can change this simple fact. The pressure that St.Martin's felt was entirely political, not legal; their own lawyer, plus an outside firm, had already scrutinized everything. So a "punk" alternative publisher, Soft Skull Press, reprinted it in full with additional material. Sometimes it helps to be too small to crush.
ISBN 1-887128-50-6

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