Carole Coleman

This is a book which, in essence, came about thanks to Coleman's infamous interview with George Bush on the eve of his visit to Ireland in 2004. Coleman's interview didn't strike me as being particularly hard-hitting or probing - she pursued nowhere near as tough a line of questioning as, say, Jeremy Paxman would have - but it still caused waves because of how much it exposed the farcical nature of Bush's interaction with journalists, and how it seemed to rattle George Bush and his administration. To such an extent, in fact, that they complained to the Irish embassy over an interview which wouldn't have caused people to so much as bat an eyelash if it had been broadcast over here.

The opening section of the book recounts the story of that interview, with Coleman detailing what happened before and immediately after it. It's nearly as enlightening as the interview in many ways - Coleman saying hello to the president when he entered the room, only to be told by the White House staff that the president addresses them, not the other way around, or members of the administration referring to Bush as the leader of the free world in a non-ironic manner. The level of hubris in those parts astounded me; I know that I live in a country which is much smaller and far less important on the world stage, but I can't ever imagine Bertie Aherne or Mary Harney taking an attitude like that. Bertie goes to the pub around the corner from where I live in Dublin, Mary Harney will say hello to you if you meet her in the street, and I know my father has skipped out on union meetings in order to have drinks with the president's husband. That kind of posturing would get you laughed at and ridiculed here, and it most certainly wouldn't get you elected. Anyway, I digress.

The bulk of the book (not that, at two hundred odd pages, it's a very large book) is taken up with Coleman's accounts of her journeys through the east and south of the US and down into Mexico, journeys all made in an attempt to understand why people vote for George Bush. The book at this point is clearly written for an Irish audience, attempting to explain to them the religious and political aspects of American culture, since they are so very, very different from anything that we are used to. Much of it is therefore aimed at explaining things on a very basic level, and probably wouldn't be of much interest or use to those outside of Ireland, who are not going to need things explained to them on the basis of a cultural comparison between Ireland and the US. A lot of the information I knew of before as well, through my own reading or through interacting with Americans over the years (though having to explain what a fanny pack is to an Irish audience will never not amuse me).

There were still a number of times that things were mentioned which surprised me, and a number of insights which were very true, and which gave me pause to consider. It's not a reassuring book by any manner or means (nor, I think, would any book be which involves an interview with one of Bush's circle in Maitland, Texas, who states that the reason the Democratic voter base is declining is that, in the years since Roe vs Wade, the Democrats have aborted forty million of their voters. Wow.) but still an interesting one to read… (más)