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“I have five children,” she said with a stern look. “And I’m proud of every one of them.”

“Even Neil?” I thought of saying. (He’s the one who got mixed up in a sleazy S&L deal in the eighties.) But I didn’t. Instead, I said, “Well, if you’re proud of them, that’s kind of like taking credit for them, isn’t it?”

She just scowled at me one last time and said, “I’m through with you.” Then she turned and walked off the plane.

I had flown to Washington, instead of home to New York, to attend the Bat Mitzvah of my friends’ daughter. The dad is an extremely well-regarded political journalist who had written about the Bushes for years, sometimes in glowing terms. Many of the guests would be other Washington insiders, Democrats and Republicans alike. They would know whether Mrs. Bush had just been kidding.

I must have told the story twenty times at the Bat Mitzvah (not during the service). Huge laughs each time. Every “I’m through with you”—big laugh. But what everyone who knew Barbara Bush thought was funniest—by far—was that I had kept thinking that she had been kidding.

I kept hearing things like: “On no, she’s a horrible bitch.” “Omigod, she’s the worst bitch on earth.” “She can be very charming, but Barbara Bush is the Queen Bitch.”

Understand. This was absolutely universal. And not always said in an unadmiring way. “She’s the enforcer.” “Barbara’s the tough one.” “She’s mean, but she keeps everyone in line.”

But another, even more interesting, insight came from everyone who knew the Bushes. They all agreed. “Dubya is her son.” He’s mean.

Now, I don’t know George W. Bush. I met him once briefly, and I found him charming and likeable. I wrote about it in the paperback edition of Why Not Me?, but I think, in the context of this book, it bears repeating.

It was August 1999, and I was covering the Iowa Republican straw poll for George magazine, at a front-porch event in Indianola, a small town about fifteen miles south of Des Moines. As he was giving the short version of his standard “compassionate conservative” stump speech, literally on a front porch, he caught a glimpse of me standing among fifteen or so members of the press. He looked a bit surprised, then gave me a little wink. Which, I thought at the moment, was kind of charming. I mean, he knew who I was!

After the speech, he glad-handed the good Iowa neighbors who had come to see him. And then, on the lawn, held a press availability. I was going to get to ask him questions!

We gathered around him, and the first thing he did was point to me and say, “I see they’re lettin’ anyone in these days.” Light, funny. After a few other questions, he called on me.

Now, this was the period when the rumors about his cocaine use had first come out. So I said, “Governor, I personally don’t care about whether or not you did cocaine years ago when you were a young man. But since we’re in Iowa, I feel I have to ask you: Have you ever manufactured any crystal meth?”

Everyone laughed, including Bush. Again, charming. But, and I think this is the important part, he did not answer. Important not because I think George W. Bush ever cooked a tub of methamphetamines. But because, if Bush had answered the question, I would have trapped him. Because he had been refusing to answer the coke question. By laughing instead of answering, he had outsmarted me.

I talked to him about a couple of other things. If you’re curious, Why Not Me? is still in print. But the point is, I came away from my one interaction with the guy kind of, well, charmed. And that, I understand, is a very common experience.

Don’t get me wrong. As you’ve probably figured out by now, I don’t like this president. I don’t like his policies. He gives me the willies whenever he speaks. I don’t like him.

It’s because I think he is his mother’s son. I think he’s mean. I think we’re all too ready to blame Karl Rove, or Dick Cheney, or Ari Fleischer, or Gale Norton, or Donald Rumsfeld, or John Ashcroft when this administration does something despicable. When South Carolinians get push polls saying John McCain fathered an illegitimate