Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President J.H. Hatfield Soft Skull Press 380 pages $16.50 Available from Amazon

So far, George W. Bush sounds no different from any other professional politician and this book no different from the countless politician biographies which have preceeded it.

But there is something unusual about Fortunate Son. Shortly after St. Martin’s published the book, they yanked it from the shelves (the modern day equivalent of a book burning). Not because it wasn’t selling -— it actually broke into the amazon.com Top 20 almost instantaneously -- but because, despite vigorous fact-checking by St. Martin’s legal counsel, the press called into question the veracity of Hatfield’s research and pressured him to reveal his anonymous sources. Then, to top it off, it was discovered that Hatfield was a convicted felon.

The use of anonymous sources is a long and time-honored tradition amongst journalists. To this day we don’t know the true identity of "Deep Throat", and he toppled an entire Presidency! Protecting the anonymity of sources providing damaging, yet crucial, information is usually considered a mark of journalistic integrity. Yet Hatfield was publicly pilloried for doing just that. As to Hatfield’s previous criminal record, as a reader and as a US citizen, I fail to see how that has any bearing on the content of the book. True, he committed a crime in the past; he also served prison time for it. As one reader suggested in her Amazon.com review of the book, perhaps Hatfield’s past made him more expert on the subject of evaluating criminal behavior in others. Regardless, fact-checked and adequately cited evidence was presented in the public forum, and it should have been addressed and refuted in that same public forum, if it was to be so at all.

Unfortunately, Hatfield was, perhaps, criminally naïve to believe he’d be able to slide by on anonymous sources. As they say, "if you mess with the bull, expect the horns." The media machine, which Hatfield called out as complicit in fabricating a politician from a podunk, buried him alive. His reputation was ruined, his book was essentially burned and his message was almost entirely lost. Soft Skull Press, an independent publishing house, has since republished the book with a dizzying number of new forwards, introductions, polemics and exposes.

I have no way of personally corroborating all of Hatfield’s sources and citations. But there are copious amounts of them. St. Martin’s Press’ legal counsel and fact checkers went through them and found them all copacetic. Until, that is, the Bush campaign and the media put pressure on them. Regardless of whether or not every minute detail in the book is the truth, I believe Mr. Hatfield’s essential story: that, had George W. Bush been a shrub by any other name, the American public would have laughed at the possibility of him as a Presidential candidate (much less President!). He would, in fact, have been nothing more than a failed oil-man running a shrimp boat somewhere.

Considering this book in the aftermath of the "chad fandango", and with the first hundred days of Bush’s administration already behind us, I honestly feel that a terrible crime was committed against the American public. Whatever the book’s flaws, it was the most comprehensive and unbiased view of George W. Bush available to the voting public, and it was snatched from our grips during a time when we most desperately needed information. Four years from now, I hope Hatfield will take some solace in at least being able to say I told you so.

-- Alex Zorn