On Thursday, October 31, the Clements Center hosted its first official event, “Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House” with support from the Strauss Center and the School of Journalism. The event, held at the LBJ Library, featured White House Correspondent Peter Baker, who discussed his recently-released book of the same title.
Baker was introduced by Mark Updegrove, Director of the LBJ Library, and William Inboden, Executive Director of the Clements Center and a former official in the Bush White House. Baker discussed both the impetus for and contents of his book, which he described as an attempt to write a “neutral history about two people no one feels neutral about.”
Baker discussed the relationship between President Bush and Vice President Cheney during their eight years together in office, which he characterized as more complex than it may have appeared on the surface, as indeed was the Bush Administration more generally. He emphasized the impact September 11th had on both Bush and Cheney’s outlook, and explained that the way they thought about and responded to this event would impact their relationship. Baker ultimately argued that this led to a divergence between the President and the Vice President, who increasingly found themselves on different sides of issues during the Administration’s second term, most notably over the decision of whether or not to pardon Scooter Libby.
The talk was followed by questions from the audience and a book signing. Peter Baker has been with the New York Times since 2008; prior to that he served as reporter for the Washington Post for 20 years. He has covered the Obama, Bush, and Clinton Administrations, and previously authored the bestselling book The Breach: Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton, and co-authored another, Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the End of Revolution.