Coming from 'NYT' on Sunday: Bush and McCain Have Not Spoken Since May

By: Greg Mitchell The cover story in this coming Sunday's New York Times Magazine considers George Bush and what it terms "His Final Days," with his view of his legacy - and John McCain - in the forefront. It's written by Peter Baker, the former Washington Post reporter now with the Times.

It opens with a scene from this past May when an uneasy Bush and McCain met for "14 seconds of ritual" on a tarmac for a press photo op. "That was May," Baker writes. "As of late this month, the president and the would-be successor from his own party have not spoken since."

Later Baker reveals: "McCain has not called the president for advice."

Baker describes this as a "relationship fraught with bitter resentment, grudging respect and mutual dependence." After his appearance next Monday at the GOP convention, Bush "will be ushered out of the spotlight as quickly as possible - if not in 14 seconds, then not all that much longer."

Bush aides "seethed" when McCain called conditions in post-Katrina New Orleans "disgraceful" this past April and "grievances nursed by both sides have only grown from there," Baker observes.

He describes Bush as feeling he needs McCain to win to validate his legacy, while McCain finds himself "saddled" with Bush baggage. John Weaver, McCain's former chief strategist, tells Baker, "I'm sure McCain is thinking, Is Bush going to beat me twice?"

Baker also reveals: "One former Bush aide who spends his days publicly bashing Barack Obama sat down for lunch with me recently and before the appetizers even arrived lamented that the Democrat will probably crush McCain. He ruefully called Obama one of the three three most talented political figures of his lifetime," along with JFK and Reagan. Karl Rove this summer told friends of his "exasperation" with the McCain team's "dysfunctional organization and sclerotic message," as Baker puts it. "And the president himself, according to friends and prominent Republicans, privately rails about what he considers McCain's undisciplined approach to the campaign and grouses about McCain's efforts to distance himself from the administration."
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E&P Editor Greg Mitchell's latest book on Iraq and the media is titled, "So Wrong for So Long."