President George W. Bush gets the full PBS American Experience treatment next week with a new documentary that premieres Monday and Tuesday, May 4-5, 2020, 9:00-11:00 p.m. ET on PBS, PBS.org and the PBS Video App.
The film features interviews with Bush administration members Ari Fleischer, Andy Card, John Bolton, David Frum, Karl Rove, Richard Clarke and Karen Hughes. PBS explores the president’s background and his unlikely path to the White House.
Bush is a man who strongly believes in taking responsibility for his actions and the film shows this side of the president in a sequence that explores his insistence on meeting with wounded warriors and their families during his time as president. We’ve got a clip below.
Monday night’s Part One chronicles Bush’s early years, the election and 9/11. He wasn’t the Bush son that his family believed would carry on its political dynasty, but he emerged victorious after the most intensely fought election in the nation’s history. Less than 10 months after he took office, the events of September 11, 2001 changed the country forever.
Part Two opens with the war in Iraq and continues through Bush’s second term, as the President confronts the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and what was the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression until the current one.
“What makes George W. Bush such a fascinating subject is that he was one of the least prepared presidents in our history, yet faced some of the greatest challenges,” said filmmaker Barak Goodman. “Not since Lincoln has such an inexperienced leader been called upon in a moment of genuine existential crisis. How Bush evolved in office under these pressures -- at first struggling mightily, but later finding his feet -- illuminates not only his character, but the evolving nature of power and the presidency in an increasingly dangerous world.”
