The President's Counselor

May 22, 2006
Although a taciturn and reputedly uncharismatic man, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales rose from his beginnings in Humble, Tex., to become one of the most powerful men in America. In a biography that reads like a novel, Minutaglio traces the Mexican-American lawyer's dramatic route from poor son of an alcoholic father to the most trusted aide to President Bush. While he examines Gonzales's childhood and White House days, the majority of the book focuses on how Gonzales worked himself inside the Bush family's inner circle during the early days of George W. Bush's presidential campaign. Minutaglio, journalist and author of First Son: George W. Bush and the Bush Family Dynasty
, draws an unbiased, lively portrait of Gonzales as one of Bush's most prized advisers, due to Gonzales's ability to sum up complex legal language in a few sentences and his willingness to interpret the law to fit the president's agenda. Minutaglio also explains how the timing was right for conservatives to have a Hispanic on their side. While the book is revealing about Gonzales's assimilation into Bush's white, moneyed Texas world, it offers few reactions from the Hispanic community, leaving readers to wonder what Gonzales's success means to those he left behind. 16 pages of photos.

June 15, 2006
Alberto Gonzales grew up in Humble, TX, in a small house his father built. About the same time, George W. Bush's family moved into a custom-built home on 1.2 acres in an upscale neighborhood in nearby Houston. It seemed unlikely that the two men's paths would converge. Texas journalist Minutaglio ("First Son: George W. Bush and the Bush Family Dynasty") painstakingly chronicles Gonzales's methodical escape from his impoverished beginning to become first Governor Bush's general counsel, at which time a bond developed between the two men, and later Bush's White House counsel. This was followed by ascendancy as the first Hispanic U.S. attorney general. The author believes that the President may treasure Gonzales most for his innate sense of privacy and especially for the deft manner in which he helped Bush be excused from jury duty on a Texas DWI case without revealing the fact (then unknown) that Bush himself had been arrested for DWI in 1977. Minutaglio presents a balanced look at Gonzales's controversial advice to Bush regarding interpretation of Geneva Convention regulations on the torture, interrogation, and imprisonment of suspected terrorists. Minutaglio gathered information from over 200 interviews with Gonzales's friends and his government and law-firm colleagues, as well as from public records, archives, and media reports. The result is a well-researched biography that should be included in public and academic library collections. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 3/15/06.]" -Jill Ortner, SUNY at Buffalo Libs."

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