Concerning Michiko Kakutani's December 7th review of Craig Unger's "The Fall of the House of Bush":

Yet another letter I took the time out of my busy schedule as a rocker, a scribbler, a family man (and, incidentally, a beautifully terminated analysand) to write that the hoity-toity NY Times saw Unfit to Print

To the Editor:

Dec. 12 '07

In her Dec. 7th review of Craig Unger's The Fall of the House of Bush, Michiko Kakutani seems hell-bent on discrediting a reputable investigative reporter who researched his material for several years and documents his work with over 1200 source notes.

Kakutani calls the book "speculative," "highly derivative", and "poorly sourced." But with 50 pages of annotations, Unger shows that his sources include scores of original interviews in Israel, Washington, and the Deep South with neo-conservatives such as Michael Ledeen and Meyrav Wurmser, Colin Powell's chief-of staff Lawrence Wilkerson, evangelical leaders such as Tim LaHaye and Jerry Falwell, and numerous American and Israeli intelligence officers.

As an example of Unger's misdeeds, she cites his account of Bush's conversion to born again Christianity by Arthur Blessitt. Unger's report contradicts the official version that Bush was converted by Billy Graham. If one actually reads the text or glances at the exhaustive source notes, Unger supplies supportive evidence in the form of eyewitness accounts from Arthur Blessitt himself and Jim Sale , a member of Bush's Bible study group. Further, there is the account of Mickey Herskowitz, a Bush family friend who was hired to ghostwrite Bush's campaign autobiography.

Ms. Kakutani attempts to discredit Unger by suggesting he "[stick] to the facts." But she offers zilch to contradict Unger's reporting. And, since his reporting is based on first-hand interviews with eyewitnesses, how is it "derivative?"

Given the Times' role in the disinformation campaign leading up to the Iraq war and Unger's coverage of said role in The Fall of the House of Bush, one might easily come to the conclusion that Kakutani is trying to exculpate the Times for sins of the recent past.

One expects a book reviewer in a daily newspaper to give a subjective opinion of the work under consideration. But, for a reviewer to blur or manipulate the facts in order to sink a respected author: that's not journalism - that's politics.

Donald Fagen NYC