GEORGE W. Bush is surrounded. Surrounded by books in which, regrettably, he is the main character and which discuss the calendar of the war on Iraq, the months prior to 9/11, Oval Office dirty washing or his extremely close relations with Saudi princes. Just as in the fall of 2003 satirical books on the White House occupant sprouted like mushrooms, this spring political works questioning his most important decisions of the last three years and sketching a less than calming portrait of the most powerful man in the world are flowering.

Books have replaced the news because they are making the news: carefully planned and including leaks, advances, the publication of chapters in the press and appearances by their authors on top TV programs are putting the subject and authors on center stage. The phenomenon, combined with a calendar like the current one – Iraq crisis, investigation into 9/11 – are multiplying the repercussions of the works, and their sales.

Political best sellers are more of a serious report or sensational revelation than the traditional analyses or interpretations that formerly distinguished media books. The mother of all books is announced for this summer, although in this case, Bush will not so much be at the center of the storm, given that it concerns Bill Clinton.

The latest controversial book came out this week, The Politics of Truth: a Diplomat’s Memoir, by Joseph Wilson, the man who went to Niger in 2002 to ascertain whether Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase uranium there. His report was totally clear: no. The response displeased those who were looking for evidence of Iraqi attempts to reconstruct an arms program. Neither did it go down well that, after affirming that his report was worth nothing, he raised his voice to say so.

Ferocious reprisals: somebody in the White House leaked the information that his partner, Valerie Plume, was a CIA agent. Wilson stated that he would reveal the identity of the person or persons responsible for the leak. The name of Bush’s political advisor, Karl Rove, has never been very far from this history.

To date, the hottest books of the season are those of Bob Woodward and Richard Clarke. In Plan of Attack, the journalist who investigated the Watergate case revealed that Bush instructed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to update the plans for Iraq 16 months before the war began, and that General Franks, chief of the Central Command, at that time in out-and-out war with Afghanistan, reacted with asperity, stating "what the hell are you talking about?" Based on 75 interviews – on the record only with Bush and Rumsfeld – and access to a large volume of documents, Plan of Attack affirms that Secretary of State Colin Powell – the so-called deep throat of Woodward – has a difficult relationship with Vice President Dick Cheney and states that the Saudi ambassador to Washington was informed of the war plans before Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

Craig Hunger’s The House of Bush, the House of Saud, on the secret relationship between the two most powerful dynasties in the world, is precisely based on the Texan-Saudi plot. Hunger, likewise a journalist, writing on an already known subject, insists that the U.S. policy toward Saudi Arabia is modeled by the financial interests of the Bush clan.

Against all Enemies, by former anti-terrorist coordinator Richard Clarke, is top of the best-seller list (10 editions, 750,000 copies on the streets). In the very first – cinematographic – chapter on 9/11 in the White House, the book reproduces Bush’s voice: "See if it was Saddam." "But, President, it was Al Qaeda," Clarke told him. "I know, I know, but... see if Saddam was involved. Just that. I want to know every detail."

Another volume causing complications for the president is The Price of Loyalty, by Ron Suskind, complaints concerning Bush and his government seen from within by former Treasury secretary Paul O’Neill. As in the case of Clarke, the damage comes from the fact that it deals with protagonists in the inner circle – although not intimate – of power.

In the line of a family portrait, Kevin Phillips’ American Dynasty, with its significant subtitle Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush stands out. Phillips, a Republican, confides that he is dismayed and disillusioned by his conclusion that the Bushes present a unusual and not very flattering portrait of a great family, great in terms of power, not morality, and states that the two Bush presidents have opened the way to political, economic and military scandals that, in another climate or at another moment, could have brought them to destitution. Four generations have created within the Bush family a hunger for power and nepotistic practices of capitalism, combined with a moral arrogance and intimate scorn for U.S. Democrat and Republican government traditions.