In a sense, George W. Bush has used the tragedy of the terrorist attacks of September 11th and the nightmarish expansion of his idea of a war on terror to overshadow his actual conduct in office on the redistribution of wealth upward through progressive tax cuts that actually penalize the vast majority of the public, and shift their resources to a narrow band at the very, very top.

Clinton was a president who used his office, in creative ways, to try to reinvigorate the federal government to benefit the majority.

But presidents matter. That's one of the biggest lessons I learned being in the White House.

The Bush Administration, and particularly Bush's chief political strategist and Deputy Chief of Staff, Karl Rove, have been expert in both galvanizing and mobilizing the fears and resentments of people. A good part of their politics consists of being against others who are defined in stereotypical terms. These others don't, in actual reality, exist. The so-called Democratic elitists, for example, are a stereotype who they can hate. Anyone who watches Fox News or listens to Rush Limbaugh knows that this hatred of the other is at the core of their politics.

And Louis Freeh was a completely dysfunctional FBI Director, who was actually waging his own private war against the Clinton Administration.

Even on education, his one accomplishment, the Leave No Child Behind Act, and he has left it unfunded.

It was the biggest suppression of voting rights in our country's history since Jim Crow. And the thread of race runs from the beginning to the end of my book.