Bush 41's new biography says W was "served badly" by Cheney and Rumsfeld.

A new biography of George H.W. Bush will be out next week. To drum up interest in the book, the publisher and author (Jon Meacham) are "sharing" some of the juicier bits with the press. 41 appears to have let loose on Cheney and Rumsfeld to Meacham. Here's the NY Times reporting H.W.'s thoughts on Rummy:

He was even harsher about Mr. Rumsfeld, who had been a rival of his since the 1970s, when both served in Gerald R. Ford’s administration. “I think he served the president badly,” Mr. Bush said. “I don’t like what he did, and I think it hurt the president having his iron-ass view of everything. I’ve never been that close to him anyway. There’s a lack of humility, a lack of seeing what the other guy thinks. He’s more kick ass and take names, take numbers. I think he paid a price for that.”

He added, “Rumsfeld was an arrogant fellow and self-assured, swagger.”

And on Cheney:

“He had his own empire there and marched to his own drummer,” Mr. Bush said. “It just showed me that you cannot do it that way. The president should not have that worry.”

He said he thought Mr. Cheney had changed since serving in his cabinet. “He just became very hard-line and very different from the Dick Cheney I knew and worked with,” Mr. Bush said. He attributed that to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “Just iron-ass. His seeming knuckling under to the real hard-charging guys who want to fight about everything, use force to get our way in the Middle East.”
[...]
Still, he called Mr. Cheney “a good man” who pushed boundaries too far. “The big mistake that was made was letting Cheney bring in kind of his own State Department,” Mr. Bush said. “I think they overdid that. But it’s not Cheney’s fault. It’s the president’s fault.”

By that, he meant his son. “The buck stops there,” the elder Mr. Bush said.

While discussing Cheney, 41 ruminated that the VP was pushed in a hard-line direction by his wife and daughter, who are supposedly "strong conservatives". Not sure what to make of that one.

HW goes on to say that some of W's rhetoric was extreme, he specifically points out "axis of evil". I would add "Dead or Alive", "Crusade", "We will rid the world of evil-doers", "Mission Accomplished" and we could go on.

The story is being covered by the AP, Fox and Washington Post, but their reporting is based on the NY Times story.

Cheney was shown drafts by the author and he reportedly read them, smiled and said "Fascinating". Rumsfeld has declined to comment.