Front Row Seat: Eric Draper on George W. Bush

“A lot of those moments he knows I’m there and he trusts my presence,” Draper says, “That’s really him.” Which is the point: whether his subject is self-aware or spontaneous, Draper’s portrait of Bush is authentic. Bush was impatient with pretense and known for letting the air out of moments with a joke. He also loved to “surf” the mood in the room, and was a famously talented retail politician, instinctively aware of who was watching him. Draper saw his role as watching the watcher for the telling moment of presidential connection. “My job was watching who he’s looking at and who he’s connecting with,” Draper says.