Robert Draper, the bestselling author of a new book that takes readers deep inside the bubble of the Bush White House, painted a picture of George W. Bush as determined, confident and stubborn last night for a Hoover Institution group.

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Jason Chuang

Robert Draper spoke at the Hoover Institution last night about his book, “Dead Certain,” which includes new material including six exclusive interviews with the President.

“The president possesses intelligence of a certain and very real kind,” he said. “He can follow arguments quite well. He’s very literate. He’s very focused, which I think leads people to believe he’s something short of intelligent.

“The president has a feature to him that’s not particularly attractive,” Draper added, “and it’s petulance.”

Draper’s “Dead Certain,” which is ranked 14th on this week’s New York Times bestseller list, made headlines when it was published last month because, in it the president talks with unusual candor about subjects ranging from his retirement plans to Iraq. Draper described it as the first “straightforward literary narrative of this rather consequential presidency.”

Bush insists on loyalty among his staff, Draper said, and being comfortable with those around him. Draper spent about 15 minutes of the hour-long event walking the audience through Bush’s presidential life: from campaigning for the presidency in New Hampshire to the present Iraq debacle.

“There’s a point of view this administration has adopted,” he said. “That this war is difficult. That things don’t happen as planned.”

Asked about Iraq, Draper said: “I think [Bush] honestly believes that it’s not a mistake.”

He added that Bush believed that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the U.S. invasion and as late as April 2006, when Andy Card left the White House as Chief of Staff, and possibly to this day.

Draper, a fellow Texan, scored six exclusive interviews with the president, most recently in May. He also talked to about 200 others for the project.

He told the largely conservative audience that, when he was shopping his book idea in 2004, he received rejections from leaders in the “left-of-center” publishing industry who strongly disliked the president. Eventually he found a taker at Simon and Schuster, but he said they stipulated that the book be published before 2008.

At first, Draper was unsure if Bush would talk to him for the book. Draper said he’d written 80 percent of the book before his first on-the-record interview with the president.

“I had to go back and not just rewrite and plug in quotations but really rethink aspects of the book,” he said. “The president, while I thought I got it from the outset, nonetheless revealed his concerns and what weighed on him in a way I had not anticipated.”

After the book was published, opponents of the president pointed to some sections as evidence that Bush has failed. Supporters said it shows the president as a leader in wartime.

“The distinct feeling I’ve gotten from the White House, which has been steadfast in their ‘no comment,’ is that they’re not pleased with the kind of splash the book generated,” Draper said, noting that White House officials will probably like the book when the dust settles.