A surprised W. told Meacham, “He certainly never expressed that opinion to me, either during the presidency or after.” He added that his father “would never say to me, ‘Hey, you need to rein in Cheney. He’s ruining your administration.’ It would be out of character for him to do that. And in any event, I disagree with his characterization of what was going on. I made the decisions. This was my philosophy.”

Even for a Waspy American family with scorn for introspection and a long tradition of fathers not weighing in, choosing to let their sons make their own life choices, it’s remarkable that two presidents who went to war with the same Iraqi dictator can bluntly talk to each other only through a biographer.

If only they were Italian. Maybe the father could have simply said to the son in real time: “Don’t screw this up, invade the wrong country and create a power vacuum in the Middle East. Dick’s gone nuts.”

The sad part is, they probably now agree on Cheney, whom W. has distanced himself from, and Rumsfeld, fired by W. in the second term.

Far from shrinking away from his twilight unburdening to a sympathetic biographer — even though it severely complicates life for Jeb, who is sinking in dynasty quicksand — 41 seems eager to get the belated word out. His office in Houston is helpfully sending out bulletins about where Meacham is appearing on his book tour, including a signing hosted by H.W.’s library at A&M University.

At Yale, in military service and in politics, W. chafed at his father’s shadow. He drifted, drank and became what James Baker jokingly described to Meacham as “a juvenile delinquent, damn near.” He labored under the disapproval of his father. When he sobered up and found his path in politics, he presented himself as the heir of Ronald Reagan, not his own father.

That had to hurt, but Poppy kept it to himself.

W. became president by using his dad as a reverse playbook.