September 30, 2006
Bush’s (and Woodward’s) State of Denial ::
politics — tagged books, bush, iraq, politics and waronterror
9:47 am
I started my weekend catch-up-on-the-news routine with finding out that Bob Woodward has a new book coming out, State of Denial, which is apparently is much more critical of the Bush Administration’s handling of his job—from Iraq and the War on Terror to just about everything else the President has been demanding unchecked authority to control—than anything else Woodward has previously written. Apparently Republicans, particularly members of the administration, are in damage control mode. And I would be to if I had to deal with anecdotes such as these:
Laura Bush telling her husband he should fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Vice President Cheney pushing aides to call the chief weapons inspector in the middle of the night with coordinates for a site in Syria that might have those elusive weapons. Secret White House visits by Henry Kissinger. Bush having to tell Rumsfeld to return Condoleezza Rice’s calls. Memos describing Rumsfeld’s “rubber glove syndrome”—he didn’t want to leave fingerprints on decisions.
Ouch. What’s funny is that I noted Woodward’s use of anecdotes in my review of The Brethren. On the one hand the device is useful for telling a compelling story, but on the other hand it sometime seems that Woodward will lay them on too thick, the story at some point becoming more about Woodward and the amount of access he has than it does about the subjects of his stories or the value of investigative journalism in holding elected officials to account. The effect is similar to that of too much mayonaise on your sandwich: what should be just one flavor and texture of the experience becomes the whole experience, and it’s a pretty nauseating one. But what’s particularly interesting here is Woodward’s central theme in his book:
He charges the president has not been straight with the American people about how bad things are in Iraq and how much worse it’s going to get. But his most damning claim—screaming at you right there in the title—is not that Bush is deceitful; it’s that he’s clueless. People many not care if Bush admits reality to the public, but they hope he’s admitting reality to himself.
Yeah, no kidding. My guess? The book will be worth reading because it sounds like Woodward’s first honest account of what’s probably been a reality of Bush administration culture since Bush took office in 2001. But publishing the book likely comes at the expense of Woodward losing the access he he formerly enjoyed with the Bush people. So I guess that means he’ll be going back to his old style of writing while hoping for an understanding candidate taking the White House in 2008.
