IS WOODWARD CALLING BUSH A LIAR...?
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The following opinion column was written by Dan Froomkin for the washingtonpost.com website. Mr. Froomkin's column begins here:
After two books that made President Bush look pretty good, Bob Woodward is out with a new one that comes awfully close to calling the president a liar.
I can't imagine Woodward himself ever using the word - it's much too shrill for the poster boy for the mainstream media.
But is there any other way to describe what seems like the central theme of his new book, tartly titled "State of Denial"?
Woodward is an assistant managing editor of The Washington Post, which is scheduled to run excerpts of the book in its Sunday and Monday editions. But the news about the book first came from CBS, which yesterday uncorked a preview of Woodward's upcoming interview on "60 Minutes". The New York Times ran a long piece this morning, after somehow managing to buy a copy of the book four days before the official release date.
CBS News reports: "Veteran Washington reporter Bob Woodward tells Mike Wallace that the Bush administration has not told the truth regarding the level of violence, especially against U.S. troops, in Iraq. He also reveals key intelligence that predicts the insurgency will grow worse next year. . . .
"According to Woodward, insurgent attacks against coalition troops occur, on average, every 15 minutes, a shocking fact the administration has kept secret. . . .
"The situation is getting much worse, says Woodward, despite what the White House and the Pentagon are saying in public. 'The truth is that the assessment by intelligence experts is that next year, 2007, is going to get worse and, in public, you have the president and you have the Pentagon [saying], 'Oh, no, things are going to get better,' he tells Wallace. 'Now there's public, and then there's private. But what did they do with the private? They stamp it secret. No one is supposed to know,' says Woodward."
Woodward also tells Wallace that aged Republican war-horse Henry Kissinger is closely advising Bush, telling him there is no exit strategy other than victory.
"Woodward adds. 'This is so fascinating. Kissinger's fighting the Vietnam War again because, in his view, the problem in Vietnam was we lost our will.' ...
"President Bush is absolutely certain that he has the U.S. and Iraq on the right course, says Woodward. So certain is the president on this matter, Woodward says, that when Mr. Bush had key Republicans to the White House to discuss Iraq, he told them, 'I will not withdraw, even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me.'"
Here's a video clip , worth watching if for nothing else to hear Woodward say of Kissinger: "He's back!"
David E. Sanger writes in the New York Times: "The book describes a White House riven by dysfunction and division over the war. . . .
"The book says President Bush's top advisers were often at odds among themselves, and sometimes were barely on speaking terms, but shared a tendency to dismiss as too pessimistic assessments from American commanders and others about the situation in Iraq. . . .
"Vice President Cheney is described as a man so determined to find proof that his claim about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was accurate that, in the summer of 2003, his aides were calling the chief weapons inspector, David Kay, with specific satellite coordinates as the sites of possible caches. None resulted in any finds. . . .
"Mr. Woodward's first two books about the Bush administration, 'Bush at War' and 'Plan of Attack,' portrayed a president firmly in command and a loyal, well-run team responding to a surprise attack and the retaliation that followed. As its title indicates, 'State of Denial' follows a very different storyline, of an administration that seemed to have only a foggy notion that early military success in Iraq had given way to resentment of the occupiers."
William Hamilton picked up the story for washingtonpost.com this morning, writing: "Former White House chief of staff Andrew Card on two occasions tried and failed to persuade President Bush to fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, according to a new book by Bob Woodward that depicts senior officials of the Bush administration as unable to face the consequences of their policy in Iraq. . . .
"Woodward writes that Bush considered the move, but was persuaded by Vice President Cheney and Karl Rove, his chief political adviser, that it would be seen as an expression of doubt about the course of the war and would expose Bush himself to criticism."
On CNN, Jack Cafferty had this to say: "President Bush is absolutely certain that the United States is on the right track in Iraq. That's according to this new book by Bob Woodward. In fact, Bush is so sure that he supposedly told a group of Republicans gathered at the White House quote, 'I will not withdraw even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me', unquote.
"Apparently it doesn't matter that almost two-thirds of Americans oppose the war in Iraq. That only a quarter of this country thinks we're winning the war in Iraq. And that most Americans think the situation in Iraq has degenerated into a civil war, 65 percent, as long as Barney supports him." The new book may also write a new chapter in Woodward's storied career.
Famous for being half of the reporting team credited for exposing the Watergate scandal and bringing down the presidency of Richard Nixon, Woodward went on to become the quintessential Washington insider, publishing scores of stories and books based on highly-placed confidential sources.
His first two books on Bush - "Bush at War" and "Plan of Attack" - were largely flattering depictions of the president.
Woodward's image took a major bruising last November, (see my November 16 column) when it was revealed that he had kept secret for more than two years that he was the first reporter to whom a senior administration official leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame.
Woodward apologized for failing to tell his superiors at The Post. But the irony of a journalist sitting on information like that, along with murmurings in Washington about what he had given up in return for the unparalleled access to the Bush White House, combined to raise doubts about his reportage.
So does this book mark a return to Woodward as Washington iconoclast, rather that Woodward as Washington icon?
Perhaps tellingly, the New York Times reported that according to the book, neither Bush nor Cheney agreed to be interviewed this time around.
Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, writing in a Washington Post op-ed, marvel at Bush's current refusal to acknowledge that the war in Iraq has made the terror threat worse.
"Just as President Bush urges that we take the terrorists at their word about their wish to create a new caliphate, we take them at their word about their motivation: Iraq has been crucial. . . .
"Then there is the claim that Iraq has not had a catalytic effect because the terrorists were already after us, an argument the president repeated Tuesday. 'We weren't in Iraq when we got attacked on September the 11th. . . . We weren't in Iraq when they first attacked the World Trade Center in 1993.'
"No doubt the United States would have had a serious struggle against radical Islam after Sept. 11 under any circumstances. But the occupation of Iraq, by appearing to confirm bin Laden's arguments about America's antipathy toward the Muslim world, has had an incendiary effect and made matters dramatically worse."
And blogger Brendan Nyhan notes some unintentional irony in a Bush speech Thursday. Said Bush: "We are a nation at war. I wish I could report differently, but you need to have a President who sees the world the way it is, not the way somebody would hope it would be."
-You can read Mr. Froomkin's column in its entirety here:
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