Dear Log,
«Beltway reporters are a-twitter about the biennial doorstopper from The Washington Post's Bob Woodward, this time a huge book sourced up the wazoo portraying the President as a simpleton Christian avenger whose obsession with Iraq is a dark pathology as ingrained as paedophilia.
For some reason, this is being portrayed as some kind of dramatic revelation rather than media conventional wisdom for the past three years - or, come to that, the President's openly stated position: judging from the Campaign 2000 press coverage, he more or less campaigned as a religious halfwit bent on toppling Saddam. Does anyone actually read Woodward's books? I know I've never finished one. But every cable news channel is pretending to be riveted by the change to some alleged "Gotcha!" moment on page 743.»
--"Stop whimpering, we're in a battle" by by Mark Steyn
I'm waiting for the Lifetime movie version of the book. On tape. At the public liberry. So I can get CLOSURE. HUGZ!!!!
In the meantime, I make do with snippets here and there, like... uh... here:
«For all that, two key insights about the administration emerge. The first is that self-deception reigns within Mr Bush's inner circle. Once, when asked how he gets his information, the president replied: "The best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff."»
But isn't self-deception the best kind of deception? It's much more
noir than the other kinds.
Hm
pudge on 2004-05-04T23:41:59
I've read several Woodward books (though I listened to Bush at War). I don't imagine I am normal, however. But perhaps the reason "this is being portrayed as some kind of dramatic revelation rather than media conventional wisdom for the past three years" is because it *isn't*.
Conventional wisdom has said Bush is controlled by Cheney, yet this book says he isn't. Conventional wisdom has said Bush is the one who pushed for the bad intel against the wishes of the CIA, but this book says he didn't.
There's more, but
... *shrug*.
Snippets
pudge on 2004-05-04T23:46:30
Your post made it sound like that snippet was a quote from Woodward. It isn't, of course. The author of that piece writes, in addition to what you quoted:
Second, the book is not a critical account of the Bush administration. Although Woodward says he cross-checks each protagonist's account against others, there are few challenges to what they say. That this is regarded as extraordinary is puzzling. This is what reporters are supposed to do: report the facts, not question whether the actions are right or wrong. There is a place for that in journalism, but not in reporting, and Woodward is a reporter. He does his best to NOT inject himself into the equation, and let the facts speak for themselves. As he should.
Which is why I am interested a lot more about a book from Woodward than just about every other hack out there. Most of them want to tell me what they think, but I don't give a damn what they think. I want to know the facts; I can think for myself.
