Lesson: Don’t Mess With Woodward

This is what happens to you if you don’t agree to sit down and grant Bob Woodward an interview.

In Bob Woodward’s highly anticipated new book, “State of Denial,” President Bush emerges as a passive, impatient, sophomoric and intellectually incurious leader, presiding over a grossly dysfunctional war cabinet and given to an almost religious certainty that makes him disinclined to rethink or re-evaluate decisions he has made about the war.

This is what happens if you do agree to sit down and grant an interview to Bob Woodward.

It’s a portrait that stands in stark contrast to the laudatory one Mr. Woodward drew in “Bush at War,” his 2002 book, which depicted the president — in terms that the White House press office itself has purveyed — as a judicious, resolute leader, blessed with the “vision thing” his father was accused of lacking and firmly in control of the ship of state.

Any questions?

Bob Woodward’s last two books were horseshit. His access allowed him to gather some very interesting information, and that is true again for this book. It just so happens that this time the administration didn’t earn any good will and the result is that they got hammered.

Author: BooMan

Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.