WP: White House Chose to Promote New (Woodward) Book

[kskiska]

Woodward Account Seen as Overall Positive, Though Not What Had Been Hoped For

When Bob Woodward made one of his many trips through the White House's northwest gate early on the afternoon of April 16 to drop off a copy of "Plan of Attack" for President Bush, West Wing aides were presented with a choice.

The book, like the war in Iraq, was not the unalloyed triumph that Bush and his inner circle had thought it would be when the enterprise began. Woodward's account of decision-making leading to the war portrays Bush as decisive, unflinching and clearheaded. It also supplies ammunition for those who believe the president missed or discounted signs that his war plans were riddled with faulty assumptions, and that he prepared inadequately for the occupation.

Bush and his Cabinet are shown saying one thing publicly and doing another thing privately. Woodward said on CNN that his reporting had uncovered "a mixed bag" for Bush.

So would the White House embrace it, try to ignore it or nitpick specific facts?

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41899-2004Apr25.html

[Syrinx]

1. Something I don't understand

Why do people think it's so great that the guy is "decisive," when all his decisions are so utterly wrong? :shrug:

[Poiuyt]

4. Remember the song, "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy?"

"We were waist deep in the Big Muddy, and the big fool said to push on."

A strong leader CAN be wrong!

[shockingelk]

7. faith/religion

Lots of people think god guides decisions and the more someone talks about god, the better their decisions are.

Objections are answered with "God works in mysterious ways. We do not know God's plan."

The appropriate response to that, of course is, "Oh, so it doesn't matter if God has a plan for Iraq anyway, cause he ain't sayin' what it is."

[kskiska]

2. Here's the truth of the matter, not so surprising

David Wade, a Kerry spokesman, said the White House could only be hugging "Plan of Attack" out of "extreme political chutzpah or outright delusion." He called the book "an indictment of the way the neoconservatives' ideologically rigid White House misled the American people about Iraq."

Administration officials acknowledge that their response was partly pragmatic, because they would look foolish if they had opened the Oval Office to Woodward and then admitted that some of what he found was incriminating or unflattering.

[kskiska]

3. NYT article on same subject

(snip)

The White House, one Bush adviser noted, was clearly not going to take on Mr. Woodward's book the way it derided the as-told-to memoir of Mr. Bush's former Treasury secretary, Paul H. O'Neill. Nor was it going to go after Mr. Woodward in the way it tried to blow-torch Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism chief, whose book "Against All Enemies" also portrays Mr. Bush as determined to go to war with Iraq.

Mr. Woodward, the Washington Post investigative reporter who helped bring down Richard M. Nixon from outside the gates — but who has now become the official historian of inside Washington — was obviously different. In short, a White House that understands power understood Mr. Woodward's.

"We didn't want the stories to be, `Not since the Nixon administration has a White House gone after Bob Woodward,' " said the Bush adviser, who asked to remain anonymous.

So, the book stays as the Bush-Cheney No. 1, edging out even the loving Bush memoir "Ten Minutes From Normal" by Karen P. Hughes, one of the president's closest advisers.

more…
http://nytimes.com/2004/04/26/politics/26LETT.html

[librechik]

5. what people are forgetting is that Bush appears decisive and

determined by his own testimony to Woodward, not necessarily because he actually was strong and brave. The Shrub is always bragging and portraying himslef as the big hero when he's really the big ninny. Woodward is merely reporting the chimp's braggadocio.

[Citizen Daryl]

6. They Don't Want To Admit ...

... that Woodward lulled them into a false sense of security by writing "Bush At War". I still look at that book as the carrot. Once they figured Bob was their guy, they proceeded to trot around him in their skidmarked underwear.

[Pallas180]

8. I think you're right Daryl. The book is an indictment of their lies to

the country, of the cowardice of Powell, of the delusion of the chimp, and the warmaking for the sake of Saudi Arabia partially who is colluding (foreign interference, remember the gop stink about Gore
accepting money from some oriental nuns)with Bush to lower gas prices in time to make him look good for the elections.

Trying to do the same thing Daddy did to get Reagan elected. "Hold the hostages, they told Iran, until after we are elected"....

who would could believe such awful machinations, hurting the country and 250,000,000 people and dead soldiers and children for their own private glory.....it's sickening

[DeepModem Mom]

9. It's possible that Woodward does not want to "bash" Bush...

in order to separate himself, and his book, from others whose agenda have been clearly to damage Bush. It could be that this strategy causes some to give him a hearing who would not otherwise. I hope so. The book, in my opinion, is highly damaging, and would be more so if the press did a better job of interpreting it to the public -- for example, explaining why the Iraq war planning funds were unconstitutional, and what "unconstitutional" means.