Woodward again

The buzz is all about Bob's new book, State of Denial. Famed Washington Post journalist and historian Bob Woodward once again writes about the Bush administration's disparate optimistic public and pessimistic private pronouncements about the war in Iraq. To quote his 10/01/06 WaPo article,

Two days later, the intelligence division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff circulated a secret intelligence assessment to the White House that contradicted the president's forecast.
Instead of a "long retreat," the report forecast a more violent 2007: "Insurgents and terrorists retain the resources and capabilities to sustain and even increase current level of violence through the next year."
. . . There was a vast difference between what the White House and Pentagon knew about the situation in Iraq and what they were saying publicly. But the discrepancy was not surprising. In memos, reports and internal debates, high-level officials of the Bush administration have voiced their concern about the United States' ability to bring peace and stability to Iraq since early in the occupation.

In an interesting sidebar story - the New York Times broke the book story embargo prior to the book's release date, scooping their competitor, the WaPo. Yesterday Woodward was interviewed by Richard Norton Smith on C-Span's Book-TV. A bit chagrined about the NYT scoop, he was unwilling to discuss his book because of a previous agreement with CBS Sixty Minutes, who will feature Woodward on their program tonight. The huge crowd that had gathered were at first very disappointed but, by the end of the delightful interview, they stood and applauded the two well-known journalists.
Our current president was always happy with Woodward's books until now. The administration has done a considerable amount of push-back to Woodward's assertions this time. This 9/30/06 WaPo article by Peter Baker details the controversy.

More buzz - No doubt much of the Sunday talk show stuff will refer to "State of Denial." And Woodward said yesterday that he will be on book tour for the forseeable future. And at All Headline News, the headline is "Woodward: Card Wanted Rumsfeld Fired."
What bloggers are saying:

• At this point I am withholding judgment because I have not read the book. I have long had both admiration and criticism of this "author of authors" for modern journalism. And I cannot help but admit that I, like his audience at yesterday's bookfair in Washington, can be charmed by him.
• Talking Points Memo by Josh Marshall has a good point made by "TPM Reader DK" about why the actions of OCP (our current president) feel far too familiar.
• Andrew Sullivan calls it "An Unhinged Presidency."
• "The Body Politic" 's Joe Scott calls the book "Lightening October Surprise"
• "Bob Woodward’s Evolving Portrait of President Bush" By James Joyner at Outside the Beltway
• "More Psychopathology and Denial" at the Mahablog

Tags: bush iraq newspaper republicans war blogs book news and politics Bob Woodward

My "creative post" today at Southwest Blogger is about collections of old stuff.