Woodward Revisited

Oh man. Is it possible I'm going to have to revisit my opinion of The Washington Post's Bob Woodward? For years, I have had a highly developed theory about Woodward, based on the left's view of his two Bush Books, which performed a kind of lengthy fellatio over the "decisiveness" and message coherence of the current administration. The theory, which is hardly original, holds that Woodward, once the knight in shining armor who saved us from Nixon, had gotten too close to his sources, and was cherishing his position as the go-to-guy in journalism. He believed himself, it seemed, immune from the corruptions of power in the current moment simply because he had revealed power's ugly machinations 30-odd years ago. And, it appeared, he was totally wrong; much like Judy Miller, he seemed to claim for the Bush administration a coherence and wisdom that none of the rest of us finds remotely plausible. My own problem with him was that in interviews promoting Plan of Attack, he seemed to think that he could make decisions about what did and did not happen in the administration based on his interpretation of the truthfulness of his interviews. I heard him on Public Radio, on a call-in show, answering a caller's challenge that perhaps the Bushies had lied to him by saying, essentially, "no, that's not possible, I spent too long talking to them, many hours of interview, and they were being candid." And maybe they were -- but the credulousness was still remarkable and deeply disturbing.

But now I have to take it all back, damn it, because, as you all know from today's New York Times, Woodward's new book is apparently an exercise in exposing the inner turmoil of the Bushies, and their absolute inability to adjust to facts on the ground in Iraq (probably precisely because they can't be bothered to read the newspaper). (I adore, by the way, the Times' snarky comment that they acquired an advance copy of the book by paying retail price for it -- a little swat at the administration's "politically timed leaks" accusations.) I feel that, in the interests of my own journalistic development, I had better read this book.

So it looks like Bob Woodward is not only going to make me rethink my evaluation of him, I am also going to be starting a book club in his honor. I hereby initiate the Bacon Bob Bookclub. Welcome!