Bush barometer at new low
Now we really know Bush is in trouble. It's one thing to lose the support of the American people, or senior members of your own party. But when you've lost Bob Woodward , you might as well just hang it up.
Woodward helped bring down a sitting president and then spent the rest of his career writing books sucking up to people in power, as if he was committing an act of penance for once shaking up the political establishment so badly. Of course, there was "Maestro," his paean to Greenspan. Then there was "Bush at War," a big ol' wet kiss published after 9/11 and before the invasion of Iraq. This was followed in the spring of '04 by "Plan of Attack" — more critical, to be sure, but hardly a hatchet job.
Now comes his third book about Team Bush, "State of Denial." This time, all the backbiting and incompetence come into full view. Curiously, though, the most newsworthy nuggets, the ones in the papers today, surround events that occurred in 2003 — before the publication of "Plan of Attack."
Seems to me Woodward was sitting on some of this stuff the whole time — intending to keep it secret forever if the Bush presidency turned out to be a success, but abandoning his role of court historian and letting it all come out in the event that public opinion turned against Bush and it would sell books.
It's as if there's some sort of bizarre karmic law in my profession of journalism these days; as Seymour Hersh becomes ever more courageous, Bob Woodward becomes ever more craven.
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