The President co-operates with Woodward
Jonah Goldberg says Woodward's book answers two charges against Bush: that he lied about WMDs, and that he is not really in charge--Cheney is.
The problem is, Goldberg has already explained that the two contrary thoughts--that George Tenet of the CIA assured Bush there were WMDs in Iraq, and that Bush personally wanted to invade Iraq without the benefit of any briefing by anyone--were probably planted in Woodward's book by Bush.
I tend to think Woodward is a disgrace, and always has been. His narratives rely almost completely on unnamed sources. Woodward offers a deal to these sources: give me your side of the story, with some lurid details that can't be easily disproved by anyone (and will make Page 1) or else I'll publish a story from your enemies that will make you look bad.
How much of the result is a lie that can never be tested by responsible people?
So Kathryn Lopez, Goldberg's colleage at the Corner, asks: "Why does the president sit down with Bob Woodward in the first place? We have, evidently, in the Woodward book, based on 60 Minutes and Post excerpts, a portrait of a simple-minded Christian who thinks he was sent by God to give the whole world freedom, and who doesn't consider himself accountable to Congress, the Constitution, or anyone else. Which would [be] just a typical Beltway book--one current account of history, from the angle of its main sources or writer--if it weren't for the legitimacy stamp it gets from having the president as one of its only on-the-record sources."
Goldberg replies: "It sounds like Bush has put a lot of the 'blame' on Tenet (WMDs are a 'slam dunk' indeed) and clarified that Cheney and Rumsfeld were not calling the shots. There's no way Woodward would have written that if Bush hadn't cooperated."
In other words, Bush can't dictate Woodward's whole book, or prevent any negative stuff from appearing. But, by cooperating, and helping Woodward with sales and publicity, Bush can plant a couple of crucial claims.
Does this make these claims more likely to be true, or less? I still think the political staff did a lot of torquing of the evidence about WMDs, both before and after the "slam dunk" remark. I'm willing to believe the President said, from his early days as President, and as he hired various hawks, who had their own reasons for invading Iraq, "let's do it"--regardless of any briefings from Chalabi, the neo-cons, or anyone else.
On the other hand, Timothy Noah suggests that a careful reading of Woodward indicates that it was Cheney who actually pulled the trigger on Saddam's regime.
Update: Noah has a newer piece recommending that Bush dump Cheney. Among other virtues in this piece, Noah links to some of the evidence that Cheney torqued any and all WMD material at least as hard as anyone.
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