Cheney and Woodward
Two more interesting pieces on the Woodward book in Slate.
One by Fred Kaplan suggests that Woodward doesn't know how to interpret his own anecdotes, or explain his own narrative; he "always misses the point." There is no real explanation of the role of Chalabi, Cheney, Wolfowitz, the Office of Special Plans, Doug Feith, or Rumsfeld's theories about a modernized and downsized military.
The other article by Timothy Noah suggests that Woodward knows more than he lets on. The fact that Bush isn't really in charge does emerge, but Woodward doesn't draw too much attention to it. Woodward keeps his sources happy, while letting at least a fair bit of the truth as he knows it emerge for the careful reader.
I still haven't read the Woodward book, but here are some suggestions. Everyone seems to agree that Colin Powell got the book he wanted from Woodward, as he has done before. Powell is the voice of caution, the voice of reason (as opposed to Cheney's "fever") the one who usually wants more time, more evidence, greater forces to be deployed. Yet he is also one who doesn't resign when precipitate and thoughtless action is taken, apparently contrary to his advice. Powell can't lose. If things don't work out, he can say "I told you so." If they do, he was just doing his best to ensure success.
What about the bigger story? Noah has suggested that Bush also got (more or less) the book he wanted. The near-silence about Cheney, Feith and others all helps reinforce the (probably misleading) impression that Bush is in charge. This might not help Cheney's ego in the short term, but in another way it also gives him what he wants. There is no real description of strategy meetings that must have taken place at which the axe-grinding of Ahmed Chalabi, and the now-discredited theories of the neo-cons and Laurie Mylroie, were front and centre.
If Cheney and others were more in the picture, a parade of rather strange special pleaders and hangers-on would also appear, and they might have raised questions about the president's judgement.
Bush defenders may not be happy at the picture of the Bush administration as "not the sharpest crayons in the box," but the book is apparently also almost totally free of the "wingnut" factor. This is not a bad compromise: less Don Quixote, or even Monty Python, but more Gomer Pyle.
The administration emerges as a group with decent small-town values who hated Saddam, and unfortunately invaded Iraq without knowing much about the country. Who can blame them for any of that?
Good if slightly dull patriots is not a bad thing for an administration to be in an election year. The public may continue to rally around them, even if the war goes badly. No one ever denied that the British, French and German generals in World War I were decent, patriotic chaps who meant well. Same with Lord Grey, British Foreign Minister at the outbreak of that war. It has been argued that if he had told the Germans the Brits would fight, and the Russians they wouldn't, everyone would have backed down. Instead he did the reverse. Not that swift, but he was no doubt a decent person, trying to do the right thing.
Maybe Woodward really is a conservative Republican (Alterman).
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