NYT review, "State of Denial": Portrait of Bush as victim of own certitude

A Portrait of the President as the Victim of His Own Certitude
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Published: September 30, 2006

STATE OF DENIAL,
Bush at War, Part III
By Bob Woodward

In Bob Woodward’s highly anticipated new book, “State of Denial,” President Bush emerges as a passive, impatient, sophomoric and intellectually incurious leader, presiding over a grossly dysfunctional war cabinet and given to an almost religious certainty that makes him disinclined to rethink or re-evaluate decisions he has made about the war. It’s a portrait that stands in stark contrast to the laudatory one Mr. Woodward drew in “Bush at War,” his 2002 book, which depicted the president — in terms that the White House press office itself has purveyed — as a judicious, resolute leader, blessed with the “vision thing” his father was accused of lacking and firmly in control of the ship of state.

As this new book’s title indicates, Mr. Woodward now sees Mr. Bush as a president who lives in a state of willful denial about the worsening situation in Iraq, a president who insists he won’t withdraw troops, even “if Laura and Barney are the only ones who support me.” (Barney is Mr. Bush’s Scottish terrier.)....As depicted by Mr. Woodward, this is an administration in which virtually no one will speak truth to power, an administration in which the traditional policy-making process involving methodical analysis and debate is routinely subverted. He notes that experts — who recommended higher troop levels in Iraq, warned about the consequences of disbanding the Iraqi Army or worried about the lack of postwar planning— were continually ignored by the White House and Pentagon leadership, or themselves failed, out of cowardice or blind loyalty, to press insistently their case for an altered course in the war.....

***

...(I)n a section describing the former Iraq administrator Jay Garner’s reluctance to tell the president about the mistakes he saw the Pentagon making in Iraq, Mr. Woodward writes: “It was only one example of a visitor to the Oval Office not telling the president the whole story or the truth. Likewise, in these moments where Bush had someone from the field there in the chair beside him, he did not press, did not try to open the door himself and ask what the visitor had seen and thought. The whole atmosphere too often resembled a royal court, with Cheney and Rice in attendance, some upbeat stories, exaggerated good news and a good time had by all.” Were the war in Iraq not a real war that has resulted in more than 2,700 American military casualties and more than 56,000 Iraqi civilian deaths, the picture of the Bush administration that emerges from this book might resemble a farce. It’s like something out of “The Daily Show” or a “Saturday Night Live” sketch, with Freudian Bush family dramas and high-school-like rivalries between cabinet members who refuse to look at one another at meetings being played out on the world stage.

There’s the president, who once said, “I don’t have the foggiest idea about what I think about international, foreign policy,” deciding that he’s going to remake the Middle East and alter the course of American foreign policy. There’s his father, former President George Herbert Walker Bush (who went to war against the same country a decade ago), worrying about the wisdom of another war but reluctant to offer his opinions to his son because he believes in the principle of “let him be himself.” There’s the president’s national security adviser whining to him that the defense secretary won’t return her phone calls. And there’s the president and Karl Rove, his chief political adviser, trading fart jokes....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/30/books/30book.html

His last two books on Bush were virtual lap dances for Shrub. Now this? I don't get it.

with the BFEE, and BAM! I don't know if I buy it; he kept his mouth shut over Plame when he could have/should have said something. I don't even know if that's addressed in this.
One of his books was so pro-* it was on the wh website. I can't imagine this one will be.
:popcorn: :popcorn:

But if Woodward is a serious honest journalist (which is hard to believe considering his book on John Belushi)... well my thought kind of trails off after that.

you know, with the war not going so peachy

Instead of blowing with the wind. But I have my doubts.

and those other two books were HUGE whore jobs

John Roberts was hosting... it was mentioned that the arc of his three books on the Bush presidency have sort of paralleled with public opinion. Perhaps Woodward is playing to that?

I haven't read them.

But Woodward's books tend to be really tedious.

My impressions of the previous two are mainly from coverage, I admit.

I only read 2 chapters but by the end of Chapter 2, its clear that Bush had no foreign policy agenda and his #1 thing going into his 1st term was tax cuts.

Its a pretty good read so far.

and my impression is that this is just basically a hit job on Rumsfeld. He was the one who couldn't work with anyone, he was the one who kept dragging his feet, he was the one who ..............

Bush comes across as the person of great conviction. Bull..............

And, of course, Condi is the ever dutiful trusted .......................

I thought this was going to be a good book. It isn't.

And Bush seems to be ill-informed and everyone is scared to clue him in.

Im going to read Fiasco next and then Assassins Gate.

That should give me a clear picture of what happened/is going on.

I'm going through a little burn out on books about Bush, Iraq, etc right now. Taking a post election deep breath. But there is was and I hadn't read it.