Bob Woodward and One Other Stupid Thing

If there’s the tiniest bit of a silver lining in the Foley scandal, it’s the fact that Foley, Hastert, et al have knocked Bob Woodward (State of Denial) off the front pages of the nation’s papers. Small (very small) consolation that, but good, nonetheless. Woodward’s accusations and spin may not be front page news today, but the man is still making the rounds of the TV talk shows. Charlie Rose devoted the entire hour of his show last night to an interview with Woodward (video at the link). I watched. Or at least tried to watch, but found myself hitting mute when Rose’s leading questions and Woodward’s response(s) became just too much for me to stomach. But I kept going back. All told, I probably watched two-thirds of the show.

I was struck by several things. First and foremost, Woodward is apparently infected with that “every war is Viet Nam” virus. During the course of the interview he mentioned several times that he served in Viet Nam (Navy) and knew what it was like to be “at the bottom of the food chain” when the Big Dogs claim everything is going just dandy but your personal experience contradicts the Party Line. Well, Duh! Name a war, any war, where the grunts’ mud-level view meshed with that of the generals, the SecDef, or the President. Those guys slogging it out on the Marne or at Bastogne didn’t think the war was going well, not at all. Yet, we won. And the reality of Viet Nam was we never lost a single engagement on the battlefield, yet we lost the war. And why? Because, in the end, the American public turned against the war. There’s a lesson there, no? The North Vietnamese understood the impact of public opinion (as does al Qaeda), yet for all his “I was there” rhetoric, Woodward seems to have missed the single most important lesson of Viet Nam. Imagine that.

Secondly, Woodward was privy in a limited way to the councils of war. The impression Woodward developed from this experience is that the administration’s in denial, and is guilty of rejecting substantial evidence that the war is going badly. There is an alternative point of view, succinctly expressed in today’s New York Post editorial:

Everyone's long known about the turmoil in Iraq. And as for administration in-fighting, well, that's just another way of saying that a staff of intelligent, opinionated, self-confident individuals sparred over complex issues.

Or, in other words, Woodward witnessed the fact that war is messy, people die, things get badly broken, and success comes in fits and starts, interspersed with set-backs and losses. Once again, imagine that.

To Woodward’s credit, he admits the jury is still out and that Iraq may well turn out to be a major victory. If that happens, Woodward maintains President Bush will go down in history as “the American Churchill.” But, he followed up that comment with his personal opinion that that particular outcome is highly improbable, given the current situation and leadership. Interestingly enough, the enemy is having doubts of their own about the outcome of the Iraq war. For the third time: Imagine that!

Woodward troubles me because the man has substantial and widespread credibility due to his excellent work during the Watergate era. His point of view and opinions are well-received in certain circles and plants the seed of doubt in others. As I said, he has credibility. And given the daily reports of carnage and mayhem coming out of Iraq, his assertions that the administration’s strategy is flawed and failing meshes with a certain “reality.” Not good. Not good at all. It remains to be seen if the optimists or the pessimists will prevail. There’s a lot riding on the coming mid-terms.

Interesting times, these.

Enough of politics. I agree with the comment Laurie made, re: yesterday’s post. I’m getting burnt out. Really burnt out. San Antonio will be a nice break. I’ll continue to blog while I’m there, but the subject matter will probably be quite different from the usual fare.

Today’s Pic: The house I bought but never lived in. Continuing with a semi-occurring theme of late, that of “Former Happy Days,” here’s an interesting (and stupid) example of the lengths one will go to in a vain attempt to save a marriage. TSMP made an off-hand comment during our end game that “she always hated this house,” referring to the place we were living in. “No problem!” said I… “we’ll buy another house!” And so we did. She left, anyway. We sold the house two weeks after we closed on the purchase. Never lived in. Rush, NY. August, 1998.