"Deep doo doo" and other understatements

October 3rd, 2006

Bob Woodward told Larry King that an alternate title for his book might have been “Crisis.” Well, Bob! Coming to the party a little late, aren’t you?

Better late than never, I s’pose — and he pushed his publisher to get the book out as quickly before the election as they could, so he’s got the public interest in mind. Still — Arianna and others take a poke at him, below, that is more than deserved.

As he told us on 60 Minutes:

“‘I found out new things, as is always the case when you re-plow old ground. The bulk of them I discovered this year. I wish I’d had some of them for the earlier books, but I didn’t.’”

It’s amazing that a journalist who danced in the eye of the hurricane that was Watergate couldn’t intuit something so similar in the first five years of Bush’s nasty game — stunning that a reporters instincts could become so dulled and cowed — but then, I’ve always considered Bernstein the actual “mover and shaker” in that duo; Bernstein has stood solidly on the Left regarding Bush, with Woodward visibly uncomfortable with Carl’s opinion in those tandem interviews when Deep Throat was revealed.

So — as Arianna points out — Bob’s Road to Damascus moment is welcomed … but it’s just barely enough to retard the tarnishing of has dimmed but iconic career in these last years. Consensus is that Bob has been a toney hobnobber and legend in his own mind far too long … and if this criticism makes the Left sound a little bitchy and unappreciative of his latest offering, let’s remember that there is little defense for his role as enabler to the administration these last long, bloody years. Bush has even handed out Bob’s previous books to his faithful like the cookie to go with the Kool Aid.

As the NYT’s David Carr puts it, “Mr. Woodward’s time spent living in the treetops seems to have blinded him to the fact that the forest below was on fire.”

According to Dan Froomkin, Carr went on to say:

“The actual journalistic accomplishment in ‘State of Denial’ is less than grand. It took him three books to arrive at a conclusion thousands of basement-bound bloggers suggested years ago: that the Bush administration is composed of people who like war, don’t seem to be very good at it and have been known to turn the guns on each other. Such an epiphany doesn’t seem to reflect a reporter who had rarefied access.
…

“One of Mr. Woodward’s chief discoveries was that Donald H. Rumsfeld was not the asset that he first described him as. In ‘Bush at War’ in 2002, Mr. Rumsfeld was described as ‘handsome, intense, well educated with an intellectual bend, witty with an infectious smile.’ In ‘Plan of Attack’ in 2004, he was a leader whose ‘way was clear, and he was precise about it.’ In ‘State of Denial,’ he is a turf-obsessed control freak whose ‘micromanaging was almost comic.’…

But as limp as Mr. Woodward’s performance these last years, you can’t deny his chops — he has the public’s ear. According to Forbes, the book is already into it’s third printing and the sales are brisk. And frankly, I think timing saved old Bob, placing him at the head of the line just as that last domino of public patience fell, and allowing him to ride the wave of any number of terrific books this season, all of them tearing away at the lies and darkness of the administration … Bob just got to dot the “I” and cross the “T.”

The White House is trying to “Rather” Bob now, saying he came to this project with an obvious “bias,” which was why the top echelon of players refused to interview with him.

Bias, huh? And that would be … ummm … the return of sanity bias? Meanwhile, the combination of Woodward’s book and Foley’s outing has the GOP on the run, described as a “perfect storm” of events so close to the mid-terms.

What’s that? The equivalent of Katrina breaking over the heads of the Stepford Party?? To quote our Little Dictator — Bring It On!

Here’s a collection, including the transcript from Larry King Live, in case you missed it.

Jude

Foley fallout knocks GOP off message
LIZ SIDOTI, AP
Tue Oct 3
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061003/ap_on_el_ge/republican_woes

WASHINGTON - Republicans are scrambling to contain the damage of two separate political headaches that share a common theme — accusations that the GOP is hiding the truth.

At the White House, President Bush’s team is rebutting a new book that suggests he misled the country about the severity of the violence in Iraq. On Capitol Hill, House Republican leaders are facing questions of what — and when — they knew about former GOP Rep. Mark Foley’s inappropriate electronic communications with teenage males who had worked as pages.

“These two events have a chance to be a cloud over the entire Election Day,” said Scott Reed, a Republican strategist, who lamented the terrible timing for Republicans with just five weeks before the Nov. 7 election.

Added Tony Fabrizio, another GOP consultant: “It’s almost like the perfect storm forming against us.”

Republicans already were operating in an unfriendly political environment when last week, in a one-two punch, excerpts of Bob Woodward’s new book, “State of Denial,” surfaced and Foley, a six-term Florida congressman, abruptly resigned after media reports that he sent sexually suggestive messages to teenage boys. The tawdry turn of events set off finger-pointing among House Republicans.

Before all that, polls showed widespread disapproval of the GOP-run Congress and the public favoring Democrats to win control of the House and Senate. At the same time, Bush’s support remains low — as does the popularity of the Iraq war.

Control of Congress hangs in the balance. Democrats need to gain 15 seats to take the reins of the House and six to seize power in the Senate.

The White House and Republicans had hoped to close the last congressional work week before the campaign homestretch highlighting the GOP’s national security efforts. Congress sent the president legislation regulating the prosecution of terrorism suspects and allowing the building of fencing along parts of the U.S.-Mexico border.

But as that week ended and this one began, the GOP found itself knocked off message — and confronting the stark prospect that the party may not be able to recover from the double dose of woes before the election.

For days, current and former members of Bush’s staff have attacked Woodward’s accounts, disputed assertions and dismissed the book. White House spokesman Tony Snow likened it to “cotton candy. It kind of melts on contact.” And counselor Dan Bartlett, appearing on Sunday news shows, argued that Bush has been up front with the public about the challenges in Iraq.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, meanwhile, spent the weekend explaining his version of events, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke out on Monday.

On the Foley matter, Snow punted, telling reporters: “The House has to clean up the mess, to the extent there is a mess.”

In the House, Republican leaders did some explaining of their own. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., denounced sexually explicit instant messages Foley is accused of sending in 2003 to teenagers as “vile and repulsive.” He denied that House leaders had access to the specific messages he referred to until the instant messages surfaced in media reports Friday.

However, Hastert’s staff and some Republicans in leadership, including Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y., the chairman of the House campaign effort, for months had been aware of some type of inappropriate 2005 e-mail exchange between Foley and a Louisiana teenage boy who once worked as a page. Reynolds said he also told Hastert. The speaker says he doesn’t recall the conversation but also does not dispute Reynolds’ account.

Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, also has known since the spring that Foley had contacted the teen, but a spokesman said the leader didn’t know details of the contact.

Now GOP leaders find themselves beating back accusations of a cover-up while Democrats seize on the scandal. Rank-and-file Republicans, meanwhile, are distancing themselves from Foley, and some are calling for accountability from leaders who were aware of his reported behavior and failed to take action.

“If they knew or should have known the extent of this problem, they should not serve in leadership,” said Rep. Christopher Shays, a Republican in a competitive re-election fight in Connecticut.

In light of the scandal, at least one Republican-held House seat considered safe for Republicans now may be in jeopardy — Foley’s seat in Florida. His name must remain on the ballot along with Democratic challenger Tim Mahoney even though Republicans chose a replacement GOP candidate, state Rep. Joe Negron.

However, the fallout from the Foley story also could complicate other GOP re-election bids, and several Republicans in close races have announced plans to donate to charities or return the contributions they received from Foley.

For Hastert, Boehner and others in leadership but not in close races, the ramifications could spread beyond November and into House leadership elections should Republicans hold the House.

Privately, some Republicans concede that the party now is in even more danger of losing control of the House, and a few fear that the events could impact the Senate as well.

The concern is that voters already angry with Congress and inclined to favor Democrats will view the Foley matter, coupled with the accusations in the Woodward book, as an indictment against the GOP in general and buy into the Democratic argument that change is needed.

“Salacious issues like this are ready-made for the media,” Rick Davis, a Republican strategist, said as the Foley scandal unfolded. “It’s going to be hard to talk through this noise.”

Woodward: Alternate title was ‘Crisis’
E&P Staff
October 02, 2006
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003190239

NEW YORK - Appearing with Larry King on his CNN show Monday night, Bob Woodward repeated much of what has already come out from his new book “State of Denial,” but also added new information and commentary.

Highlighting why he feels so strongly about the book, he said the alternate title for it was, “Crisis.” He explained: “This is a big war. Henry Kissinger said this is more important that Vietnam.” Woodward said of the war: “It’s going south.”

He also revealed that Donald Rumsfeld had told him that he had seen a copy of the speech Bush was to deliver on the aircraft carrier in May 2003 —with the Mission Accomplished banner behind him – and that the speech originally contained “mission accomplished” in the text. Rumsfeld said he got that deleted but the banner stayed. This shoots down, Woodward suggested, the claim that the Navy independently put up the banner.

Asked about the timing of the book so close to the election, Woodward revealed that the publication date for the book was originally late-October – but he pushed Simon & Schuster to get it out so it wasn’t quite so close to the voting: “It’s a miracle what Simon & Schuster did to get it out as soon as possible.” Earlier today on TV, Woodward had said that he always intended to get it published before the election, feeling that people should have the information before then, and then make up their own minds.

Speaking in a more impassioned way than usual, Woodward, when asked what Bush should do about the war now, said, “President Bush is going to have to call in the Democrats and not have a one-hour meeting but one of those Clinton all-night-in-the-dorm meetings….and tell them we need a bipartisan plan that will take this out of the political arena.” Woodward said he had heard that, in fact, “soundings” are being taken about this idea to follow the election. He then cited the famous expression of Bush’s father: We’re in “deep doo-doo.”

Woodward said he talked to a CIA man who recently came back from Iraq who said, “It’s like Mad Max over there now.”

Asked by the host to compare his current reporting to Watergate, he replied, “There are no crimes alleged here,” though some would take exception to that. He added: “But this is a war…and the stakes could not be higher…It pains me to see the approach they decided on from the beginning was denial,” hoping “maybe we’ll get a break.”

Asked if the administration should be charged with deviousness or incompetence, Woodward answered: “Inattentiveness.” Was Bush manipulated into the war by Cheney and Rumsfeld? No, “it was Bush’s decision, clearly.”

Woodward as Journalistic Hero: the Real State of Denial
Arianna Huffington
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/woodward-as-journalistic-_b_30769.html

Bob Woodward is getting the journalistic hero treatment for “State of Denial,” his self-revising reassessment of the Bush administration’s handling of Iraq — including a cover plug from Newsweek (which called him “the best excavator of inside stories in the nation’s capital”) and a laudatory lead story segment on “60 Minutes”.

Talk about being in a state of denial: praising Woodward for his very-late-to-the-party Iraq pile-on is like a music critic writing a rave of “Let It Be” and getting credit for discovering The Beatles. Or, more fitting, having someone be the 100th — or is 100,000th? — person to call 911 to report a car crash and then getting credit for alerting the authorities.

Yet there was Mike Wallace gushing about how Woodward had “unearthed” a “secret” classified graph revealing that — wait for it — attacks on “US, Iraqi, and allied forces… have increased dramatically over the last three years.” Wow. You don’t say! What did Woodward have to do to “unearth” that one? Pick up a newspaper? Or log onto a blog or two — or two hundred?

Then there was the revelation, breathlessly delivered by Wallace in his intro, that after two years and more than 200 interviews, including “most of the top officials in the administration,” Woodward has come to “a damning conclusion: That for the last three years, the White House has not been honest with the American public.” Stop the presses, hold the front page! And burn all the copies of “Fiasco,” “Cobra II,” “The One Percent Doctrine,” “Hubris” — plus 99.9 percent of the blog posts on Iraq that have appeared on HuffPost since we launched — that have previously come to exactly the same “damning conclusion.” Why fork over $30 for much-older-than-yesterday’s news?

In her New York Times review of “State of Denial,” Michiko Kakutani says that Woodward paints a portrait of President Bush 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.”

To which I say: “Welcome to 2002, Bob.” I can only hold my breath in anticipation of what headline grabbing insights “the best excavator of inside stories” will “unearth” for his next book: “Paris Hilton: Shallow Party Girl,” or, perhaps, “Islamic Fundamentalism: Could be a Problem in the Future.”

Sure, I suppose we should welcome the fact that Woodward has joined the rest of the sentient world in his appraisal of Bush. But without any expiation for — and discussion of — the role his earlier hagiographic renderings of the administration played in enabling all the behaviors he’s now so aghast at, it’s hard to take his Road to Damascus moment seriously. After all, if there’s one thing you can say about Bush, it’s that he is who he is.

Bush had that same religious certainty, lack of curiosity, impatience and disinclination to rethink things back in 2004, when Woodward published “Plan of Attack,” or in 2002, when Woodward published “Bush at War.”

But in those books, Woodward saw things a bit differently — which would explain why “Plan of Attack” was given the top slot on the Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign website’s recommended reading list (ranking even higher than Karen Hughes’ Bush-adoring “Ten Minutes from Normal”). And why Woodward, even in the wake of Abu Ghraib, could be found on Jim Lehrer in the spring of 2004 mooning over Bush’s “moral determination, which we’ve not seen in the White House maybe in 100 years” and announcing, sounding like a TV car pitchman, “People want a tough president, and this man is tough.”

Let’s hope that, unlike Mike Wallace, the other journalists interviewing Woodward on his PR blitz ask him to admit how wrong he was instead of allowing him to get away with making the laughable claim: “I found out new things, as is always the case when you re-plow old ground.”

Without some accounting in the new book about how Woodward himself could have been in a state of denial for the first five years of the Bush presidency, it’s hard not to reach the “damning conclusion” that Woodward didn’t write “State of Denial” because he suddenly realized Iraq was going to hell. He wrote it because he realized his reputation was going to hell.

Woodward, the classic Washington weathervane, knows, with his unerring weathervane instinct, that it’s now okay to criticize Bush — and that, indeed, anyone who wants a seat at the Big Persons’ table after Bush leaves has to now admit Iraq has been a disaster. And Woodward definitely doesn’t want to give up his special seat at the Big Persons’ table.

His view of sources is like someone’s who chooses a $70 entrée because if it’s that expensive, it must be good. Unlike his work uncovering Watergate, he now only orders up high-end sources. Which is why the most interesting thing about the new book is that it makes it clear the high-level crowd has turned on Bush. And, therefore, so has that crowd’s official stenographer.

Tellingly, there was one high-end source that didn’t speak to Woodward for this book: Bush himself. Why did Bob’s biggest fan suddenly turn shy? According to Howard Kurtz:

“[Dan] Bartlett said yesterday that he and other officials, while cooperating, noticed ‘a different tone and tenor to this project. . . . Some pretty hard conclusions had already formed in Bob’s mind. So we made the judgment that the third time was not a charm.’”

“Pretty hard conclusions?” Given the disastrous state of Iraq — and the projections that things are only going to get worse — I’d say Woodward’s new, thunderingly obvious and zeitgeist-friendly conclusions were pretty easy to unearth. And not the least bit heroic to deliver.

CNN LARRY KING LIVE
Interview With Bob Woodward
Aired October 2, 2006
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0610/02/lkl.01.html

LARRY KING, CNN HOST: Tonight, Bob Woodward and the bombshell book that could rock next month’s elections. What did the White House know about the situation in Iraq that it didn’t tell the American public? Has the administration from President Bush on down failed to tell the truth; legendary investigative journalist Bob Woodward, with your calls and e-mails, next on LARRY KING LIVE.

KING: It’s out only three days. It’s number one on Amazon.com. We’re in Washington with Bob Woodward, an old friend, and the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, assistant managing editor of “The Washington Post.” The bombshell book is “State of Denial, Bush at War Part III.”

Bob, there appears to be a 180-degree turn here. The Bush in “Bush at War” and “Plan of Attack” is he different from the Bush in this book?

BOB WOODWARD, AUTHOR, “STATE OF DENIAL”: Well, the circumstances were different. The first book, “Bush at War,” was about the response to 9/11. Even John Kerry said that Bush did a good job on that. “Plan of Attack” was about the decision to go to war in Iraq. Three- quarters of the Congress, both the House and the Senate, voted to support that war. So, now this is about the last three and a half years and it’s not a happy story.

KING: When you started it did you know where you were going?

WOODWARD: No, absolutely not.

KING: You had no idea it would turn out this way?

WOODWARD: When you’re in this business you have not the foggiest idea. You have no idea who’s going to talk. You have no idea about the meetings you don’t know about. You’re in the dark.

KING: Early on were you surprised?

WOODWARD: I was and, you know, I brought this here because there’s been some question from the White House. Dan Bartlett, who is the counselor to the president, has said it seemed that I had an attitude or had reached…

KING: An agenda. WOODWARD: Well, he didn’t literally say. He said that it seemed I had reached some conclusions. So, earlier this year I took him, in fact this is a copy of what I gave him of notes of a National Security Council meeting right before the war when Jay Garner, who was running things over there or going to in the first months, came to talk to the president and, in the notes, which are in the book, Jay Garner said “I can’t do four of the things you’ve assigned me to do of the nine things,” which were the hard ones.

KING: And you gave these notes?

WOODWARD: To Bartlett and I said, “Is there more? Is there any response?” It has the president’s response essentially being — saying to Garner, you know, “What’s your accent? Where did you get that accent?” And “Kick ass Jay.” And there was no substantive engagement. I never heard back.

KING: The Bush who was going to war, the Bush whom you praised.

WOODWARD: Well, I didn’t praise. I described. And, I mean as you know the Bush who was going to war, the second book “Plan of Attack” the Kerry campaign recommended. Kerry went out on the campaign trail.

KING: You know you had critics who said that Woodward had access and therefore because of access was nice to these people.

WOODWARD: Well but they haven’t read the book then because, if you read the book, it looks both ways. And, it does. That’s just a fact.

KING: I want to toss to a sound byte.

WOODWARD: Sure.

KING: Among the examples of Bush’s public optimism about Iraq that you cite is this speech in Chicago. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Years from now people will look back on the formation of a unity government in Iraq as a decisive moment in the story of liberty, a moment when freedom gained a firm foothold in the Middle East and the forces of terror began their long retreat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Was he kidding? Did he know he was not telling the truth? What was he doing there?

WOODWARD: Well, I don’t know but what I found out right around this time there’s a secret report from the intelligence division of the Joint Chief of Staff saying things are going to get worse. And, the terrorists in Iraq maintain this capability and in the year 2007, that’s next year, it’s going to get worse. He’s saying, as you heard, that they’re in retreat.

KING: So, what do you make of this, Bob? I mean you know him. You’ve spent a lot of hours with him. I’ve interviewed him a few times but not like you, didn’t have all that access to go in. What do you make (INAUDIBLE)?

WOODWARD: Here’s what I make of it. He’s an optimist. He’s a leader in a time of a really difficult war, a war of choice, a war he decided on, and it’s Bush’s war, no question about it and it’s gone south and it’s become more and more violent and more and more difficult.

Now, for the earlier books I talked to him about this issue. I said, “After 9/11, you were the voice of realism. People praised you for telling the truth and coming to the American public and saying it’s going to be a long war. It’s going to be a difficult war.” Now, in this period of difficulty and darkness, we have not been getting the straight story unfortunately.

KING: Did he see you for this book?

WOODWARD: No, he did not. He declined.

KING: Do you know why?

WOODWARD: Well, Dan Bartlett has said because he felt I had reached some conclusions. I’d reached no conclusions. I had lots of secret memos and notes of what they had done and how they had done it and that his response to the man he put in charge of post war Iraq was when the man said, and your producer comes to you and says “I can’t do the things you’ve assigned me to do,” you don’t go say “kick ass.”

KING: Rumsfeld is denying everything. I don’t think he’s read it yet but he said, for example, for accuse him of not returning calls from other people. He said he does return calls.

WOODWARD: OK, now let’s just take that. I mean this is an example.

KING: You call it non-denial denial.

WOODWARD: Yes. But this is a denial and Andy Card was on NBC tonight and other matters — I’m sorry it was in FOX News he was asked about this and Andy Card said, “Well, they’re type A personalities. Things get emotional.”

And the interviewer after Card gave a long answer said, “So, I take that as a yes.” Of course. I’ve done — Andy Card has said publicly that I interviewed him and he said that one of the difficulties was at certain points and on certain issues Rumsfeld would not return Rice’s calls.

KING: Is this — are there aspects of this that’s a throwback to Watergate? I mentioned non-denial denial, which was prevalent in Watergate. WOODWARD: It’s an — there are no crimes alleged in this and Watergate, of course, was about crimes. But this is about war and this is about the biggest commitment this country has made in this century so far and the stakes could not be higher.

And, you know, I mean I will say this to you as a citizen, as somebody who served in the military, it pained me to see that the approach that they had adopted in this, not just this year or in 2005, but at the beginning was a kind of denial. Let’s pretend it’s another way or maybe we’ll get a break.

KING: Does it cause you to worry for your country?

WOODWARD: You know, I guess you always worry for our country. I think one of the nice things is that you can go do this and put it out and explain to people what you have found and get the memos and the information and the non-denial denials and the confirmation and people can make their judgment.

KING: You can affect an election though.

WOODWARD: No but see that’s…

KING: You don’t think so?

WOODWARD: Look, this is just reporting and I’ve done it for 35 years and sometimes it has an impact and sometimes it doesn’t and this is done to fulfill my obligation as a reporter.

KING: So you’re saying this is — let the chips fall. If they fall, they fall.

WOODWARD: Of course.

KING: We’ll be right back with Bob Woodward. The book is “State of Denial.” This is LARRY KING LIVE in Washington.

We’ve got e-mails. We’ll take your phone calls, lots to get to, don’t go away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: Either you say, yes it’s important and we stay there to get it done, or we leave. We’re not leaving, so long as I’m the president. That would be a huge mistake.

They can expect tough sledding and they can expect a grateful commander-in-chief and a grateful nation.

We will stay. We will fight. And, we will win in Iraq.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
…

(VIDEO CLIP)
TONY SNOW, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: You got a lot of juicy gossip in the book and people will have all the time they want to go through it but the fundamental question about whether the president is “in denial,” flat wrong, absolutely wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Want to respond to Mr. Snow?

WOODWARD: Well, the evidence going way, way back is that there is a kind of denial. Let me give you an example and there are dozens in the book. November 11, 2003, now this is six months, eight months after the invasion the top CIA man, a guy named Rob Rischer (ph), who is head of the division for the Near East for the Middle East for the CIA, this is one of these operatives you never hear about or see, been to Iraq, went to the seven bases we had and he came back and briefed President Bush and the NSC.

And, he said there’s an insurgency out there. Don Rumsfeld, who was there said, “Well, I’m not sure I agree with you.” The CIA man gets out The Pentagon’s manual which says, look, an insurgency is defined this way, popular support, ability to strike at will, ability to move at will, and says it meets all of these criteria.

President Bush says “Well, I don’t think we’re there yet and I don’t want any of my cabinet officers saying there’s an insurgency. I don’t want to read about it in “The New York Times.”

KING: Is this…

WOODWARD: Now what is that? Now, what you also find in the research at that time, the month before, attacks zoomed up, insurgent attacks on our forces and Iraqis to 1,000 in the month of October, 2003. Now that’s 30 attacks a day. That’s one an hour.

Now, imagine if there was — in this country if there were attacks one an hour, you’d say something’s going on and the concern should not be what’s “The New York Times” going to say? The concern should be how do we deal with this?

KING: Is this devious or incompetent?

WOODWARD: You know, again, I’m not judging, no evidence that it’s devious. Bush is an optimist. What it is, it’s inattentiveness. They thought this was going to be easy. They thought, as Cheney…

KING: You quote him from this show.

WOODWARD: …saying yes.

KING: The insurgency is over.

WOODWARD: Yes.

KING: It’s over. WOODWARD: Yes, the throw in the last throws. And then that’s the next year and the attacks are going up again. I think, look, there’s a lot of idealism behind this war in terms of Bush. Now, a lot of people would disagree with that. I spent a lot of time looking at his decision to go to war and he believes, and he told me and he jumped in a chair when he said, “I believe we have a duty to free people.” He wants to do that.

It has not turned out that way. Now things often don’t turn out the way you expect. But this has been three and a half years of increasing violence. I talked to a CIA person who came back recently. He said, “It’s like a Mad Max movie over there. We do not — we do not control any territory,” he said “unless we sit on it.”

KING: Dan Bartlett, you mentioned him earlier, over the weekend he gave an explanation of why the administration decided against having Bush or Cheney sit down with you for this book. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAN BARTLETT, COUNSELOR TO THE PRESIDENT: On certain occasions when he met with administration officials and they would come to talk to me about their meetings with him, there was just a sense that despite spending hours with them that their points weren’t getting across.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So you thought he had an agenda?

BARTLETT: I’m not going to use the word agenda but we did feel like he approached this book different than he did the first two and that’s why we made the decision that the president was not going to participate in it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And the vice president didn’t speak with him either.

BARTLETT: That’s correct.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Is that true?

WOODWARD: No, it’s not true.

KING: You didn’t approach this book any differently?

WOODWARD: I may — how could I and why would I and why would people…

KING: What was his feeling based on?

WOODWARD: Look, the fact is I brought, as I mentioned, information to them that reflected this inattentiveness that reflected a kind of denial and, of course, I asked about it. I said, “Why did the president make this response when the top guy just back from Iraq, the top guy from the CIA said it’s an insurgency?” And he just said, you know, what I quoted about cabinet officers and “The New York Times.” Now, I wish he’d said something that he worried about “The Washington Post” not just “The New York Times.”

KING: How do you respond to your critics over the years who have said you’re favorable to people if they give you an interview, not favorable if they don’t?

WOODWARD: Read the book and one of the few people who was on the record at length is Don Rumsfeld. I mean that demonstrates…

KING: He doesn’t come off very good.

WOODWARD: Well, look, he is the man who’s the deputy president for war in practice and there are lots of questions about him that lots of people have, generals and others in the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: I mean the fact is, Larry, I submitted my resignation to President Bush twice during that period. Before I could even think about it, the president came out and said “You’re not going to resign.”

BUSH: I hear the voices and I read the front page and I know the speculation but I’m the decider and I decide what is best and what’s best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Why do you think he holds on to Secretary Rumsfeld?

WOODWARD: I think he believes in — believes in him and one of the things I report in the book is that Andy Card, when he was chief of staff, at least three times really went to the president and recommended specifically that Rumsfeld be replaced and Card just didn’t say it that way. He said, “And I think you should put Jim Baker,” who was the former secretary of state “in as defense secretary.”

KING: Condoleezza Rice disputing the book’s account of a July 10, 2001 meeting. She has no specific recollection. She said, “I would remember if I was told, as this account apparently says, that there was about to be an attack in the United States. The idea that I would somehow have ignored that I find incomprehensible.”

WOODWARD: Well, as I understand it, I don’t want to misspeak but then apparently the spokesman for the State Department held a briefing recently saying they have discovered there was such a meeting.

Now, I do not report in the book where Tenet and the CIA people came in and said, you know, “We know exactly where there’s going to be an attack.” Now this was two months before 9/11.

What I report is they came in and said, “We’re giving you strategic warning. There’s so much noise in the intelligence system here. We think something is going to happen.” Dick Clarke in his book quotes Tenet around this time saying, “I have a sixth sense it’s coming.”

KING: Former President Bush, who will be a guest here Thursday night, is quoted in your book as confiding to someone that Condy Rice was a disappointment that she’s not up to the job as secretary of state. That’s on page 420. Who was the someone?

WOODWARD: As it is in the book Brent Scowcroft who had been his national security adviser.

KING: And who was opposed to the war right?

WOODWARD: Opposed to the war and who really was kind of — Condy Rice was one of his young staffers on the National Security Council for Bush, Sr.

KING: Speaking of formers, for the first time we learned through your book that Henry Kissinger is called upon by this White House. I think he said the other day, sort of in passing, that lots of former secretaries of state and other officials are called in by lots of administrations. It doesn’t mean that they’re wielding any influence. They’re just offering their thoughts.

WOODWARD: Yes but…

KING: I’m paraphrasing but I think that’s what he said.

WOODWARD: But as Cheney told me, Kissinger is, excuse me, the person they see the most often. In fact, Cheney said…

KING: Cheney told you that?

WOODWARD: Cheney told me.

KING: But I thought he didn’t interview.

WOODWARD: In a discussion he told me about this and said he meets with Kissinger once a month and the president every two or three months. Kissinger has gone on television and said he had about 15 to 20 meetings with this president. That’s a lot of meetings.

KING: Does it mean he has impact or just thoughts?

WOODWARD: Well, trace the chain of what happened. Kissinger goes out and writes in August of ‘05 that in Iraq victory is the only meaningful exit strategy. About three months later, the White House comes out with what’s called the plan for victory right out of Kissinger’s play book.

KING: And did that surprise you when you learned?

WOODWARD: It did.

KING: Because they never speak about Henry Kissinger.

WOODWARD: I know, exactly, and in fact Andy Card is quote in the book saying that Kissinger was almost like family. He was told “Any time you’re in town, call and see if the president’s available and stop by.”

KING: Tony Snow said that the president listens to everybody and he gets all kinds of input. Who do you know that talks to him that is critical of the war that has his ear?

WOODWARD: That’s a good question. I report in the book what happened with Senator Hagel, the Republican from Nebraska, who went to the White House for lunch, took the president aside and said something rather bold. He said, “You’re bubbled in. You’re not talking to people. You need to talk to people.”

And so, Hagel had some meetings with Steve Hadley, the national security advisor, and there was lots of talk and so forth and Hagel then came out publicly and said they’re denying reality. They won’t get people in and really listen, you know. It’s one thing to have kind of, you know, small meetings and discussions. It’s another thing to say “I really want to know what you think.”

KING: With all you’ve learned and all you’ve gotten in this volume where is it going to end?

WOODWARD: I don’t know.

KING: Where is this going?

WOODWARD: I don’t know. I mean that’s not, you know, my job. I’m trying to chronicle what happened. Who knows? I mean it’s — for me personally the alternative title for this book was “Crisis.” It’s a crisis. This is a big war. This is not just defining the George Bush presidency or the era we live in. In fact, I point out that Kissinger’s view publicly stated is this is more important than Vietnam because it’s the Middle East.

KING: How did they — what did they read wrong about the insurgency? What did they see?

WOODWARD: It was a total surprise. It was a total surprise. They didn’t see it coming.

KING: No top official saw it except the CIA guy who reported it.

WOODWARD: I don’t think so. Well, at that point it was obvious. At the begin — well, actually there are some things that we uncovered. Bill Murphy, my assistant, found somebody, a colonel who gave a briefing and it was called the Black Hawk Down Strategy.

And it said that Saddam might be waiting to attack after the invasion and be putting people out who are former loyalists to kind of rise up and start an insurgency. It literally is repeated in the book and it’s chilling to read it because it’s exactly what happened.

KING: We’ll take a break. When we come back, we’ll include some phone calls, get to some e-mails. The book “State of Denial,” the author Bob Woodward, don’t go away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to (INAUDIBLE) and defending the world from grave danger.

So, we must recognize Iraq as a central front in the war on terror.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We’re back with Bob Woodward. Your portraits evolve about Rumsfeld who you interviewed for the book. In “Bush at War” you described Rumsfeld as “handsome, intense, well educated with an intellectual bent,” in “State of Denial” Rumsfeld is “arrogant, control freak, who is micromanaging is almost comic.” Is that all the same guy?

WOODWARD: Indeed, it is. And of course in “Bush at War” you show him — I mean, I show him in that book getting quite angry and arrogant and all of those characteristic which appear in this book.

KING: He’s all of the above?

WOODWARD: Well, yes. He can be very charming and witty. He’s a smart man. He’s a smart man. You know him. You’ve had him on this show. When he turn on the — press the charm button, no one’s better.

KING: He’s fun to be around.

Steven Hadley, the national security adviser, did he grade them?

WOODWARD: Yes. I mean this, again, well, what — this isn’t Teddy Kennedy’s view. Steve Hadley, national security adviser, beginning of 2005. Now, he had been the deputy national security adviser to Condi Rice.

Sad when you look back on the first Bush term B- on policy formulation. On policy execution, carrying out things, doing things, a D-. Now, that’s an insider saying in a moment of deep but truthful introspection, hey look, we get a D-.

KING: Why did they keep him?

WOODWARD: Well, his commitment was to try to make it better.

KING: We go to some e-mails. We’ll include some phone calls, too. First e-mail from Kenneth in Odenton, Maryland. Question: “do you feel as if President Bush was manipulated into the Iraq war by Cheney and Rumsfeld and now has his cowboy gunslinger instinct that won’t allow him to realize he’s gotten in way over his head?”

WOODWARD: No. As I attempted to show and I think I did in “Plan of Attack,” it was Bush’s decision. Clearly, Cheney was as forceful steam rolling advocate for war. In fact, I asked the president and Rumsfeld both and they agreed, Bush never asked Rumsfeld for his recommendation about whether he should go to war or Iraq.
KING: Never?

WOODWARD: Never did.

KING: Colin Powell, new biography out about him, says that despite previous claims there was a mutual decision, Powell was forced out as Secretary of State. Is that book correct?

WOODWARD: That book is by Karen D. Young. I have not yet read it. I’m sure it’s terrific. She spent years looking at Powell. I have some of that in “State of Denial” also.

KING: That he was forced out?

WOODWARD: Andy Card went to Colin Powell and said the president is going to make a change.

KING: E-mail question from Dave in Phoenix, “some say the publication date of your book was designed to create a firestorm close to the elections. Was any thought given to that scenario by you or Simon and Shuster?”

WOODWARD: It’s an excellent question. This was published when it was done, as soon as it was done.

In fact, I think we finished the book about six weeks ago or two months ago. It is a miracle what Simon & Shuster did to produce this book.

My personal feeling was that I had spent the last five years on this. I talked to these people. I had done two books. I needed to get information out as soon as possible.

The initial publication date was going to be the end of October. I strongly pushed and Simon & Schuster agreed that we had to move it up so it didn’t come right in the days or weeks before the election.

KING: This one is from May in Baily City, California. “Why did you not reveal what’s in your latest book before the last presidential election?”

WOODWARD: Because most of it hadn’t happened.

KING: But you had a lot of information, didn’t you?

WOODWARD: Believe me, I revealed everything I knew in “Plan of Attack,” which was 2004. The decision to go to war, nothing was held back. I learned some new things about that period which are in that book.

But much of this book is about 2005 and 2006. And those hadn’t occurred. So, in a sense, if I may say this, something you were saying kind of this was a 180 on Bush. It’s not a 180 on Bush.

I’m reporting — crude analogy, you write about three baseball games and in one game the manager does a great job and wins — the initial response to 9/11. So you covered that as it occurred and as the facts reveal.

Second, it’s mixed, and maybe it’s a tied ball game.

And then in the third game it’s 18-0. Now, how do you write that story? You can’t write that story what you covered in the first ball game. So the chronology gets — you don’t see the point?

KING: Oh, I see it. When you were doing Watergate, covering Watergate, that wasn’t a book. You were writing daily stories.

WOODWARD: That’s right.

KING: Great reporting. And then it became a book and of course, a movie.

Now, when you’re doing a book, are there days when you would say, I would love to write this for tomorrow’s editions?

WOODWARD: You — the reporter’s juices get going. But the process here and the reason this book is so comprehensive and has all of the angles and it tells you what went on in the White House, the CIA, the State Department, the Pentagon is you get information from one and then you check and you double check and then you go back. And so there is is a complete portrait here.

I, in a discussion before the book came out after Leonard Downey, who is the editor of the Washington Post when he read it and we had a discussion about it and I said and believe, this is as close as you get to describing what really happened in a contemporary situation, that you can’t get closer to find out that the White House chief of staff is talking to the First Lady about, you know, what should we do with Rumsfeld.

KING: She denies that by the way.

WOODWARD: Well, Andy Card is on record now saying that it happened.

KING: Didn’t you want to print that the next day?

WOODWARD: No no.

KING: No? WOODWARD: No. Because that’s half a page in the book. It’s part of the story. And it’s quite possible to tell — you know, it’s complete. Somebody who reads it is going to get, you know, may like it or not like it but you’re going to get a full dose of Bush in this war. You can’t do that for a newspaper.

KING: Did you expect this onslaught from the White House?

WOODWARD: It’s not on on — I mean….

KING: I’d call it an onslaught.

WOODWARD: Myths…

KING: Sent out people the whole weekend.

WOODWARD: Yeah. But look, and they say — one of the things Dan Bartlett said, is he thinks I don’t connect the dots. All this book does is connect the dots. It goes from one dot to the next to the next to the next. And they’re connected.

They — there is this kind of — and I guess it has to be called a nondenial denial. They will set something up and then say Woodward claims and say this isn’t true. But I never claimed it. Sometimes people have overstated things in the press coverage. And so then they take that and say that’s not true but it’s not in the book.

KING: Can you really be totally objective?

WOODWARD: You can try.

KING: It’s hard?

WOODWARD: Well, but remember, this is not a — this is a book about the people who made these decisions. As I say, the sources, these aren’t people on Capitol Hill. These aren’t people who are Democrats, people — these are insiders.

These are — I mean, Andy Card, let’s look — can I be real specific? Has said publicly he talked to me. And he talked to me a lot. In fact, he said openly that everything in the book, every fact is correct.

Do you know how many times I talked to Andy Card? Five times, total of seven hours, transcripts of those interviews, 207 pages — seven hours. If you were to interview Andy Card on this show seven hours would be about two weeks of LARRY KING LIVE. Do you realize that?

KING: Because it’s 42 minutes.

WOODWARD: Can you imagine having the White House chief of staff here to say for two weeks why did this happen, what happened here, why did this go on, and so forth?

Now that’s only one example — he’s somebody who has come forward and said, yeah, I talked.

KING: If I had two weeks, I would have asked him a little about General Motors.

We’ll be right back with Bob Woodward. Don’t go away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: These are challenging times and they’re difficult times. And they’re straining the psyche of our country. I understand that.

This war will be difficult. This war will be long. And this war will end in the defeat of the terrorists of totalitarians and a victory for the cause of freedom and liberty.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We’re back with Bob Woodward. The book “State of Denial.” Tell us about Rumsfeld talking about Mission Accomplished banner on the ship.

WOODWARD: This is May 1st, 2003, the very famous speech the president gave on the aircraft carrier, the Kennedy. You know there was that sign, Mission Accomplished. And I asked Rumsfeld about it and said he was — Rumsfeld was in Baghdad and they sent him an advanced copy of the speech. And he said, I almost died because mission accomplished was in the speech. And he said, I got it out of the speech but I didn’t get the sign down. Now they’ve always put out the story that it was the Navy that put up the sign. And there’s the secretary of defense saying it was in the speech.

KING: What’s the situation between Rumsfeld and Condi?

WOODWARD: Look, they work but, you know, there’s tension. I mean, any reporter who’s covered the Pentagon or the State Department knows there’s a back and forth that sometimes gets heated.

KING: Tell us about that conversation between Congressman Murtha and General Abizaid.

WOODWARD: Yes, now General Abizaid, he’s the combatant commander for the region. He’s the one who has the responsibility, knows the most, is a supporter of the war, needless to say. But this year he went to see John Murtha. Now, John Murtha is the Democrat from Pennsylvania —

KING: War hero.

WOODWARD: War hero. Kind of the soul and conscience of the military in a very real way. And it came out last year saying we have to get out as soon as practical. And John Murtha was in his office and Bill Murphy and I went to interview him. And he said, Abizaid had been in here earlier and came in and sat down and said, I’m going to speak candidly and he took his fingers like that, quarter of an inch apart and said, Congressman, we’re that far apart.

KING: Let’s take a call. Cleveland, Ohio, for Bob Woodward. Hello. I’m sorry, Cleveland, Tennessee. Hello.

CALLER: Mr. Woodward, if you had knowledge of the charts that showed an increased level of violence in Iraq, and you were a reporter for the “Washington Post” wasn’t that information important enough to be published in the Post and not wait until it was put in the book?

WOODWARD: Exactly, but if you look at that chart, it deals with the period May 2003 to May 2006. In other words, I only got that chart a couple of months ago. And I was really surprised at the level of violence going back in 2003, 2004. But I did not know that until a couple of months ago.
…

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: This will not be a campaign of half measures and we will accept no outcome but victory.

Major combat operation in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq the United States and our allies have prevailed.

The decision I made was the right decision. America is safer and the world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We’re back. We have an email question from Gary in Brookfield, Wisconsin. “Do the revelation in this new book cause you to reconsider what you wrote in your previous two books about Bush?”

WOODWARD: No, because that’s what happened. We’ve gone through that.

KING: You don’t change any opinions?

WOODWARD: No, I don’t. And I — you know, I would add some of the things that I’ve learned for this book in the other books. But those are also reported — carefully reported, as people know.

KING: Are you in this book more than others? For example, on page 473, you describe yourself as “speechless” when Don Rumsfeld compares the insurgent attacks to a fruit bowl.

WOODWARD: Well, I was. And he made that comparison. He said these attacks are like a fruit bowl, a banana, an orange or an apple. I did not understand how the secretary of defense could make that comparison. I mean, those are the — those are the attacks that are killing our people. And I was speechless. And I just wondered, should I not share that thought.

KING: And you did.

WOODWARD: I did. I did.

I wanted to correct something, by the way. Bill Murphy rightly came and said I misspoke when I said the mission accomplished speech was on the Kennedy. It was on the aircraft carrier, the Abraham Lincoln. Got my presidents wrong. Sorry.

KING: E-mail question. Last e-mail from Jack in Westford, Massachusetts. “What’s your current view on how the war in Iraq will end as far as U.S. troops are concerned?” When do you think this — when will they start coming home?

WOODWARD: I don’t know. I quote Rumsfeld saying that insurgencies last eight to 10 years. Who knows.

KING: Well, then this war is going to be going on when the next president is elected.

WOODWARD: Well, George Bush has said that, yes. You know, unless there’s a change.

Now, my sister, Ann, I talked to her after one of these interviews. I said — and she said she had watched one with some friends. And she said, but their question was, where does this go? What should we do? What should happen? And I said — and I gave my answer that I don’t know, obviously. And it’s not my job.

My sense from doing some reporting is that President Bush is going to have to call in the Democrats at some point and sit down with them in a way that — and not it just be a one-hour meeting. It’s got to be one of these Clinton all night at that time dorm meetings, and say, this war and the direction of the country’s at stake. We need a bipartisan agreement on where we’re going. Never get everyone to sign up, but I want to hear what you think and hash it out, and come up with some plan or something that will take this out of the political arena. This country was successful in the Cold War, why? Because it was bipartisan.

KING: Would he do that after the congressional…

WOODWARD: I don’t know. I’m just saying there are soundings going around that…

KING: It might happen?

WOODWARD: … that could happen. That you — it has reached a point where it’s so political, where the level of violence is so great, we have so many more troops — there’s Tom Ricks, the “Washington Post” Pentagon reporter has pointed out, the strategy is, we’ll stand down when they stand up, meaning when the Iraqi forces, the military and the police, we now have 300,000 of them, are well trained and well equipped — well, we’ll get out.

Well, they’ve stood up and we’ve stood up. We’ve increased.

KING: A thing like that would have to happen after the elections, though.

WOODWARD: Yes, in a practical sense. But look, this has got to get out of the political realm and countries in — we are in what whoever the president was who talked about deep doo-doo.
KING: Who said that? I think it was George Bush the first.

WOODWARD: Yes, it was.
…

KING: One of our key staff members wants to know if you think we can trust George Bush.

WOODWARD: You know, that’s a good, interesting question, but I — I don’t address it, and I think it would — it’s not my job. I can deal with the facts, and when the facts, as they do in this book, mount up to there are things happening that we’re not being told…

KING: You’re saying it’s up to the reader?

WOODWARD: Of course it is. Of course it is.

KING: Cheney and weapons of mass destruction. He was the last one to think they weren’t there, right? He called David Kay, what, in the middle of night?

WOODWARD: Yes, that’s right. And said check this communication intercept.

KING: Was he the last?

WOODWARD: Well, I don’t know. I mean, he — he was a believer. It’s very interesting, if we have a moment, in the book that General “Spider” Marks who I think does some work…

KING: Been on this show a lot.

WOODWARD: … for CNN was the intelligence guy on the ground in Kuwait going into Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction. And my assistant, Bill Murphy, got his war diary. And you see that Marks, five months before the war, had doubts that there was WMD there.

He looked at the intelligence. He looked at the — what was called the master site list and told them, senior generals, I can’t promise you that there’s WMD any place.

Now, this is October 2002. At the same time, Don Rumsfeld is writing one of his memos, one of his — and he writes smart memos. Secret memo, October 15th, listing 29 things that might go wrong in the war. Item number 13 is, we may not find WMD on the ground. So you have the guy at the top having some doubt, the guy on the ground, and bad luck, mismanagement, they never got together. If they had, they might have said, hey, let’s check this again.

KING: What are you working on next?

WOODWARD: No idea. No idea.

KING: There’s always a book.

WOODWARD: Always a book.

KING: Thanks, Bob.

WOODWARD: Thanks.

KING: Bob Woodward, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, assistant managing editor of “The Washington Post,” and he will be one of our specialists on election night. It’s good to have him with us. He always adds such great insight.

What’s right and good doesn’t come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it - as if the cause depends on you, because it does. Allow yourself that conceit - to believe that the flame of Democracy will never go out as long as there’s one candle in your hand.
~ Bill Moyers

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