Bob Woodward: Bush Misleads On Iraq

Earlier this evening, investigative journalist Bob Woodward related the major details of his third Bush book State of Denial to 60 Minutes' Mike Wallace. Real Art readers might recall that I have nothing but loathing for the onetime Watergate good guy reporter because he ultimately came to represent everything that's gone wrong with the corporate news media, arrogance, deference to conservatives, insider thinking, and extreme closeness to the officials and stories they cover. Woodward's a real pig, and his first two books on our President were, according to all reasonable reports, nothing but mindless ejaculations of man-love and bullshit.

But now it appears that he's lost his taste for Presidential semen; the new book sounds like a hit job. 'Bout time, too. If the interview is indicative of the book's major themes, it doesn't really sound like I need to read it. Most of what he has to say has been said countless times in the foreign and left-wing press for several years now: Bush has no idea what's going on, and is fiercely resistant to anyone who tries to get him to face reality, including his own father. We already know that. What is important, however, is not the book itself, but the guy who wrote it. Woodward has so much respect and credibility in press and Washington circles that it is impossible to think that his switching sides isn't the equivalent of a nuke going off. I think we are in the middle of witnessing a vast change in the conventional wisdom. Like I said, 'bout time.

On the other hand, there was one little bit in the interview that interested me greatly.

From 60 Minutes:

Cheney stunned Woodward by revealing that a frequent advisor to the Bush White House is former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who served Presidents Nixon and Ford during the Vietnam War.

"He’s back," Woodward says. "In fact, Henry Kissinger is almost like a member of the family. If he’s in town, he can call up and if the president’s free, he’ll see him."

Woodward recorded his on-the-record interview with Cheney, and here’s what the vice president said about Henry Kissinger’s clout: "Of the outside people that I talk to in this job I probably talk to Henry Kissinger more than just about anybody else. He just comes by and I guess at least once a month," Cheney tells Woodward. "I sit down with him."

Asked whether the president also meets with Kissinger, Cheney told Woodward, "Yes. Absolutely."

The vice president also acknowledged that President Bush is a big fan of Kissinger.

"Now, what’s Kissinger’s advice? In Iraq, he declared very simply: 'Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy.' This is so fascinating. Kissinger’s fighting the Vietnam War again. Because in his view the problem in Vietnam was we lost our will. That we didn’t stick to it," Woodward says.

He says Kissinger is telling the president to stick to it, stay the course. "It’s right out of the Kissinger playbook," Woodward says.

Click here for the rest.

Kissinger is, of course, quite a brilliant and educated man. But any fool knows that brilliance and education in no way innoculate an individual against common stupidity. That is, Henry's ideas about global strategy and American use of military power were thoroughly discredited over thirty years ago--he never figured out that a third world nation, if it is determined enough, is fully capable of bringing a super power to its knees by creative use of guerilla warfare. But now this fool has the President's ear, and he's telling him that we can and must win an unwinnable war. And our damn-fool President believes him, which means that we're definitely not leaving as long as Bush occupies the Oval Office.

Of course, we already knew that, even before we knew about Kissinger bringing some pseudo-intellectuality to the "stay the course" plan. Nonetheless, it's depressing.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$