Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps?

Matthew Yglesias points to the problem of Bob Woodward:

Matthew Yglesias / proudly eponymous since 2002: What's The Deal With... Bob Woodward? His new book:

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.

Why were the earlier books so different? Did [Woodward] somehow not notice this stuff before? It's a serious problem for the most prominent people in the journalism world to be merely lagging indicators, praising leaders when they're popular and then pointing out that, in fact, they suck only after a whole series of disasters discredit them.

It's not that they did not notice them. The Washington elite press corps definitely noticed them. As my favorite quotation from rock-ribbed Republican, ex-Bush speechwriter, and White House insider David Frum goes:

David Frumm: If you were looking for a diligent manager of the office of the presidency, a close student of public policy, a careful balancer of risks and benefits -- George W. Bush would never be your man. But is this news?... [He] is... impatient, quick to anger; sometimes glib, even dogmatic, often uncurious, and as a result ill-informed...

Moroever, it is even worse than Matthew Yglesias recognizes for two reasons:

First, the most prominent people in the journalism world did more than peddle stuff about Bush's neo-Churchillian grandeur that they knew to be tripe, while they dined out in private on insider gossip about Bush's incompetence, malevolence, mendacity, and disconnection from reality. They also denounced and dismissed those who did say back then what Bob Woodward is saying now--people like Paul Krugman--as shrill.

Second, reporters continue to believe they are under some obligation to put Bush's thumb on the scales. Why... why... thirty minutes ago a correspondent sent me a link: over at Slate right now, John Dickerson--definitely in the top 10% of the inside-the-beltway press crowd in smarts and honor--feels obligated to classify the stories that Tenet's people tell Woodward about bush's incompetence as "payback" for the fact that "[a]dministration officials from Cheney to Rice have been throwing Tenet under a bus... blaming him for the faulty intelligence... recit[ing] his line from Woodward's second Bush book, in which he said the case for weapons was a 'slam dunk'." The fact that the people who ran counter-terrorism for both Bush and Clinton support Woodward's current line doesn't rate a mention in what Dickerson calls the "battle between the Bush and Clinton dynasties over who did more to [try to] kill Osama Bin Laden."

It is even possible that John Dickerson may think that Bob Woodward's truth-telling is a bad thing. He does write:

As a policy matter, the book undermines Bush's attempts to strengthen the national will for the long and drawn-out fight ahead...

Comments

[Sylny]

This could well be Woodward's swan song. Who, pray tell, would trust him after this--him and his fly-on-the-wall school of journalism?

He's always tended to be a high-class gossip columnist/stenographer who merely reports what others tell him without stopping to analyze the data. This time around,
(1) all of his sources said bad things, and (2) he knows the sinking ship is well beyond the listing phase--and (3) he is seeking safe harbor elsewhere--with Giuliani, perhaps in '08?

Most of the current Republican congress, along with the other Bush enablers, are probably spending much of their extracurricular time with their lawyers and studying the fine points of plea bargaining At best, they're trying to preserve their reputations--at worst, they're trying to stay out of jail. Think about all the stories we don't know about yet!

Picture the back-office talk now: Hey, Rudy Giuliani: We'll hold our collective noses and tell the Christian right to look the other way in '08--provided you issue your appropriate allotment of presidential pardons and make sure nobody investigates what we were up to under GWB. Now, if we can just prevent the Democrats from taking over the house six weeks from now, we can keep the lid on investigations--and you'll leave here with your government pensions intact--and you won't have to don stripes!

Now that's the book Woodward will never get to write!

[bigTom]

All too true. Nevertheless Denial could be a real opportunity to push this ship past the tipping point.

[christofay]

But the ship's captains all say, we go first. Otherwise what do you think Cheney's continuity of government is all about.

[a different chris]

Bush's attempts to "strengthen the national will". Excuse me whilst I go puke....

.... ok, I'm back. That was bad.

Mr. Dickerson, our will to do the right thing is plenty strong, thank you. Now go away and find something to do that won't require any brains or heart, because you don't want to use the one and don't seem to have the other.

[matt]

cheney's continuity of government?

anyone read Report from Iron Mountain lately?

I think the debate is finally over...the book was for real.

One question re: Woodward's revelations; why now? Didn't he know this stuff before? As in Corn and Isikoff's book the facts come out as teasers for the book, facts that are too important to wait for some craven attempt to sell books.

did woodward realize no one would buy more of his tripe so he decided to come clean with what he knew but only when it served to boost his sales?

he won't be getting my money.

[Cassius Chaerea]

Impeach Robert Woodward. Impeach him now.