Bob Woodward: Bush at War

I just finished reading Bob Woodward's 2002 book Bush at War. Do not waste your time on it. It might thrill a couple of irretrievable wonks who care about a couple of arguments between Cheney and Powell and the boring, petty day-to-day power struggles about who's up and who's down, but it is largely a sycophantic book that unrealistically portrays every principal (Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, and Powell) as all-knowingly wise, patriotic, righteous, and democracy-minded.

Point: Woodward writes about the entire lead-up to the Iraq War and does not even once mention the word "oil."

I highly suspect that Woodward had to trade these pretty portraits for access. The Bush Administration told him only what they wanted to know, and so his claim to some kind of insider status is thoroughly unconvincing. And -- completely unlike a younger, hungry Woodward would have done -- he acquiesced in flattering portraits just so he could get a couple of hours talking with the President at Crawford or look at some memos that went through the West Wing. Even the dialog is stilted and unconvincing. A sickening kind of display that hardly seems to have the truth fore front.

I guess that's the Washington game. Too bad even Woodward had to give himself to it.