UPDATE: In some respects, I think the following post may be too unfair to Woodward. Rethinking here… although not about the general concept of ascribing “thoughts” to others in journalism.
Bob Woodward embodies the kind of vieux media self-importance that now seems to come from a distant era. His style of writing – which combines novelistic flourishes of a second-rate sort with a journalistic voice that fairly screams “I am Woodward – this is history!” – is as fake as it is fusty. A good example of this faux Flaubert (or perhaps more accurately Jacqueline Suzanne) technique is his frequent attempt to inform us of what people are thinking. Never mind the obvious that these “thoughts” are often a direct conduit for someone who is leaking unsubstantiated information – in situations of crisis, few of us really know what we are thinking anway, even assuming we could remember. Our thoughts are a confused jumble of the rational and the emotional, with a heavy emphasis on the latter. Anyone reporting in hindsight what someone “thought” is only taking a wild guess or serving somebody or a point of view.
But this doesn’t stop Bob. From Bloomberg’s Carlos Torres:
George Tenet, then director of the Central Intelligence Agency, warned Condoleezza Rice of a mounting threat by al-Qaeda two months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to Bob Woodward’s new book.In a July 10, 2001, meeting with then national security adviser Rice and J. Cofer Black, the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism, Tenet warned that intercepted messages among al-Qaeda operatives and a mass of other intelligence pointed to an imminent threat, according to the book. Tenet and Black hoped Rice would convey the urgency of the situation to President George W. Bush.
“Rice could have gotten through to Bush on the threat, Tenet thought, but she just didn’t get it in time,” says the book, titled “State of Denial,” which went on sale yesterday. “He felt she was not organized and did not push people, as he tried to do at the CIA.”
Woodward has become a form of business institution that goes beyond the brand name status that most authors seek. He is The Authority. He has become a repository for a first draft of history (leaked to him exclusively) that is then ratified by Larry King for the public. But is it even faintly reliable? Who knows? This reminds me of the childhood game in which one kid in a line whispers a word like “alligator” in the next one’s ear and it comes out “Alabama” on the far end. I don’t know about the rest of you, but, when it comes to living history, I find it spooky tht one man’s version is so easily accepted.
PJM Home
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
22 Comments
1. Terrye:I heard Krauthammer say this book was a form of “atonement”. Whatever, it is just another Washington hit piece released before an election for maximum impact and profits.
I have to wonder, if Tenet thought it was so important that the message be conveyed to Bush, why didn’t he do it himself?
Sep 30, 2006 - 7:19 pm 2. Luther McLeod:Easily accepted by only 49 percent. The other 51 percent may tend toward a more jaundiced eye. Woodward does have his sources but, much like he, they have their bias’s. I just wonder if it is their country they are worried about, or their fifteen minutes, or their lust for power. Actually I have reached the point where I wonder not about that question.
I must credit the Dem’s for one thing, their timing. How long ago was the release of this book, one month before the election, decided? Any truth to the rumor that Hastert knew about Foley and did not say anything? Any chance there was deliberate forethought re the NIE leaking? Any chance we will be treated to a few more ’surprises’ before November.
Sep 30, 2006 - 7:21 pm 3. Terrye:Luther:
There is some interesting discussion about that at JOM .
I think Foley is a creep, but I think there is something else going on here.
No doubt there will be more surprises. But how much attention are people really paying?
Sep 30, 2006 - 8:27 pm 4. Luther McLeod:“how much attention are people really paying”
I hate being so cynical. But attention kind of comes down to the size of the font, does it not, 24, 48, 72. For some reason I am reminded of ’sheep being led to slaughter’. I hope to be wrong.
Sep 30, 2006 - 8:59 pm 5. Neo:If Tenet had “intercepted messages among al-Qaeda operatives” on or before July 10, 2001, why is there no mention of an “imminent threat” on August 6, 2001 ?
Clearly either Tenet was holding back (hardly) or Woodward did grasp something, perhaps reality.
Sep 30, 2006 - 9:07 pm 6. Luther McLeod:Yes Neo, very interesting. A memo dated 06Aug01. But in which all events occurred in 97-99. So you imply doubt on “Bush’s national security adviser, (who) testified Thursday that the document contained “historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information”
From reading the document you present, I would concur with Ms. Rice’s assessment. Perhaps there should have been some action taken in 97-99 when the info was fresh.
Sep 30, 2006 - 9:38 pm 7. Sally-O:The Woodward aura is really an anochronism of the age of old media, and despite the sales figures and media hype, I suspect that each new book generates pretty much the same actual interest and political effect as the disovery of a set of dinoasaur bones in the desert.
Sep 30, 2006 - 9:55 pm 8. heather:The lousy headlines are depressing, but then I went over to something called the Washington STock Exchange (http://www.thewsx.com/Main.php?do=dashboard) which reports bets as to the coming US elections. And, who woulda thunk?? The bettors give the GOP a 73% chance of keeping control of the Senate!!! Las week, when I looked, the chances were somewhere down in the 65% range.
Also, I note that Bush’s approval rating is crawling up a tiny bit – and I think that is because he is coming out fighting for his stance on Iraq… NOT because of the price of gas.
Woodward is so pompous, so grave, his PHOTO looks boring.
Sep 30, 2006 - 10:07 pm 9. Barry Dauphin:The reason Woodward knows what Tenet was thinking is because William Casey told this to Woodward right before he died.
If Woodward can really get the scoops he claims with honest-to-goodness genuine information (not his fantasy) from real people who actually know something (not their fantasies), then send him into Pakistan to find out where bin Laden is.
Sep 30, 2006 - 10:29 pm 10. Sandy P:The man aided a man passed over for promotion and helped bring down a president during a time of “police action.”
If Nixon wasn’t wounded, think Nam might have ended differently?
Hell, the country would be different.
And just maybe Nixon would have put a hit on Yassir.
Sep 30, 2006 - 10:41 pm 11. Lem:Charlie Rose once commented something to the effect that a well known journalist’s books were in most inside the beltway mantles unread. That almost everyone he asked confessed not reading him.
Sep 30, 2006 - 11:05 pm 12. jedrury:Charlie didn’t say his name, of course, but I couldn’t help believe he was talking about Woodward.
When Woodward writes sentences like “Bandar felt his hair stand up” you have to wonder.
This is one of those weekends when the political worlds of Washington, New York and Boston stand still for the unveiling of the latest book by Bob Woodward. Bookstores push aside all other books in this Fall season for the opportunity to showcase the latest expose on ìinsideî Washington; whose leaking on whom, what scandal has been unearthed, what did Colin tell Condi who whispered to Card. Long lines form at cash registers, the Washington Post titillates readers with front page Sunday excerpts in large font headlines of juicy tales of the eclipse of some White House poohbah. The book buyer sneaks home to spend the weekend, curled up amidst blankets, reading the stilted wooden Woodwardian prose of “the greatest reporter of our age,” whose writing rivals the eighth century jottings of an solitary Celtic monk cutting away at the Book of Kells.
Scandal, expose, factoid, the stuff of blue smoke and legend.
Hardly.
Sep 30, 2006 - 11:58 pm 13. Joe Schmoe:People and the media seem to no longer grasp the distinction between “talkers” and “doers.” Woodward is a talker. An accomplished, celebrated, and extremely skilled talker, but a talker just the same.
What does Woodard know about responsibility? Has he ever been responsible for anything — does he even pay his own secretary’s salary? I doubt this very much. Has he ever had to make decisions that could get people killed, leaving families without loved ones? No. Has he ever had to struggle with an enormously hard problem, only to discover that there are no good solutions, only bad ones? No.
Nonethess Woodward, like all talkers, feels free to pass judgment on doers. Condoleeza Rice is incompetent. Rumsfeld must resign. Etc., etc.
But how are we to trust Woodward’s judgment, when he doesn’t understand the world of doers? We can’t. He doesn’t know what he is talking about.
It seems like things were different in the old days. It seems like reporters used to know their own limitations and respect, and give some breathing room to, people whose jobs were infinitely harder than their own.
But these days, nothing keeps the talkers from talking. From the pretty boys and girls on cable news to the aging “players” in the Beltway, no one has any restraint or knowledge of their own limitations.
I see through this. Others must too. But how many of us are there?
Oct 1, 2006 - 5:52 am 14. Ray Zacek:Joe Schmoe: what you said. They are like cicadas buzzing on a summer afternoon. Often distracting, and signifying nothing.
Oct 1, 2006 - 6:59 am 15. ricpic:Bob Woodward, ace ventriloquist?
Oct 1, 2006 - 8:48 am 16. awprokop:Roger,
Woodward interviewed Tenet for the book. That’s probably how he knew what Tenet “thought.”
Oct 1, 2006 - 12:53 pm 17. vnjagvet:These books are really score settlers in a way. Read with a certain amount of cynicism, they can be entertaining, much as a novel is entertaining.
But because they are constructed after the fact, with much hindsight, they often suffer the same deficiencies that memoirs of famous personages suffer. They string together the “they should have listened to me”, “I told them it was a bad idea”, “she wasn’t paying attention” and “he is an arrogant a***ole” statements of those no longer making decisions.
Until the historians have access to the contemporaneous papers, and minutes of the critical meetings of this era, I take the credibility of these books with a grain of salt.
Oct 1, 2006 - 3:33 pm 18. notthisgirl:I don’t know about the rest of you, but, when it comes to living history, I find it spooky tht one man’s version is so easily accepted.
Boy I couldn’t agree more.
My nephew just got back from the front lines in Iraq and I’m anxious to talk to him about how things are going. Another relative who works behind the scenes is so fed up with the MSM he won’t watch *ANY* news program anymore – even Fox.
Oct 1, 2006 - 6:36 pm 19. Lem:I’ve just watched Woodward say the president is lying to the American people because the “level of attacks on our troops” has been stamped secret.
Woodward seems to be under the impression that sensitive information of the war can be published and at the same time not shared with the insurgency & Al Qaeda in Iraq.
As far as I know the pentagon releases the names of the KIA after notifying the families. The papers make a fuss whenever the numbers start inching closer to an even thousand. Witch then leads me to believe Woodward is talking about unsuccessful attacks on our troops.
Now; why would the pentagon credit the enemy for its near misses? Unless the agenda was no longer finishing the job, but massaging and stretching the data to make the case for cutting and running.
Remember the story that seemed to lament the fact that more than at any other war the troops in Iraq were surviving attacks with missing limbs? Never mind that they were surviving.
Oct 1, 2006 - 6:36 pm 20. insatty:Woodward’s book about Belushi was good, but it’s been down hill ever since. His fellow liberals turned against him when he didn’t support the agitprop over Wilson-Plame. It’s now time for him to make amends.
It’s hard to live in D.C. when you’re not getting invited to the proper bris-and-croissant parties. Just ask David Brock. Welcome back, Bob!
Oct 1, 2006 - 11:05 pm 21. habrookson:“I don’t know about the rest of you, but, when it comes to living history, I find it spooky tht one man’s version is so easily accepted.”
But accepted by whom? The Great Unwashed, one must presume, not anyone so sophisticated as yourself, since you clearly call into question my good friend Bob’s veracity despite a rather telling absence of supporting evidence–because, one must presume, you simply dislike the message, and my goodness, Roger, that’s very bad form. Ne nuntium necare.
Oct 2, 2006 - 7:19 am 22. tioedong:Am I the only one on the planet that thinks that Tenant was acting like a passive aggressive wimp, who was too timid to do anything in 2001 so is now blaming the president and Condi Rice?
I mean, I’m a doctor. If someone is in danger of bleeding out, and the head surgeon is sleeping and I can’t get his wife or mistress to wake him up, we tell the lady off, or we find someone else, or we page him again and again til he answers, or we transfer the patient…a lot of times we do ALL those things at once… We don’t call one time, have his wife say he’s busy, say thank you, then sit around and say “I wish the surgeon would realize this is important” while the patient dies in front of us…
It’s a little thing called responsibility.
The problem with bureaurocracy is that too often the paperwork is more important than the result, and alas, that’s how Tenent seemed to act.
And didn’t Tenant have the power to call Louis Freeh and say: Hey Louis, there are these guys that went to a terrorist conference in Malaysia and we think they’re going to do something. Could you check out where they were?
Yes, it might have been illegal, but if had cojones he would have met Freeh somehow and arranged it…
I mean, what exactly was Tenent’s job? making sure the paper work was done correctly?
Oct 4, 2006 - 4:22 am