Reporting live from Ningbo, China…I am working on my foreign relation credentials for a future presidential run…it counts…doesn’t it?
As my title implied, I am talking about Bob Woodward’s new book on the Bush Administration. Despite what Woodward described as poor leadership from Bush, I see the exact opposite from the few excerpts that he revealed in his Washington Post article.
First, if you look at it closely, you will notice that Bush is always seems to be working while at his Crawford Ranch. This may not seem significant to everyone, but liberal bloggers love to point out how much time Bush is away from Washington on “vacation”. This book proves them wrong.
Secondly, it shows that Bush was trying to avoid the same mistakes of Presidents from the Vietnam War. That is micromanagement of his generals from the White House. It shows that he trusted his generals and their recommendations to a point and it also shows that when he finally decided to take over himself, it might have just saved the war.
I have often said that our early generals did not understand how to fight this war and eventually Bush realized this same thing. General Casey’s strategy of training Iraqi forces and then getting out was a good one, but his weakness was fighting the war itself while this training occurred. Once Bush made this determination and put General Petraeus in charge, we finally started to make real progress in Iraq.
All of this is really not that big of a deal. Woodward wanted to take everything he found and look at it with a negative perspective. That is what journalists do, especially with this administration. The problem is the timing. We are still at war in Iraq. There is absolutely no reason to share any perceived weakness with the public why we are still at war. This information could be used against us both tactically and in the propaganda war.
There is one portion of this book that should have serious consequences. This portion is the accusation that the Bush Administration had a secret spying campaign within the Iraqi Government. It is no secret that all governments around the world spy on everyone that they can. In the army, we are trained to identify these people so we do not give critical information to someone who should not have it.
Since the White House has denied such an operation, there are two scenarios, both of which should be bad for Woodward. One scenario has Woodward determining that there was a spying operation without help of anyone from the administration. A second scenario has someone in the administration giving out information that they shouldn’t have and Woodward then publishing it. Both actions are treasonous in my eyes. You just don’t give out this kind of information, especially about ongoing operations. Maybe in 20 years. Maybe.
Of course nothing will be done about this. Responsibility in journalism is something of the past as everyone is too scared to hold them accountable. The love of the big story and money has become more important than country.
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