It is a curious American phenomenon that the President is accorded an almost God-like status. Add to that the office-holder, especially someone like George W, surrounds himself with toadies of one sort or another. That the present incumbent of the White House is close enough to be a fool and one of America's worst Presidents for a long, long time, makes the situation even worse.
Robert Dreyfuss, writing in The Nation, has read the latest Bob Woodward book "The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008" and reveals his utter dismay at the syncophantic nature of the exchanges between Bush and people like Condi Rice:
"Reading Bob Woodward's The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008, is like reading raw transcripts of documents and interviews from a sensational murder trial: you know what happens, and you know who the victim and the perpetrator are. But to read their actual words is chilling. It's the In Cold Blood of national security journalism.
I read it last night, cover to cover. Yes, it's written in that frustrating Woodward style, with little or no attribution for much of what he writes. (He does provide sketchy footnotes, but they mostly say: "The information in this chapter comes primarily from background interviews with firsthand sources.")
Still, much of it is astonishing. And I don't just mean the juicy tidbits that Woodward gives us – that the United States spied on Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki, that a supersecret, high-tech assassination program killed large numbers of militants beginning in May, 2006, and so on. I'm talking about the dangerously sycophantic advisers surrounding Bush, the ones who stroked the ego of a know-nothing president as The Decider doubled-down on his failed war in Iraq. And I'm talking about the machinations of a rogue general named Jack Keane and his rump staff of strategists at the American Enterprise Institute who worked with Steve Hadley, the national security adviser, to promote the January, 2007, escalation called "the surge."
How's this for sycophantic?" asks Dreyfuss. Read on, here, and be amazed. Then again, perhaps not!
Robert Dreyfuss, writing in The Nation, has read the latest Bob Woodward book "The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008" and reveals his utter dismay at the syncophantic nature of the exchanges between Bush and people like Condi Rice:
"Reading Bob Woodward's The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008, is like reading raw transcripts of documents and interviews from a sensational murder trial: you know what happens, and you know who the victim and the perpetrator are. But to read their actual words is chilling. It's the In Cold Blood of national security journalism.
I read it last night, cover to cover. Yes, it's written in that frustrating Woodward style, with little or no attribution for much of what he writes. (He does provide sketchy footnotes, but they mostly say: "The information in this chapter comes primarily from background interviews with firsthand sources.")
Still, much of it is astonishing. And I don't just mean the juicy tidbits that Woodward gives us – that the United States spied on Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki, that a supersecret, high-tech assassination program killed large numbers of militants beginning in May, 2006, and so on. I'm talking about the dangerously sycophantic advisers surrounding Bush, the ones who stroked the ego of a know-nothing president as The Decider doubled-down on his failed war in Iraq. And I'm talking about the machinations of a rogue general named Jack Keane and his rump staff of strategists at the American Enterprise Institute who worked with Steve Hadley, the national security adviser, to promote the January, 2007, escalation called "the surge."
How's this for sycophantic?" asks Dreyfuss. Read on, here, and be amazed. Then again, perhaps not!
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