Bush at War by Bob Woodward.
Sometimes I wonder, I really do. Sometimes I wonder why I persist in selecting books about US Presidents, their high jinks, their fiascos and their occasional successes when out there, on some sturdy wooden bookshelf , there must be just the book for me. A book that would enlighten and amuse, and perhaps even educate.
An indicator of how seriously i took this book was the fact that I kept playing with the author's name. Recalling that favourite childhood joke "What do you call Edward Woodward without any 'r's? Answer- EwarWoowar" I kept thinking of 'Bob Woowar' and smiling gently to myself as I shuffled about.
The content is noble but by now it's all common knowledge. Lots of meetings, Rumsfeld gets annoyed, Bush becomes strong and slightly mean then tears up when meeting survivors of the terror attacks, Cheney goes and spends some time in a secret, everything proof bunker, Rice is concerned, Powell is perplexed and doubtful. Repeat to fade. Everything you've read in the NYtimes or heard on NPR in the last 7 years.
2 comments:
Well yeah, old news now. But the book came out in 2002 before any of the other "insider" accounts of what was going on in the inner recesses of the US government after Sep 11, and was really the first view the world had of the decision-making process running the Afghanistan war.
Agreed, doesn't change the fact that the book doesn't hold up all that well at this point in time. It also collides with my admitted jadedness with political non fiction. I wonder if it will be more relevant 30 years from now?
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