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Summary: Woodward's Politics
Review: The knee jerk reaction of the right wingers is that Woodward is part of the vast liberal conspiracy. Woodward is a REPUBLICAN. This will throw the right wing, because it isn't something they can't reduce to a black and white situation.
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Summary: AND THIS TOO SHALL PASS . . . . .
Review: Who really cares about this stuff? It's the same old playing politics left versus right that has always, and will always go on. It never seriously affects the lives of the overwhelming majority of us, although of course we all feel the greatest sympathy to the families of those that have fallen. At some point Bush and his cohorts will simply be history just like Clinton, along with their sins. Care about something that will really affect ALL of our lives big time. Read a book like THE GREAT BUST AHEAD by Arnold instead - if the inevitable thirteen year depression forecast, several times worse than the 1930s, beginning in just a few years, isn't more important than all this "gotcha" stuff, then we deserve what's coming down the pike at us.
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Summary: Terrible Writing and Sour Grames make for a miserable book
Review: Terrible Writing and Sour Grames make for a miserable book
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Summary: The Bush-Cheney campaign recommends this book!
Review: I just visited the Web site of the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign. This book is at the top of their "Recommended reading list." Presumably, that means they stand behind the general outline of the story here. I've read the excerpts and have just ordered the book. Can't wait to read it.
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Summary: White House Support
Review: Insightful and very interesting in that it was supported by the White House and Bush's campaign website actually recommends this book.
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Summary: Did you people even read the Book?
Review: I don't think half of the people who have posted here have read Woodward's book. Those on the right are blindly lashing out at the book because they heard that it may be a problem for Bush. Those on the left are stupidly praising it for the same reason. To all the liberals I say that if you read this book hoping for some bush-bashing expose like Clark's book you are wasting your money. And for all of you conservatives who reflexively attack anything that may hurt Bush, you need to read this book in its entirety. Bob Woodward is a great author who deserves to be heard. My only complaint is that the book quotes far too many unnamed sources. This may be a necessity in his case but it doesn't help his credibility. All in all Plan of Attack is a must read this year.
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Summary: Agenda Setting Media Power
Review: If this book proves one thing, it is the media's agenda setting power.No one or nothing can tell Americans what to think. The media, however, can be singularly successful at telling Americans what to think about. If you doubt this, simply take a look at this book's reviews. Everyone has an opinion and my hunch is that none of those opinions were changed by their reading of the book. There is no doubt that Woodward is a gifted reporter. Not only does he possess access to the key players, but also the ability to gain their confidence. Sources talk to Woodward. Once he garners the sources recollections of what happened, he relates to the reader in a clear and concise fashion. At a time when we are being asked to place our children in harm's way, in a part of the world that few of us have even visited, serious policy questions come to mind. A book affords the proper media for questions of this nature to be explored. Bob Woodward, true to his journalistic training, does not venture here. Rather, the reader is given a blow-by-blow account of the stage entrances and exits of key Washington players reconstructed from interviews and notes of the players. There is no thoughtful review of the questions raised. These are conclusions I can draw from reading my daily newspaper. I recognize that television's pervasive influence has forced other media outlets to adapt a tabloid view of the world in order to compete for eyeballs. The type of book I want to read takes longer to prepare, if it is going to be done well. Clearly Bob Woodward and his publisher did not have that luxury. The market is hot; the public is being subjected to a cascade of Bush bashing books. Clearly a newspaper, like the Washington Post where the author serves as Assistant Managing Editor, provides the best medium to distribute this type of detailed reporting. But then again, that cuts out the book publisher. It is at times like this when I recognize how old-fashioned I have become. Quality reporting belongs in the pages of a quality daily newspaper where it can be published in a timely fashion. Books should be reserved for the policy questions raised by that reporting. The good news is given the facts, the American public has the capacity to sort and arrive at a conclusion. The question this book raises is why we have to wait for a book to be published to have access to them.
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Summary: form your own opinion
Review: the only people giving this book 1 star havn't read the book and get all their opinions from gasbags like Sean Hannity instead of reading books such as this and forming their own opinions.
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Summary: Once Again, A War President Revealed!
Review: One reason Bob Woodward is such a superb journalist is that he has a talent for developing and maintaining an incredible network of primary sources. Better than anyone else I can think of, Woodward manages to gain a wealth of insight from people who are both 'in the know' and are willing to talk to him in damning detail about it. In this particular case, the information is devastating; Woodward both confirms what a flurry of other recent books about President Bush and his staff have alleged, that they were obsessed with invading and conquering Iraq from the very beginning of the administration, that they both knowingly exaggerated and even prevaricated about evidence and deliberately attempted to make spurious connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda in order to support their goals and objectives, and that there is a deep political and even cultural divide among some of the principals within the administration concerning our foreign policy. Of course, the two principal antagonists other than the President himself are Vice President Dick Cheney, depicted here as a zealot in search of some kind of hopped-up moral justice he wants to visit against the middle east in general and Iraq in particular, and Colin Powell, a man who seems to know better that to go along with this con-game, but lacking the resident moral courage to stand up and cry wolf. The book is astonishing in its first-person indictment of the crony corruption and confusion resident both within and without the halls of the West Wing; Tommy Franks is pressured to publicly lie about not having been given instructions to develop a Iraqi war plan in the Spring of 2002 when Rumsfeld had done so on orders from the President the previous fall; Cheney gave a top secret briefing to Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia giving specifics of that war plan in January 2003 even before Colin Powell was informed the decision to go to war had been made, even though release of such information to foreign nationals is a serious violation of federal law; Bush provocatively lied to the public in his 2003 State Of The Union message that he was still trying to use the United Nations to find a solution when he had already decided to go to war, etc. Anyone want to consider whether any or all of these acts were impeachable offenses? Thus, perhaps the most telling aspect to Woodward's new book is the way in which this ultimate insider serves to help flesh out the intimate characteristics of many of the President's principal players, the interaction among them, and how these various cliques and petty jealousies fuel both how and what decisions as do get made, and why they wind up as radical as they often are. It also provides a wealth of insights into the President and his personality, as well. Far from being the resolute loner, the rugged individualist making solitary decisions in the splendid isolation of his uniquely driven intellect, the current occupant of the White House seems to be a man who. On the one hand seems driven by a form of messianic belief in his own mission in life, and on the other hand, make decisions about going to war based nearly exclusively on what other "experts" think is best. Bush comes across as either intellectually unable or psychologically unwilling to make tough decisions without deferring to others, who relies overmuch on the opinions and guidance of others such as Dick Cheney and Karl Rove in making tough decisions. In essence, Mr., Bush seems more like a character actor playing out his scripted part by saying his lines and trying not to stumble into the furniture. Yet, often his John Wayne impersonation draws thin, and there are moments when one catches a glimpse of his pancake makeup, when we can observe just how soft, unaccomplished and dependent this supposed he-man is. He seems, to use an old western expression, much more like a five-dollar horse with a hundred dollar saddle, someone born to privilege, so self-assured that he thinks all that is required of him is convey reassuring public images while others do all the heavy lifting. Perhaps not all that much has changed all that much from his days as a MBA student at the Harvard Business School, when according to other students, he sat aimlessly in the back of classes wearing his Air National Guard leather flight jacket while quietly expectorating his tobacco chew into a paper cup. Combine this persona with a apparent case of self-ordained messianic zeal, and what you have is the current occupant of the White House. What one also discovers herein is a plethora of particulars describing the critical political and cultural divides among the various factions within the Bush regime; and the reader begins to appreciate the degree to which what is going on here is really much more of a shadow presidency for Dick Cheney than anyone had previously appreciated. Yet when one considers the evidence, such a conclusion is quite logical, given such insights into Bush as the fact that he is neither an impressive intellect nor a voracious reader. What he does like to do is jog, follow sports on TV, do manual chores around the ranch, and make sure he keeps regular hours. On the day he received the now famous 6 August 2001 PDB alerting him to the Al Qaeda threat to the continental United States, Mr. Bush was in the midst of the longest single vacation any president had ever taken, and he had been in office only seven months at that point. Moreover, at the conclusion of the briefing, he dismissed the briefing team without taking any action about the terrorist threat, donned his white ten gallon Stetson, and disappeared in his Ford F-350 Super Duty truck to go bass fishing for the rest of the day. So much for keeping your eye on the ball! Reading the book left me personally musing as to just how much Mr. Bush resembles Chauncy Gardener, the fictional Peter Sellers character in "Being There". To the extent the comparison is accurate, "Dubya" provides us all with a frightening look at just how possible it is for someone so insular, intellectually limited, and self absorbed, a man so singularly unsuited for public office to actually become President of the United States. This is, then, indeed a book well worth reading. Enjoy!
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Summary: reader, commenting on comments
Review: If this is all "Lies from the Left" as many reviewers are calling Woodward's book, then why does President Bush endorse the book on his re-election site? Very interesting reading.
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