Reply #4: Do it, Bob.

[reprehensor]

Et tu, Bob?

BOB WOODWARD'S SECRET PLAN TO SAVE THE COUNTRY: For years Bob Woodward has looked to the journalistic community like a professional shill--buying incredible access to top officials with the implicit promise of hagiographic treatment in his prose. But it turns out that Woodward was a step ahead of us all along--executing a long-planned strategy of maximizing his influence over American politics, at which point he would cash in his chits for the sake of the republic. What I have in mind here is Woodward's forthcoming book on the war on terror, which will apparently be highly critical of George W. Bush at a time when Bush can least afford it. Here's how Lloyd Grove sums it up today:

I hear that "Plan of Attack," supersleuth Bob Woodward's still-secret study of President Bush's war on terrorism, will be very bad for the Bush reelection campaign - which is still reeling from gun-toting former terrorism chief Richard A. Clarke's critique of Bush, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and other administration figures in "Against All Enemies."

Woodward's book, to be released next month, will receive not only a multipart series in The Washington Post, but also the Mike Wallace treatment on "60 Minutes" April 18 - when I am absolutely confident that the common corporate ownership of CBS and Woodward's publisher, Simon & Schuster, will be mentioned.

Wow. Maybe all those Commanders and Maestros and Bush-at-Wars were worth it after all...

http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=1514