Published Nov 6, 2006, 2:52pm
If every registered voter in America read both State of Denial and The Greatest Story Ever Sold, what looks to be Tuesday’s Democratic wave would likely turn into a tsunami.
Not that the Democrats deserve it mind you, but that both books show a level of Republican dishonestly, immorality, incompetence and disconnection that is mind-boggling. Combined to form a total picture of the inner workings of the Bush Administration, one sees a deliberate attempt to paint a false picture, from the claims about Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction” to cynical, PR moves to hide the truth about the war.
The two books do differ in tone, though. Bob Woodward seems more focused on the actions of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the inner political struggles within the White House. Woodward all but suggests that George W. Bush is afraid of Rumsfeld, a long-time nemesis of his father, President George H.W. Bush. And while Bush, Condi Rice and Colin Powell are far from exonerated of guilt — Woodward, who’s excessively laudatory Bush At War totally missed entire episodes of failure and incompetence depicted in his latest book — seems satisfied to make Rumsfeld the bad guy.
Rich, though, takes a firmer path through the morass, spreading blame to the weak-kneed media, including, quite specifically, Woodward, Democrats as well as Bush, and his image team, led by Karl Rove. Rich shows less of the tragic comedy of errors Woodward illustrates and more of a planned, concerted effort by the disciples of of Nixon Administration to play the same power grab 30 years later, but this time, get it right.
Rich, a long-time columnist at the New York Times, is blunt in ripping colleagues from his own paper, including Judith Wilson, who bought into the Bush Administration’s fabrications. He hammers the Democrats for failing to question the war — minus a few examples, such as Al Gore who was asking all of the questions in the fall of 2002 that most Americans find themselves asking now. He correctly paints the weak-kneed Democrats as being unable, in large part, to stand up for anything beyond political expediency.
But unlike Woodward’s account of ineptitude and infighting, Rich paints a picture of a small group of smart operators, who manipulated Bush’s image, intimidated the media (and in some cases, just flat out bought it off) and a calculated psy-ops operation out of the West Wing of White House.
It is Rich’s take, in my opinion that better holds up. Woodward’s book, though a compelling page-turner, isolates the picture without truly and fairly addressing the media’s role — including Woodward’s — in the rush to war in Iraq. Woodward continues to downplay his role in the Valerie Plame affair and seems to give pass to all of the members of the media who abdicated their roles and allowed an imperial presidency to happen for the second time in a generation.
While Woodward attempts to place blame, primarily on Rumsfeld and Rice, Rich engages all of us — the voters, the media and the lack of effective and intelligent opposition from the Democratic Party.
And while there are many lessons to be learned from this story, one continues to ring true: the lack of a message or any sort of plan by the Democratic Party and an inability to draw on core beliefs made them useless as opposition. Should the Democrats win on Election Day, it will be much about who they aren’t than who they are — which might be the saddest reality of all.
