FRI NOV 15, 2002 11:42:02 ET
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX
NEW WOODWARD BOOK REVEALED
Filed By Matt Drudge
**World Exclusive**
Ready. Set. Blastoff! On the controversial new book coming next week from Bob Woodward.
BUSH AT WAR, being tightly held by SIMON AND SCHUSTER, is now previewed, exclusively, by the DRUDGE REPORT -- even days before Woodward's own WASHINGTON POST goes to press!
Short on live bombshells, but filled with provocative observations [and the omniscient style Woodward favors], top Bush aides may soon regret giving Woodward access to the inner workings of the administration.
Now let's smash the embargo and see what Mr. Watergate has unearthed:
ROVE THOUGHT POST-9/11 WORLD SERIES GAME LIKE NAZI RALLY
"The president emerged wearing a New York Fire Department windbreaker. He raised his arm and gave a thumbs-up to the crowd on the third base side of the field. Probably 15,000 fans threw their arms in the air imitating the motion.
He then threw a strike from the rubber, and the stadium erupted. Watching from owner George Steinbrenner's box, Karl Rove thought, It's like being at a Nazi rally." (p. 277)
PAINTS BUSH STYLE AS HURRIED
"Bush's leadership style bordered on the hurried. He wanted action, solutions. Once on a course, he directed his energy at forging on, rarely looking back, scoffing at -- even ridiculing -- doubt and anything less than 100 percent commitment. He seemed to harbor few, if any, regrets. His short declarations could seem impulsive. (p. 256)
Bush, though quick to respond after September 11, did not pursue the bin Laden threat aggressively enough in his first eight months in office. "(p. 318)
"He had not put the country on a war footing, demanded sacrifices from large numbers of citizens, or taken what for him would be the unthinkable and draconian step of repealing his 2001 tax cut. Was it not possible that he had undermobilized given the threat and devastation of September 11?" (p. 337)
POWELL VS.
"Rove was disturbed and felt Powell was beyond political control and operating out of a sense of entitlement. "It's constantly, you know, `I'm in charge, and this is all politics and I'm going to win the internecine political game,'" Rove said privately." (p. 13)
"One of Powell's greatest difficulties was that he was more or less supposed to pretend in public that the sharp differences in the war cabinet did not exist. The president would not tolerate public discord. Powell was also held in check by his own code -- a soldier obeys.
Bush might order, Go get the guns! Get my horses! -- all the Texas, Alamo macho that made Powell uncomfortable. But he believed and hoped that the president knew better, that he would see the go-it-alone approach did not stand further analysis. Hopefully, the Afghan war had provided the template for that understanding.
The ghosts in the machine were Rumsfeld and Cheney in Powell's view. Too often they went for the guns and the horses." (p. 322)
THE FUTURE
"Cheney was beyond hell-bent for action against Saddam. It was as if nothing else existed." (p. 346)
MORE
Woodward's BUSH AT WAR follows on the heels of Bill Sammon's NYT Bestseller FIGHTING BACK, THE WAR ON TERRORISM FROM INSIDE THE BUSH WHITE HOUSE, intensifying the cross-town rivalry between The WASHINGTON TIMES and the WASHINGTON POST.
#######