Bob Woodward, Obama’s Wars, and the Perspective of History

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…Mr. Woodward describes his role, “to sit with many of the candidates and key players and ask about the questions of the day as the campaign unfolded.” What seems most remarkable in this new Woodward book is exactly what seemed remarkable in the previous Woodward books, each of which was presented as the insiders’ inside story and each of which went on to become a number-one bestseller: these are books in which measurable cerebral activity is virtually absent. The author himself disclaims “the perspective of history.” His preferred approach has been one in which “issues could be examined before the possible outcome or meaning was at all clear or the possible consequences were weighed.”

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The first nine months of the Bush administration I spent working on Bush’s tax cut, thinking that would be the center of gravity. Of course, I was dead wrong, and I still have boxes of interviews and notes if you run into anyone who wants to write a book about the Bush tax cut. It’s there. I worked for months on it thinking it was important. Of course, it’s important but compared to 9/11, which still defines our times, and the problems Obama has, the Bush tax cuts is probably not going to go in the history books.