Bob Woodward’s Deep Throat
Last night on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart finally put to Woodward the question that many outside the mainstream media have been asking since the book came out, re: the notorious “slam-dunk” briefing where Bush gravely expressed doubts about the quality of the case against Iraq. In the interview, Stewart mentioned the unmentionable fact that these so-called second thoughts arose in December, 2002, after the administration had been beating the war drum for three months! Woodward acknowledged that was true and suggested that there was a certain “momentum” toward the war at that point that was becoming hard to dispel. Specifically (and I have heard Woodward say this before), some US human intelligence assets on the ground in Iraq would have been compromised had we decided not to pursue the war strategy.
Stewart inimitably summarized Woodward’s remark as saying, “You mean, even though we didn’t have solid WMD evidence, we had all these great war plans and people decided it would be a shame to let them go to waste, since, you know, people had worked really hard on them?” (no transcript available – this is my recollection).
And then Woodward, principled hero of Watergate, turned to Stewart, laughed, and agreed that was about the size of it! Woodward essentially acknowledged that in his view, hundreds of soldiers and thousands of civilians died, billions of dollars are being wasted and US prestige is in shreds because of “bureaucratic momentum” that the President was unwilling to break. Is he outraged? Even a little? Does he feel the slightest need to share the Dr. Strangelove-esque absurdity of this with his readers or the public by calling attention to this astonishing point? No, this insight had to be dragged out of him in an interview on a COMEDY show, and his reaction was to laugh and shrug.
As the incomprable Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler might say, we emitted low mordant chuckles at the sight of it.
1:02:48 PM 
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