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Something Mr Woodward might say, if he wanted to admit reality himself, is that he has changed his mind about Mr Rumsfeld without Mr Rumsfeld changing an iota. Love him or hate him, the defence secretary is the Rock of Gibraltar. He will experience personal growth when Dick Cheney turns vegan. But somehow, the fixed qualities that Mr Woodward cast as positive in books one and two have curdled in book three.
Mr Woodward never acknowledges changing his mind because he regards himself as a reporting machine, with no opinions of his own. He cannot say he is revising his judgments because he claims never to have made any.
But of course, Mr Woodward does have a consistent world view – Washington’s conventional wisdom. When everyone viewed Mr Rumsfeld as a commanding hunk, Mr Woodward embodied the adoration. Now that we all know Mr Rumsfeld is a vicious old bastard, Mr Woodward channels the loathing just as fluidly. If the war in Iraq takes a turn for the better, Rumsfeld the Stud might well come roaring back in Mr Woodward’s Bush at War IV: Big Brass Ones.
It is slightly maddening to see Mr Woodward reverse his point of view without acknowledging that he ever had one – then or now. You could charge him with flattering politicians only when they are on top. But you might as well accuse a weather vane of changing its mind about which way the wind should blow.
Yes, I hate Rumsfeld now although I viewed him positively back in the flush of victory, even reading the thumbsucker Rumsfeld's Way. Rummie hasn't changed, but as I have said all along, BW's apple-polishing after his Plame faux pas is standard Beltway hypocrisy, as predictable as Tom Friedman's effusions about India or Paul Krugman's predicting another recession [he's five recessions for zero since 2001].
Woodward is Kitty Kelly with the Green Book [DC's social register] pedigree and megabuck gossip-power.
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