Third Time's the Charm?

After Paul O'Neill's, Dick Clarke's and now Bob Woodward's book, will any of them have a lasting effect on this president?

Along with the traditional 60 Minutes sneak preview, Woodward has been leaking tidbits of the book in some small newspaper he works for (I think it's called the Washington Post) almost daily with fun filled facts like the date Bush decided to go to War with Iraq, or a Saudi Oil Price agreement, or this week's juicy nugget: Cheney and Powell hate each other. It seems all that butt-kissing in the first GWB book really paid off with some 75 interviews with top people. Combined with his charm offensive, Woodward gets folks to spill the beans.

What emerges is several facts gleaned from the Horse's mouth and 2 other previous insiders:

1. Bush and his foreign policy team (save Powell) was focused on Iraq since before they got in office and it was priority number one


2. Their obsession with Iraq (and China and Russia thanks to Condi) might have helped along a culture of marginalizing of Al-Qaida and all the pre-9/11 warnings.


3. Powell has been fighting for control of diplomacy since day 1. He has lost many battles to Rumsfeld and Cheney and Wolfowitz, but won a temporary victory in September of 2002 only to lost the overall stance to the UN.


4. Bush is not a details man. He doesn't like to work hard or look back and think deeply about himself or history


5. Bush is overly dependent on Cheney, who has more power than any VP in the history of the office, as far as I can tell.

All this Woodward stuff goes towards damaging the Bush White House's credibility with the media. They won't get any more free passes. So why is Bush leading by 5 points (Margin of Error is 4) in most polls?

The American people don't care about the past; they care about the future. Bush may have lied to us to get us into a war, but we are there now, and we can't pull out like Spain did this weekend. Kerry needs to focus on the future and a positive vision of what he will do differently. Voters see Bush as a decisive leader, even if he makes bad decisions, that to them is better than Kerry who has been (semi-) accurately portrayed by all of Bush's $50 million in advertising as some one lacking such convictions.

Howard Dean was the Democratic Party's backbone transplant surgeon. Now he still needs to perform another operation on Senator Kerry. Seems John's body is rejecting the implant.

If Kerry can say how we can get out of Iraq with honor, how we can fix our alliances, our economy, our health care, and all that without simply saying "George Bush is wrong" repeatedly, then he would be on to something.