perfidy

Clifford May writes:

Bob Woodward's new book is less an expose than an inkblot test. It's remarkable how people can see the same words on the same pages - and come away with entirely different pictures.

...An example? For months, the president's critics have accused him of exaggerating or even distorting the CIA's intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, the charge has been made repeatedly that the president "misled" the public - even that he "lied" and "betrayed" America.

The big news in Woodward's book is that Bush was deeply skeptical about the CIA's conclusions regarding Iraqi WMD - even after he was presented with a "Top Secret" document starkly warning: "Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons."

What changed the president's mind? Woodward vividly describes a meeting in the Oval Office in which George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, responded to Bush's doubts by rising up from his seat and throwing his arms in the air. "It's a slam-dunk case!" he said.

Even that didn't quite persuade Bush. He pressed further, asking Tenet: "George, how confident are you?" At which point, the nation's top spy - a nonideological nonpartisan who held the same job in the Clinton administration - "threw his arms up again. 'Don't worry, it's a slam dunk!' he repeated."

Imagine if - instead of heeding this warning - Bush had ignored it, put on his sweat suit and gone for a jog around the White House. Imagine if a terrorist attack, utilizing WMD supplied by Saddam Hussein, had followed. Bush would have faced impeachment - and deservedly so.

But the president didn't do that. Instead - according to Woodward's reporting - he instructed his CIA chief to assemble the evidence on WMD, adding cautiously: "Make sure no one stretches to make our case."

That's a remarkable bit that I have not seen in the media. How very strange.

He ends with a good closer:

One last word: Those media moguls who have chosen to highlight only parts of Woodward's book they hope will damage Bush might want to recall the old joke about the man whose psychiatrist shows him a series of inkblots.

"Listen, Doc," he says, "I have serious problems to discuss with you. I have no time to look at a bunch of dirty pictures."