Bob Woodward, the columnist for The Washington Post who famously wrote, with fellow journalist Carl Bernstein, an exposé on Watergate, for which the source of secret info became known as Deep Throat, has just published a new exposé on administration missteps in Iraq. Appropriately enough, the new source is labeled Deep Tragedy.
While Deep Throat eventually revealed his identity, as S. Mark Felt, a highly placed official at the FBI, the identity of Deep Tragedy has already been revealed as S. Common Knowledge.
The book, State of Denial, includes such tidbits as Bush saying, in November of 2003, “I don’t want anyone in the cabinet to say it is an insurgency. I don’t think we are there yet." He may not even think we’re there now.
In a promo interview on “60 Minutes," Woodward states that Henry Kissinger is advising the White House, which is common knowledge among the residents who live near the former secretary’s home and deal with the regular roar of entering and exiting helicopters.
He says Kissinger has advised Bush and Cheney that in Iraq “Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy.” Woodward goes on to infer that Kissinger is trapped in the past, which, it seems to us, offers little escape for anyone. "This is so fascinating. Kissinger's fighting the Vietnam War again because, in his view, the problem in Vietnam was we lost our will."
The book contains numerous other revelations of uncertainty and infighting in the Bush administration. Apparently, even George Bush’s dad was losing sleep, worrying about the invasion.
Yet it’s a bit late in the game for more finger-pointing. There’s just too much hindsight at play to lend much originality to even the most intrepid effort to get at the truth.
What is really needed is not stirring anew the pot of common knowledge but uncommon insight. Not continuing denial, but decisive acceptance. We must either convince the insurgents that their murderous tactics cannot win by decisive action against them or we should begin a well-gauged departure and leave them to bewail the state of their own self-maimed country.
Tom Attea, humorist and creator of NewsLaugh.com, has had six shows produced Off-Broadway. Critics have called his writing for the theater "delightfully funny," "witty," with "great humor" and "good, genuine laughs." |
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