Reading the Tea Leaves

Well, here's yet another "October surprise." Bob Woodward is obviously a good reporter, but he's also very good at reading the zeitgeist and figuring out what type of informaiton and inside gossip will result in maximum book sales.

His last book -- back when the war was still a "cause celebre" -- portrayed the Bush White House as "surprisingly" engaged on foreign policy. Now that the left is at unprecedented levels of rabidity and the war has lost popularity, Woodward's emphasis has shifted, and he's reporting (surprise!) that there were disputes and hostilities in Bush's inner circle, and that mistakes have been made in the aftermath of the Iraq war.

Well, that's a news flash, isn't it? And so different from other wars, where no mistakes have ever, ever been made. Right. Note also that, as always, Colin Powell comes off smelling like a rose (as George Tenet does, as well). It's always easy to figure out who the leakers are. The people who talk to Bob Woodward (like Powell) are uniformly portrayed as the omniscient, the caring and the foresighted. Those who don't (like Rumsfeld) pay the price.

Ultimately, the question for the upcoming elections isn't whether the Bush team is perfect, but whether the Democrats would be better. And I think more Americans than the media realizes know the answer to that.