"I Never Believed"

Bob Woodward's latest "inside account" of inside the Beltway is the talk of Washington today. This time his subject is the Obama Administration and from the excerpts I've read, very little is revealed that we didn't already know. The very liberal Obama White House doesn't want, even if they must, to take the, uh, overseas contingency operations seriously, or at least as seriously as do much of the military leadership and as a result there's conflict. The backbiting, the boot licking, the self-serving kibitzing? Please, tell me something new.

But it's out there, so I will issue these two advisories for any and all conservatives tempted to jump at the details of the book and scream, "See, I told you so!" First, our contentions do not become any more or less believable or acceptable simply because a reporter with superb liberal bona fides like Woodward confirms them. Our need for such confirmation does, however, make us look pathetic.

Second, Woodward is no longer, if he ever was, a reporter. He is instead a story-teller and as such, he'll do what he has to in order to tell his story. Whatever light that story sheds, if any, should be viewed through extremely jaundiced eyes.