Accused by Fox of slamming Bush, Woodward insists 'I'm dealing with the facts' David Edwards and Nick Juliano

Published: Monday September 15, 2008





Print This Email This Bob Woodward's latest book is not nearly enough of a hagiography of the Bush administration for the folks at Fox News's morning show, and they spent a few minutes of Fox & Friends grilling the Washington Post reporter Monday morning.



Brian Kilmeade, apparently after diligently studying his Bush-is-a-hero talking points, accused Woodward of taking what should have been "a miraculous military success story" -- the surge in Iraq -- and twisting it to portray the president as out of touch.



"But I'm dealing with the facts here," Woodward said dryly. "And the facts are that at key turning points the president was not involved. ... If you're sitting on the ground in Iraq, you want your president involved at the same level you were involved. in this case he was not."



Woodward's latest book, The War Within, is his fourth on the inner workings of President Bush's White House.



Critics employed by outlets that aren't Fox News have accused Woodward of departing from the harsh skepticism on display in his previous offering, State of Denial, which was written and reported with little cooperation from the administration. The most recent offering includes on-the-record interviews with numerous prominent administration figures, including President Bush himself.



A Bloomberg News critic opined that Woodward's lips were "attached to [Bush's] backside" after seeing what he viewed as an overly generous portrayal.



That view clearly wasn't shared at Fox News, one of the last bastions of unquestioning Bush devotion and ceaseless celebration of the success of the troop surge, which has reduced violence in Iraq while failing to bring political reconciliation any closer.



Kilmeade opened the interview with an accusation that Woodward cared only about book sales.



"It seems to me you were wriring a book that was going to be very negative on the Bush administration in 2006. Miraculously to America's benefit and the Iraqis benefit, it turned around, and instead of writing a pro-Bush book that wouldn't sell, you kept it negative to get to one that would," he charged.



"Well that's not true," Woodward says, keeping his cool in the face of F & F's uninformed absurdity. "If you've looked at the book at all it goes meeting by meeting, document by document. None of the facts have been disputed by the White House."



For about six minutes, the host and guest sparred over just how detached from his administration President Bush was, until co-host Gretchen Carlson had to break up the party, to move on to the network's next hard-hitting guest.



"This discussion could go on forever," she said, but "we've got to have Suzanne Somers on the show too."



This video is from Fox's Fox & Friends, broadcast September 15, 2008.









Download video via RawReplay.com









