Bob Woodward, a winner in Obama's Wars

Once again, Bob Woodward lifts the lid on the backbiting behind the scenes in the White House. So is the president the loser?
Bob Woodward, 2005
Journalist Bob Woodward's new book, Obama's Wars, reveals tensions and strife in the White House over conduct of the war in Afghanistan. Photograph: Brad Barket/AFP

Let's start with this fact. Every book Bob Woodward writes sells several hundred thousand copies. The print run for Obama's Wars, the first of what will end up being (if past practice holds) anywhere from two to four assays of what's going on behind the scenes in Barack Obama's administration, is 630,000. Aside from telling us that Woodward is a very rich man indeed, this fact confirms that he has a reach and influence that is unique in American print journalism.

Besides which, Bob Woodward is Bob Woodward. He is the most famous journalist in the world. Who can possibly resist when he comes a-knocking?

Some have, and it is said by Woodward's naysayers that he exacts his revenge on them – that those who cooperate are shown in a positive light, and those who don't are typically the bumblers who messed everything up. But more than that, he's Woodward. Politico, writing up the new book, put it well:

"Instead of thinking, 'I'm talking to Bob Woodward: I'd better be careful,' sources tend to think, 'I'm talking to Bob Woodward. I'd better tell him something good.'"

Apparently, lots of sources in the Obama White House thought that way, because, from early reports, Woodward got some juicy stuff, even if some of it is on the gossipy side – like Joe Biden calling Richard Holbrooke "the most egotistical bastard" he'd ever met. But what did Woodward get about the fellow in the Oval Office?

Mike Allen of Politico, whose morning email to Washington insiders goes a long way toward setting the town's conventional wisdom, called the book "net-positive for Obama, portraying him as thoughtful, decisive, seeking advice, and knowing what he knows and what he doesn't". Other media reports to date do not entirely confirm this interpretation, as the general theme is one of not quite chaos, but strong disagreement among principals about the proper course of action in Afghanistan, the book's chief topic.

This we basically knew. What might be new is how Obama himself handled it all. One vignette that made it into the New York Times has Obama losing his cool as some military commanders pressed him to add even more troops after he'd already committed to adding 30,000: "I'm done doing this," the president "erupted" (I don't know whether that's Woodward's electric verb or the Times's). Another has Obama telling Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, interestingly enough, that the withdrawal deadline of July 2011 had to be firm: "'I can't lose the whole Democratic party,' Obama replied."

I'm going to go out on a limb (which actually isn't that long a limb) and say that history suggests Woodward's portrait will hew closely to the established and accepted narrative. Let's imagine, say, a scale of one to 10 where one is "the president is a walking disaster and the nation risks daily annihilation with him at the helm" and 10 is "this man is Roosevelt, Churchill, Jesus and Elvis rolled into one." In his first book on Bill Clinton, The Agenda, Woodward gave Clinton about a two, which reflected the dim Georgetown-parlour view of the time. In 2002's Bush At War, the author rated the president about an eight (later revised crashingly down).

So my guess? Obama will emerge from Obama's Wars at somewhere around four point five, maybe five, reflecting precisely the establishment view that yes, the guy inherited all these problems from a group of incompetents, but he also has left some of us wondering about his judgment. For the White House, it could be worse, although that's not, of course, to say that Fox News can't find the ugliest nuggets, add water and stir, and turn them into 12-course meals, with an election just six weeks away.

Woodward himself might rue giving Fox that ammo, but 630,000 is a lot of books to sell.