Bush Man's End of the Affair

The Bush White House used to love Bob Woodward. Now, thanks to the revelations in his newest book, State of Denial, the breakup will be nasty

Bob Woodward's first book on this Administration, Bush At War, was hagiography, the prose equivalent of those post-9/11 Annie Leibovitz photographs for Vanity Fair that captured the President and his War Cabinet in heroic still lifes. Woodward, the world's most famous investigative reporter and an assistant managing editor at the Washington Post, took a lot of heat for going soft on the President in Bush At War, but the author's critics were wrong to suggest he was politically motivated. That book, remember, chronicled the President and his inner circle during the first three months after 9/11. All things considered, and certainly by comparison to what followed, those were pretty good days for this Administration.