The Iraq War: Fruitbowls & Fart Jokes

With many details from Bob Woodward's new book, State of Denial, quickly coming out in the mainstream media prior to Woodward's 60 Minutes interview this Sunday evening, it appears that the title of his book not only refers to the Bush administration's attitude to the war but also to Woodward's frame of mind to this point about the realities in DC.

Perhaps this book is his way to repent for his previous glowing descriptions of Bush. And he could not have chosen a better release date for it - just over one month before the crucial house and senate elections - since Rove had wanted the focus of this campaign to be all about the Republican's so-called successes (which are minimal) in the war on terrorism. Consider this book a gift to the Democrats from Woodward, who has ensured that the topic of those campaigns will be the massive failures in Iraq for which this administration has no workable policy.

Woodward details some of the behind the scenes White House conversations in his newspaper and to the New York Times:

Mr. Woodward reports that when he told Mr. Rumsfeld that the number of insurgent attacks was going up, the defense secretary replied that they’re now “categorizing more things as attacks.” Mr. Woodward quotes Mr. Rumsfeld as saying, “A random round can be an attack and all the way up to killing 50 people someplace. So you’ve got a whole fruit bowl of different things — a banana and an apple and an orange.”

Mr. Woodward adds: “I was speechless. Even with the loosest and most careless use of language and analogy, I did not understand how the secretary of defense would compare insurgent attacks to a ‘fruit bowl,’ a metaphor that stripped them of all urgency and emotion.
[...]
There’s the president, who once said, “I don’t have the foggiest idea about what I think about international, foreign policy,” deciding that he’s going to remake the Middle East and alter the course of American foreign policy. There’s his father, former President George Herbert Walker Bush (who went to war against the same country a decade ago), worrying about the wisdom of another war but reluctant to offer his opinions to his son because he believes in the principle of “let him be himself.” There’s the president’s national security adviser whining to him that the defense secretary won’t return her phone calls. And there’s the president and Karl Rove, his chief political adviser, trading fart jokes.

The WH has rebutted Woodward's claims in the book by distributing a document listing '5 Key Myths' which basically contains the same old tired talking points. If that's all they could come up with, they've admitted defeat but you just know they'll keep whining about the book anyway, which is a Good Thing™.

In a related story, the Washington Post has published details about Colin Powell's final days, 'Falling on His Sword'. Finally, everything is unravelling for this corrupt administration. If only it had begun much earlier than this.