I just finished watching Anderson Cooper’s excellent interview with Bob Woodward, about Rage. (I’ve only finished a couple of chapters.). I couldn’t find a link to the complete interview, but it is really, really worth watching as much as possible.
First, the new taped segments, are unbelievable, and further, make it obvious how much Trump actually knew about Covid but chose to “downplay”. But in my opinion, the most interesting thing was Bob Woodward’s emotion. This is a man who has interviewed 9 president and virtually every powerful person in Washington for the last 50 years. He is the poster boy for a dogged reporter, unflappable,and unafraid.
We joked about furrowed brows of Republican senators, but that described Woodward perfectly. He looked and said as much that he was troubled, deeply disturbed, and just sad for the country. He agonized about writing his final page and discussed it many many people. In Bob Woodward’s world, just as in Jim Mattis, you provide information, and judgement, you don’t tell others how to think.
He’s never written a conclusion like this.
For nearly 50 years, I have written about nine presidents from Nixon to Trump—20 percent of the 45 U.S. presidents. A president must be willing to share the worst with the people, the bad news with the good. All presidents have a large obligation to inform, warn, protect, to define goals and the true national interest. It should be a truth-telling response to the world, especially in crisis. Trump has, instead, enshrined personal impulse as a governing principle of his presidency. When his performance as president is taken in its entirety, I can only reach one conclusion: Trump is the wrong man for the job."
Woodward, Bob. Rage (pp. 391-392). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.
Woodward and Cooper are about as mainstream as the media gets, I think they did a fine job.
