Book Notes by Frank Kline

Book Notes

Frank Kline

The Film Club: A True Story of a Father and Son, by David Gilmore, Thomas Alan Publishers, Toronto 2007, 244 pages.

David Gilmore’s son was failing in school and bouncing between his separated parents. In desperation his father said he could quit school provided they watched movies together and talked about the movies provided there was no drug use. There were drugs and the father let it slide.

I gave this as a gift to my son for obvious reasons. He read it and gave it back. But he continued to insist that Dylan go to school and do well. In September Dylan starts college. We will see.

Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, by Barton Gellman, The Penguin Press, 2008, 483 pages.

Cheney was not my favorite human being nor I suspect the author’s. But the author doesn’t demonize Cheney. Instead the VP comes across as intelligent, highly focused, hard working and determined to do what he thought was necessary and needed by the country. I think he was wrong but that is in retrospect. We never know what would have happened if something or someone wasn’t present.

Bush at War, by Bob Woodward, Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, 2002, 382 pages.

As George Santayana put it, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,"(sometimes called Santayana's Law of Repetitive Consequence). So Bush at War, Plan of Attack, State of Denial and The War Within should be required reading.

You keep wondering if Bob Woodward had recording devises in all of the participants’ offices and homes. Instead I think he did what I did when I surveyed hospitals. And that was to talk to everybody. No one would trash themselves or their service but they would cheerfully trash everyone else. Then all you had to do was to put it together. I suspect Woodward is a master at gaining confidence, listening carefully and finding the patterns. In subsequent interviews he uses what he has learned as bait to get more information.

That said, and in spite of my belief that Iraq was serious mistakes, I could see why Bush’s staff and family liked and respected him.

On page 8 there is wonderful story about Cofer Black the head of the Counter terrorism Center at the C.I.A. and his interaction with George Tenet head of the C.I.A.

On page 38 you get a look at why the administration wanted a strong reaction to Osama bin Laden. And on page 53, “Powell, for one, saw that Bush was tired of rhetoric. The president wanted to kill somebody”. Some of our cooperation with Russia is described on page 102

On page 49 you get to watch how the administration used the terrorist attack of 911 to justify an attack on Iraq.

“What fools these mortals be” said Puck in Midsummer Night’s Dream. As Wikipedia puts it, Puck is a clever and mischievous elf and personifies the trickster or the wise knave. In the play, Shakespeare introduces Puck as the "shrewd and knavish sprite" and "that merry wanderer of the night" and jester to Oberon the fairy king. Enough said!

Plan of Attack. By Bob Woodward, Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, 2004, 467 pages.

There was high intelligence and great focus put on the means for war but very little on weather the war was sensible, right, moral or ethical. Eventually everyone in the administration even Colin Powell went along, though in some cases reluctantly. As Robert Burns said, “But Mouse, you are not alone, In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men Go often askew, And leaves us nothing but grief and pain, For promised joy!.”. Still you are blest, compared with me! The present only touches you: But oh! I backward cast my eye, On prospects dreary!
And forward, though I cannot see, I guess and fear!

While I am no great admirer of Edward Kennedy he voted against allowing the president to use force in Iraq and said, ”The administration has not made a convincing case…nor has the administration laid out the cost in blood and treasure…” He later added Bush’s preemptive doctrine amounted to “a call for 21st century American Imperialism that no other nation can or should accept”.

On page 251 you see Bush’s decision and his assumption of cabinet and councilor support. So it goes.

State of Denial: Bush at War Part III, By Bob Woodward, Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, 2006, 558 pages.

Almost every battle plan is perfect until the first shot is fired and so it was with the invasion of Iraq. But like they say in the bric-a-brac shop, if you break it you own it. Colin Powell had serious reservations but didn’t confront Bush with a threat of resignation and if that failed with resignation and a loud clear public statement of his reasons for resigning. Carl Levine, the Chairman and Leading Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Woodward; “I’ve never thought Bush was dumb at all…But I think he’s intellectually lazy and I think he wants people around him who will not challenge him but will give him the ammunition which he needs or wants in order to achieve some more general goal”…”Powell had the potential to. change the course here…He’s the only one who had the potential to.” In response to Woodward’s, How? , Levine said, “He could have threatened to resign or insisted that U.N. weapons inspectors be allowed to continue…Can you imagine the power of that one person to change the course? He had it” (page 416).

Steve Herbits was along time friend of Rumsfeld and functioned for Rumsfeld rather like Karl Rove did for Bush (page 20). On page 103 Herbits tells Rumsfeld, “Now that I’ve got your attention, you have got to focus on the post-Iraq planning. It is so screwed up. We will not be able to win the peace”. Rumsfeld can’t remember the conversation but can’t say for sure that it didn’t happen.

On pages 328-329 we see how diplomacy was abandoned in the rush to war and how the insurgency so weakened us that we had no choice but return to diplomacy,

The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008, By Bob Woodward, Simon and Schuster, 2008, 487 pages.

“To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making.”
Otto von Bismarck had it right. So this book will turn your stomach. Read it at your own risk. On page 432 Woodward writes, “Every meeting was about how to go to war. There was no meeting to discuss whether to go to war…Bush latter acknowledged in interviews with me (Woodward) that he did not seek the recommendations from four key people: his father, former President George H. W. Bush, who had overseen the first Gulf War in 1991; Secretary of State Colin Powell; Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; and C.I.A. director George Tenet. Let’s hope Winston Churchill had it right when he said, “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else”.