| Bob Woodward: Government secrecy is threat to democracy BY SALLY ACHARYA The gravest threat to the country, the one that could “do this country in,” is secrecy in government, famed investigative journalist Bob Woodward told a standing-room-only crowd last week at the Kay Spiritual Life Center. He spoke at AU about his most recent book, Plan of Attack (2004), an exhaustive account of the inside workings of the Bush administration as it planned the Iraq war, and answered questions from the audience. Described in 2003 by the Wall Street Journal as “the most celebrated journalist of our age,” Woodward’s role in uncovering the Watergate scandal and his subsequent 12 best-selling nonfiction books have made him a household name. 
Jeff Watts
Bob Woodward spoke to a packed hall last week. It’s clear that the war is at the center of politics today, and also at “the emotional center” of American life, Woodward said. The decision to go to war is key in understanding who George Bush is, and is also one that not only “defines us to the world,” he said, but “ends up defining us to ourselves.” Both the Kerry and the Bush campaigns recommended Plan of Attack, he noted, with some finding in it a portrait of Bush as a determined and focused president, and others seeing it as revealing a dysfunctional process that led to an unnecessary war. His wife, quipped Woodward, concluded that both campaigns recommended it because neither had read it. While putting together the book, he wanted an interview with Bush. He approached him by sending a 21-page memo that demonstrated he already had so much information he could go to press regardless of whether Bush wanted to participate or not. “Information begets information,” he said. As a result, he was able to get the longest interview with Bush that a sitting president has ever given, he said. He asked some 500 questions in the course of the tape-recorded interview, many of which were variations on “the most important question in journalism:” the question, “why?” “In my business, we’re trained to doubt,” Woodward said. But when he asked Bush if he had any doubts, the president answered that he had no doubts. “I have to be the calcium in the backbone,” Bush explained, because if he isn’t strong the others around him will waiver. Woodward’s book also quotes Colin Powell as warning the president of the risk of invading Iraq, likening it to “the Pottery Barn rule—you break it, you own it.” Woodward said. “What happened? We broke it; we own it.” At the end of interviewing Bush, Woodward said, “I asked him, ‘How do you think history will judge your Iraq war?’ Because it was clearly his decision. Cheney was a steamroll, but it was his decision.” Bush answered, Woodward said, “History? We won’t know. We’ll all be dead.” Noted Woodward: “He’s ducking the question, but it’s also true.” The most important trait in a president, Woodward said, is courage. “You want wise and smart and lucky, but in the end, you want a president with courage.” Sometimes, he said, courage means walking the road alone; at other times it means reexamining the road you’ve taking and admitting that it is the wrong road. Before his talk, he took a straw poll of the audience by asking who voted for Bush, who voted for Kerry, and who felt the war was wise and necessary. Barely a dozen students in the packed room supported Bush or the war in Iraq. Students lined up to ask questions afterward. In response to a question about mistrust of the press, Woodward charged that “speed and impatience” are the “salient features” of today’s journalism. Pressures to get news on the Web or on the air seldom leave a reporter time to investigate stories, he said. It’s the media’s role, he said, to “get the light on what is really going on” and ensure that the government will not be conducted in secret. Secrecy in government affairs, he said, is the greatest danger to the country, and journalists should be given the time, resources, and support to fight it. The talk was sponsored by the Kennedy Political Union, Graduate Student Council, and the graduate student councils of the School of International Service, School of Public Affairs, and College of Arts and Sciences. |
