WAR by Bob Woodward

It is an unfortunate reality in 2024 that we cannot count on getting our news from the news.

There are at least two global conflicts ongoing as I type—Ukrainians are defending themselves from a Russian invasion, and there are battles between Israel and Hamas—but these are infrequently reported on with the gravity that they ought to demand.  Instead, we are treated to headlines such as “INSIDE TRUMP’S TRUTH SOCIAL CONSPIRACY THEORY MACHINE” (New York Times, 4:12 pm on 10/29/24), “MUSK’S xAI IN TALKS TO RAISE FUNDING VALUING IT AT $40 BILLION” (Wall Street Journal, 4:14pm on 10/29/24), “ONE OF REPUBLICAN’S INFLATION ARGUMENTS AGANST DEMOCRATS HAS EVAPORATED” (CNN.com, 4:16pm on 10/29/24), and “SPEAKER JOHNSON DISHES ON TRUMP’S ‘LITTLE SECRET’ AHEAD OF ELECTION DAY AS 2024 RACE REMAINS NECK-AND-NECK” (foxnews.com, 4:18pm on 10/29/2024).

Celebrity politicians and the rich (often one and the same) are ruling our headlines, infotainment having replaced informative discourse in this era of EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME.

Enter Bob Woodward, the two-time Pulitzer Prize award-winner and famed former Washington Post journalist (back in the days when the Washington Post was not too cowardly to endorse a presidential candidate) who is perhaps best known for exposing the Watergate scandal during the Nixon presidency.

Woodward’s new book is WAR (Simon and Schuster, $32.00), and it details the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the conflict in the middle-east, and the current and past two presidential elections. WAR peppers Woodward’s trademark matter-of-fact observations with the firsthand accounting of President Joe Biden, Vice-President Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump and the people who have surrounded them for the past several years.

What is perhaps best illuminated is the pathos of Vladimir Putin and the ties and conversation that Biden and Trump have had with him, along with gentle reminding of how we have ended up in our present political climate (for example: 1) Joe and Hunter Biden were on the board of a Ukrainian oil company; 2) Donald Trump asks new Ukrainian President Zelensky to investigate a lack of prosecution for Hunter Biden that he alleges was influenced by Joe Biden; 3) Zelensky refuses and the transcript of the call is leaked; 4) Donald Trump is impeached and cited for coercion and the attempt to enlist a foreign government to influence the results of a domestic election).

It is left to the reader to connect the dots between Trump’s call to Zelensky and Vladimir Putin’s later invasion of Ukraine.

With WAR, we are given a rare look behind the scenes of a presidency that is still in power (Joe Biden's), of the preceding president (Donald Trump, who hopes to also be the next president), and the vice-president and Democratic Presedential Nominee (Kamala Harris) who has added a late-coming twist to the electoral process (Joe Biden won the Democratic nomination and then stepped down after a disastrous performance in the first presidential debate).

The story is not yet over as far as Biden, Harris and Trump are concerned, but one is left with the fear that the wars Woodward is writing about, like the conflict in Afghanistan that opens the book, will transcend any of the current candidates’ regimes.

I prefer to leave us with a set of more optimistic headlines from the past:

WAR IS OVER!

IF YOU WANT IT.