Critics slammed Ron Suskind’s ‘Confidence Men.’ But how closely did did they read it?

For a White House often criticized for not communicating a strong and clear message to the public, Team Obama rallied to trash Ron Suskind’s new book, “Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President.”

In his defense, Suskind has said that the White House knew everything that was in his book before it even hit the printing presses. But that was exactly his problem. White House officials got a head start in attacking, and neither Suskind nor a time-crunched news media were able to catch up.

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A day before the book’s Sept. 20 release, top administration officials assembled at a news briefing and took turns at preemptive denunciation. When asked about Suskind’s contention that he’d dragged his feet in implementing a directive from President Obama, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that “the reality I lived, we all lived together, bears no relation to the sad little stories I heard reported from that book.”

White House press secretary Jay Carney alleged that “one passage seems to be lifted almost entirely from Wikipedia.” Claiming that the book was riddled with factual errors, Carney said he’d “caution anyone to assume that if you can’t get those things right, that you suddenly get the broader analysis right. That analysis is wrong.”

Former officials, as always, felt even less constraint. Onetime economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers said his quote in the book about being “home alone” without adult supervision at the White House combined “fiction, distortion, and words taken out of context.” Former communications director Anita Dunn, quoted as saying that the White House was a hostile workplace for women, claimed she’d told Suskind “point blank” the opposite. Christina Romer, who also served as an economic adviser to the president, said she “can’t imagine” having said that she felt like “a piece of meat” after being excluded by Summers from a meeting, as Suskind chronicled.

Says the author about the reactions: “I guess looking at the landscape, I wasn’t pleased, but I wasn’t surprised. It’s a tough time for the country.”

A tough time, certainly. But the White House’s specific, forceful and seemingly coordinated offensive — the kind of effort the Obama operation can seldom muster, especially if you trust the reporting in “Confidence Men” — also reflected its mastery of a Washington law: The media has little time to scour these big, important Washington books, at least before deadline.

Consider the “Today” show’s interview with Suskind on Sept. 20, which should easily win co-anchor Ann Curry an invite to the next state dinner. Nearly every question that came out of her mouth doubled as a White House talking point. Wikipedia? Check. Summers? For sure. Dunn? Asked and answered. Suskind attempted to speak up on behalf of his work, but when you have the White House and NBC arrayed against you, you’re just some author on the defensive.

Why is careful reading of the book so key? Because “Confidence Men” is something of a self-contained allegation-and-pushback-prevention machine. Corroboration of the author’s claim about Geithner comes on Page 378, via a White House memo alleging that “once a decision is made, implementation by the Department of the Treasury has at times been slow and uneven.” It also states that “when the economic team does not like a decision by the President, they have on occasion worked to re-litigate the overall policy.” Summers, on Page 453, explains what he meant in uttering the “home alone” quote, of which Suskind writes that he “assumed ownership.” Dunn’s quote, found point blank on Page 340, alleges a “genuinely hostile workplace to women” at the White House, no matter how the words are parsed.