Trumping Woodward

"The situation is getting much worse, says Woodward, despite what the White House and the Pentagon are saying in public. 'The truth is that the assessment by intelligence experts is that next year, 2007, is going to get worse and, in public, you have the president and you have the Pentagon [saying], 'Oh, no, things are going to get better,' ' he tells Wallace. 'Now there's public, and then there's private. But what did they do with the private? They stamp it secret. No one is supposed to know,' says Woodward."

Could the book put to rest the argument by some critics that Woodward has become too cozy with those in power? Does he feel some obligation to scrutinize the administration more skeptically after having expressed regret for not more aggressively challenging the official line on Saddam's WMDs?

I wouldn't be surprised if both sides find ammunition in the book. Woodward's 2004 best-seller, "Plan of Attack," provided plenty of fodder for John Kerry's campaign with its details of how Bush was pushing ahead with Iraq war planning while claiming to be committed to U.N. diplomacy, and suggestions of a secret deal with Saudi Arabia. And yet the president's team liked the book so much that the Bush campaign recommended "Plan of Attack" on its Web site.

Red alert: Did the president just significantly escalate his rhetoric against the other side? Are the polling numbers that bad?

"President Bush, delivering a lengthy defense of the wars in Iraq and on terrorism, angrily accused Democratic leaders today of misrepresenting a recently declassified intelligence report, saying they favored policies that would increase the nation's vulnerability to terrorist attacks," reports the Los Angeles Times .

"'The party of FDR, the party of Harry Truman, has become the party of cut-and-run,' he said, in a speech that repeatedly brought an audience of several thousand to its feet. "The president singled out statements that aides later said were made by Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) and Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, a senior Democrat and expert on intelligence matters."

This is not exactly a new playbook.

Bush gets his way on the Hill:

"The Senate yesterday passed a sweeping measure authorizing military tribunals for some suspected terrorists and permitting aggressive interrogations of top terror suspects, handing President Bush a major victory five weeks before crucial congressional elections," says the Boston Globe .

If you don't like the war in Iraq, you will likely be angry about the figures in this AP account by Barry Schweid. And even if you support the war, the numbers are sobering:

"About six in 10 Iraqis say they approve of attacks on U.S.-led forces, and slightly more than that want their government to ask U.S. troops to leave within a year, a poll finds.