Bookstrapping: War By Bob Woodward

I have had the privilege of working with many journalists in my lifetime. I know this for sure - when a journalist knows their subject deeply, they could well be called ‘real time historians.’ Bob Woodward of the Washington Post is in this category and even the best historians cannot resist their own opinions.

His appropriately red-themed book ‘War,’ comfortingly singular, talks about Joe Biden’s White House. A President forced to step down! But was he a genuine advocate of peace in a world ready to go to war at the slightest instance, Woodward seems to ask.

Here are our five #Bookstrapping insights:

1. Under Biden, the US famously and infamously withdrew from Afghanistan. Woodward believes that Biden and his team were fully aware of the menace Russia posed, but that Putin never took them seriously after they left Afghanistan. In fact, Woodward goes on to quote CIA’s profile of Putin and says that he is “defined by his extreme insecurity and imperial ambition.” He also conjures a picture of Donald Trump as a fan of Vladimir Putin. Did he supply him COVID tests secretively, the author asks.

2. Biden is Putin’s 5th American President. Obviously, he has been around longer than them. But did Putin’s megalomania begin because Obama did not take him seriously, Woodward wonders.

3. Famous for his Donald Trump trilogy, the books Fear (2018) Rage(2020) and Peril (2021), Woodward is a two time Pulitzer winner, first in 1973 for the coverage of the Watergate scandal with Carl Bernstein (yes, he brought down Richard Nixon) and second in 2003 as the lead reporter for coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Yes, he knows his politics.

4. But why is this book out just before the elections? Because Woodward has strong beliefs about Donald Trump and vice versa. "None of these made-up stories by Bob Woodward are true and are the work of a truly demented and deranged man who suffers from a debilitating case of Trump derangement syndrome," Trump campaign communications director Cheung has said about War.

5. After fifty years of reporting on American politics, Woodward has trained his expert lens on the 3 years from 2021 to 2024. He has tremendous access and makes full use of it to give a ringside view of US Foreign policy and how that defines the character of its Presidents.

In essence, Woodward praises Biden while recalling an interaction with Trump and says, “We need to look at what's Trump all about. And I think Trump is a hazard, is definitely the wrong person for the job, but the overall reasons are--and I think they're so important to understand. And the first is that Trump has no plan. He does not plan!”

Strong words. But will they dent Trump’s charismatic hold over many?

Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta is a columnist and bestselling biographer. She is credited with the internationally acclaimed Red Dot Experiment, a decadal six-nation study on how ‘culture impacts communication.’ On Instagram @OfficialReetaGupta