Eat The Press

NYT Shocker! The Top Post On MEL Is Actually News

NYT |  Not WaPo |  Posted Friday September 29, 2006 at 04:41 PM

Today's NYT scoop of WaPo-er Bob Woodward's new book, "State Of Denial," is actually a big deal for two reasons: (1) Because a story that WaPo should have owned is now an NYT front-page scoop; and (2) Because it's #1 on MEL — and it's not about cuddly animals, man-dates, weird names for kids, or stealing the covers. Uncharacteristically, it's actually about news.

Here is the lede:

The White House ignored an urgent warning in September 2003 from a top Iraq adviser who said that thousands of additional American troops were desperately needed to quell the insurgency there, according to a new book by Bob Woodward, the Washington Post reporter and author. The book describes a White House riven by dysfunction and division over the war.

The warning is described in "State of Denial," scheduled for publication on Monday by Simon & Schuster. The book says President Bush's top advisers were often at odds among themselves, and sometimes were barely on speaking terms, but shared a tendency to dismiss as too pessimistic assessments from American commanders and others about the situation in Iraq.

The article also notes that "[a]s late as November 2003, Mr. Bush is quoted as saying of the situation in Iraq: 'I don't want anyone in the cabinet to say it is an insurgency. I don't think we are there yet.'" This is remarkably similar to the way Donald Rumsfeld shut down any discussion about keeping troops in Iraq post-invasion (which still really hasn't gotten much play after being broken by a mid-sized newspaper). Maybe the Washington Post can pick that up.