Bob Woodward Discusses Obama, Current Wars

The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward of Watergate fame spoke about President Barack Obama being a “divided man” with his war policy and the current state of investigative journalism Tuesday night at . 

The 68-year-old Woodward, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and Wheaton native, spoke to over 350 guests on the second floor of the Krasa Center to promote his book Obama’s Wars while dispelling some of the mystery of what really goes on in the White House.

At the end of Woodward’s interview with the president, Obama handed him a World War II book with a quote that said, “War corrupts everyone from the lowest private to the general to the commander-in-chief. War leaves no heart unstained.” The president then told Woodward that he was sympathetic to these statements and told Woodward read the speech Obama gave after winning his 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

The Washington Post assistant managing editor did read Obama’s speech and found out that the president thinks war is sometimes necessary but only in rare cases. Obama said “war is never glorious and is a manifestation of human folly.”

Despite these sentiments, Woodward could see why Obama has escalated the war in Afghanistan because he promised the Afghan government support and cannot pull out quickly.

“I could see that the president was torn in two different directions regarding the Afghan War and considered naming my book The Divided Man to better illustrate Obama’s dilemma because he campaigned to add resources to the Afghan War in 2008 but is someone who doesn’t like war,” Woodward said.

This torn nature could be illustrated with Obama’s presidential decisions, which on record has contradictory ideas that result in middle of the road decisions, Woodward said. For example, the military asked for 40,000-troop increase for Afghanistan while Vice President Joe Biden asked for 20,000. Obama then compromised in the middle with 30,000.

After his interview with Obama, he realized the president was a true politician because he asks where he could get his support, where he can win more support and where he could compromise.

Another topic Woodward discussed was how history should not be judged immediately.

One example Woodward presented was the immensely unpopular pardon that Gerald Ford gave to Richard Nixon following Watergate, which cost Ford in the 1976 election against Jimmy Carter.

Ford was viewed as a coward for letting Nixon off the hook when 40 people were jailed and hundreds of lives were ruined. However, 25 years after the event, Woodward called Ford asking for an interview about the pardon and got an interesting answer from the former president.

“Ford told me that he pardoned Nixon not for him or Nixon, but for the country,” Woodward said. “The country needed to turn the page and put Nixon in the history books because Ford didn’t want a two to three year court circus. It was gutsy for him to pardon Nixon.”

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Woodward pointed out, have been attempting to rewrite history with their memoirs about their Oval Office influence. What journalists need to do is look at notes and memos at the time of a decision and interview the key players for a fuller understanding.

“Rumsfeld in the memoir rescored history by saying George W. Bush and others were inadequate in their offices, but he was adequate and blameless,” Woodward said.

Woodward asked Bush how history would judge his wars. Bush replied that “we would never know history because we will all be dead.”

For the journalism industry, Woodward said the quality of investigative reporting has gone down due to business pressures and that it will take the national press to collectively miss a “catastrophic event” for rich businessmen to reinvest in news media.

Journalists need “to get to the truth,” read background material, get to know their sources personally and not delve into rumor. Woodward cautioned the audience when consuming blogs, as some are terrific and most are terrible.

The research for one of his Bush books probably revealed 60-70 percent of what really happened with the decision to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a White House source, opposed to the 10 percent released to the public. 

Woodward closed by saying America should not most be worried about the wars or economy destroying the nation, but the spread of poor information.

“The thing we need to worry most about is a dark government,” Woodward said. “That’s where democracy dies.” 

Carol Swett of Naperville said it was great hearing a famous journalist like Woodward provide insight into national politics.

“I really liked what he discussed about the future of newspaper media,” Swett said of the hopeful journalistic rejuvenation from business investors. “He also had a good sense of humor.”

Adnan Mujagic, a senior political science major at Benedictine, said he was part of a committee that recommended Woodward to speak at the university to provide a journalistic perspective on why Obama’s war policy differed from his campaign rhetoric. He said the office assistant for Benedictine’s political science department contacted the speaker’s bureau to get Woodward to come.