I'm in the middle of Woodward's latest, "State of Denial: Bush at War III." Interesting reading to say the least. It's definitely not an anti-Bush book, although Bush and many in his administration come off looking pretty bad. Woodward manages to paint Bush as a strong if sometimes misguided leader. The person who really comes off horribly is Donald Rumsfeld.

I just read the chapter of the book that deals with the 2004 election. I had not read an account of it from the Bush insider perspective. Although all of us on the Kerry side were devastated after that election, I took a small bit of solace in reading that on election day 2004, the Bush people were pooping their pants for about 12 hours, because they thought they were goint to LOSE. The early exit polls were showing bad results. Condi Rice is portrayed as being especially shaken. Some people in the Bush White House were almost in tears. Bush had to tell everyone getting off Air Force One with him to "put on their game faces" for the media so as not to portray their terrible fear that they were going to lose, since people had become so emotional on the plane.

As it became clear that the whole election was coming down to Ohio, as predicted, Bush even called Kenneth Blackwell a "nut" when the Ohio Sec. of State would not yet call the state's election for Bush, so he couldn't go out and give his victory speech.

This whole thing reminds us how terribly close the 2004 election really was, despite revisionist beliefs that it wasn't very close (popular vote nonwithstanding). Only about 70,000 voters in Ohio could have voted for Kerry instead of Bush and Kerry would have won the presidency.

Andrew

could of would of should of.

but didnt.

Thanks, Cochise - adding thoughtful insight to the discussion, as always.

Andrew