...more insights from Woodward and "State of Denial"

A good discussion of the pre-911, Rice cover-up is here

Cheney's Fever
"Colin Powell, the secretary of state, saw this in Cheney to such an extent, he, Powell, told colleagues that ‘Cheney has a fever. It is an absolute fever. It’s almost as if nothing else exists,’”

OIL POWER/ELECTION MANIPULATION:

"Prince Bandar enjoys easy access to the Oval Office. His family and the Bush family are close. And Woodward told 60 Minutes that Bandar has promised the president that Saudi Arabia will lower oil prices in the months before the election - to ensure the U.S. economy is strong on election day."

"Woodward says that Bandar understood that economic conditions were key before a presidential election: “They’re [oil prices] high. And they could go down very quickly. That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly.”"

BUSH'S KOOL-AID

"Did Mr. Bush ask his father for any advice? “I asked the president about this. And President Bush said, ‘Well, no,’ and then he got defensive about it,” says Woodward. “Then he said something that really struck me. He said of his father, ‘He is the wrong father to appeal to for advice. The wrong father to go to, to appeal to in terms of strength.’ And then he said, ‘There's a higher Father that I appeal to.’"

Today, while most doubt that Saddam still possessed any weapons of mass destruction, the president told Woodward he has no doubts at all about going to war.

The president still believes with some conviction, that this was absolutely the right thing, that he has the duty to free people, to liberate people. And this was his moment, says Woodward.

But who gave President Bush the duty to free people around the world? “That's a really good question. The Constitution doesn't say that's part of the commander in chief's duties,” says Woodward. “That’s his stated purpose. It is far-reaching, and ambitious, and I think will cause many people to tremble.”

AMERICAN ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM

How deep a man is President George W. Bush? “He’s not an intellectual. He is not what I guess would be called a deep thinker,” says Woodward. “He chastised me at one point because I said people were concerned about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction. And he said, ‘Well you travel in elite circles.’ I think he feels there is an intellectual world and he's indicated he's not a part of it … the fancy pants intellectual world. What he calls the elite.”