Bob Woodward's Deeply-Dishonest Book, "Fear"

In exile from the GOP, David Frum produces excellent book reviews. Here, he tackles Bob Woodward's deeply-dishonest book, "Fear":

"A Woodward book is composed of a series of transactions.

...Trump’s staff needed an external validator, a person of unimpeachable integrity and prestige who would endorse their view of themselves as victims of an out-of-control FBI. And on January 15, 2017, that’s exactly the service Woodward performed for them. That day, he appeared on Fox News Sunday to deliver a scathing attack on the Steele dossier....

...At the time Woodward spoke those words, he was already engaged in intense negotiations for access to the new administration.

...Woodward does report that Flynn accepted money from Vladimir Putin’s regime. He does not mention that Flynn violated Pentagon rules against retired generals accepting payment from foreign governments.

...Trump is leading the most unethical White House and most corrupt administration in modern U.S. history, arguably in all of U.S. history. But that does not rate attention from Woodward, perhaps because those scandals do not perturb his sources.

...Woodward’s access to the administration’s relatively normal figures ... actually erodes rather than enhances understanding of the administration’s actions. Their need to justify their own service to Trump compels them to minimize what Trump is and extenuate what he is doing. Woodward’s reliance upon them leads him to minimize and extenuate, too."