BS: Bob Woodward and 'Fear'

Subject: BS: Bob Woodward and 'Fear'
From: robomatic
Date: 11 Sep 18 - 08:20 PM

I made sure I was within radio earshot for Terry Gross' interview today, with Bob Woodward over his latest book "Fear". It concerns Trump and those around him, and dovetails nicely with the anonymous New York Times Op-Ed of last week. Bob Woodward is one of the American journalists with tons of street cred. When he is interviewed he speaks in a steady manner, does not use much emotional terminology in his descriptions, which makes his use of the simple Anglo-Saxon word 'Fear' all the more effective. He sticks to his point and to my mind he is effective, believable, and trustworthy. His sources were highly place persons on deep background, which means he quotes all he likes but does not name his sources directly. Considering the sources and subjects, he must have a lot of people convinced that he has the technical chops to keep what is unknown remaining unknown.
Terry Gross is a national treasure. Her interviews are usually fascinating and thorough. Even when she interviews someone not famous and apparently not interesting to me, I usually tune in and usually find out I was right to listen.
The 'teaser' in today's interview was that The Current Occupant at one point was wondering why we spend so much money with tens of thousands of troops in S. Korea, and one of his ideas to save money was to bring dependents home. The idea made it outside the White House and N. Korea through its highly placed sources let it be known that removing dependents from the area would be interpreted as a preparation for war.

Subject: RE: BS: Bob Woodward and 'Fear'
From: Charmion
Date: 12 Sep 18 - 10:15 AM

Oh, yeah, sure.

Send the families home to save bucks and watch morale plummet and discipline problems multiply exponentially.

Subject: RE: BS: Bob Woodward and 'Fear'
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Sep 18 - 11:52 PM

I'm reading the book now - it is carefully and clearly written. I listened to an interview of Woodward by Stephen Colbert and Woodward described how "deep background" works - he most often is able to tape the interviews to be sure every quote is exact, but as noted above, he doesn't name his sources. I missed the Gross interview but just looked it up: Fresh Air, 9-11-2018.

This book sold out so quickly that Amazon that usually sends them on the day of release said I had to wait at least two weeks; I cancelled that order and got it on Kindle instead and am reading it on my Amazon Fire tablet. I prefer paper, but didn't want to wait.

Subject: RE: BS: Bob Woodward and 'Fear'
From: robomatic
Date: 15 Sep 18 - 10:50 PM

It's the first book I've bought for my kindle, a paperwhite. I'm not missing not having a physical book yet, the main difference is I can read it in public without anyone knowing what I'm looking at. And it is legible in strong light and no light. On the other hand, a physical book can serve as a conversation starter.
It's the first Woodward book I've read and he is name dropping all the right names I'm interested in. I will probably have to read it more than once.

He freely goes from conversations relayed to him from the White House to his own thoughts and experiences in the midst of public events.