Once again, Woodward reports too late

One of my main beefs with Bob Woodward is his desire to preserve his relationships and special position over reporting and the truth.

Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. "I don't think I would have gone to war," he said a little more than a year after President Bush had launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration.

In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney -- Ford's White House chief of staff -- and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief.

Do you think that maybe if this had actually been reported in July 2004, Bush's reelection year, this might have meant something?

Woodward is self-promoting, self-preserving slime.

"The Ford interview -- and a subsequent lengthy conversation in 2005 -- took place for a future book project."