In discussing the election results with Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball last night, former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw referred to Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War. Here's what Brokaw, who previously blurbed our book, said on the show:
Chris, one of the things I think that's happened with Republicans, especially with conservatives around the country, is that the president did not acknowledge that things were not going well until the last month or so, when he said they're not going as well as I would like them to. They kept insisting things were going well when there was a marked deterioration in the original strategy, and what was going on, and then had you October, with more Americans killed than ever before. Republicans come, to a large degree, from the corporate, from the business world and when things don't go well, they know that they have to change. And there was no indication of change going on in this administration.
And then in the closing days of the campaign, the president gave Don Rumsfeld a no-cut contract, said he's here until the very end. Some of the most pointed criticism of the president on the war came from George Will and from Pat Buchanan. And then there were a whole series of books and they were called "Fiasco" and "State of Denial" and "Hubris." And they were detailed accounts of all that had gone wrong before. So, you know, there was the reality on the one side and then what the president was trying to persuade the country, on the other side, was that I've got a plan, stay with me here. And finally people said, look, I've heard the sky is falling too long. I'm going to make my own judgment about this.
It's good to be on the side of reality--especially when you write nonfiction books.
Posted by David Corn at November 8, 2006 03:05 PM
