I haven’t read the book yet, or seen the “60 Minutes” appearance. But judging from the excerpt in the Washington Post today, and the review by Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times today, it seems like Bob Woodward’s fourth book in his series on George Bush as commander in chief is a full-out effort to deny Bush the credit for the Surge — a policy of which, had it gone otherwise, he would have been the sole author. The hero of Woodward’s account in the post is General George Casey, who was the commander in Iraq in 2006. Casey a) opposed the surge; b) was personally offended by Bush’s insistence that the goal in Iraq was victory; and c) had a policy according to which the United States needed to do everything possible to hand it all off to the Iraqis.

No wonder he gave Woodward such access. Casey was so wrong on so many levels that all he has left is to set up the straw man that Bush deserves all the blame for Casey’s own strategy and none of the credit for the revolutionary strategy that replaced it.