by WorldTribune Staff, September 5, 2018

Bob Woodward’s new book paints an ominous picture of a White House in crisis breathing new life into a relentless media narrative that Democrat strategists feared had exhausted its target audience.

President Donald Trump responded to the release of Woodward’s “Fear” with a list of accomplishments in his first 600 days in office – 52 of them.

Meanwhile several high level sources cited in the book, including Chief of Staff John Kelly, have bluntly denied saying anything vaguely resembling the quotes attributed to them.

Such denials are reminding the Washington cognoscenti of questions raised about Woodward’s post-Watergate body of work. He has, after all, been accused of manufacturing quotes by comatose, dying and dead sources who are in no position to contradict his published work.

A notable example was his alleged interviews with former CIA Director William Casey who Woodward claimed admitted that he knew about the illegal diversion of monies from Iranian arms sales to the Nicaraguan Contras.

“In 2010, a former C.I.A. employee, who was part of Casey’s security detail, claimed Woodward ‘fabricated’ the story after being turned away from Casey’s room at Georgetown University Hospital,” the New Yorker reported of Feb. 28, 2013.

In columns for The Washington Times, Wesley Pruden wrote that “Mortuary Bob became a Washington legend for cultivating sources among both the quick and the dead.”

In his statement to Woodward, Trump said: “We’re doing better economically just about than at any time. We’re doing better on unemployment maybe than ever. You know, … if the other group had won, I will tell you, that you would have, I think you’d have a GDP of less than zero. I think we would’ve been going in the wrong direction. Because regulations are such a big part of what we’ve done, Bob.”

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Trump’s 52-part response to Woodard:

• Almost 4 million jobs created since election.
• More Americans are now employed than ever recorded before in our history.
• We have created more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs since my election.
• Manufacturing jobs growing at the fastest rate in more than THREE DECADES.
• Economic growth last quarter hit 4.2 percent.
• New unemployment claims recently hit a 49-year low.
• Median household income has hit highest level ever recorded.
• African-American unemployment has recently achieved the lowest rate ever recorded.
• Hispanic-American unemployment is at the lowest rate ever recorded.
• Asian-American unemployment recently achieved the lowest rate ever recorded.
• Women’s unemployment recently reached the lowest rate in 65 years.
• Youth unemployment has recently hit the lowest rate in nearly half a century.
• Lowest unemployment rate ever recorded for Americans without a high school diploma.
• Under my Administration, veterans’ unemployment recently reached its lowest rate in nearly 20 years.
• Almost 3.9 million Americans have been lifted off food stamps since the election.
• The Pledge to America’s Workers has resulted in employers committing to train more than 4 million Americans. We are committed to VOCATIONAL education.
• 95 percent of U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about the future – highest ever.
• Retail sales surged last month, up another 6% over last year.
• Signed the biggest package of tax cuts and reforms in history. After tax cuts, over $300 billion dollars poured back in to the U.S. in the first quarter alone.
• As a result of our tax bill, small businesses will have the lowest top marginal tax rate in more than 80 years.
• Helped win U.S. bid for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
• Helped win U.S.-Mexico-Canada’s united bid for 2026 World Cup.
• Opened ANWR & Approved Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines.
• Record number of regulations eliminated.
• Enacted regulatory relief for community banks and credit unions.
• Obamacare individual mandate penalty GONE.
• My Administration is providing more affordable healthcare options for Americans through association health plans and short-term duration plans.
• Last month, the FDA approved more affordable generic drugs than ever before in history. And thanks to our efforts, many drug companies are freezing or reversing planned price increases. Reformed the Medicare program to stop hospitals from overcharging low-income seniors on their drugs – saving seniors hundreds of millions of dollars this year alone.
• Signed Right-To-Try Legislation.
• Secured $6 billion dollars in NEW funding to fight the opioid epidemic.
• We have reduced high-dose opioid prescriptions by 16% during my first year in office.
• Signed VA Choice Act and VA Accountability Act, expanded VA telehealth services, walk-in-clinics and same-day urgent primary and mental health care.
• Increased our coal exports by 60%; U.S. oil production recently reached all-time high.
• United States is a net natural gas exporter for the first time since 1957.
• Withdrew the United States from the job-killing Paris Climate Accord.
• Cancelled the illegal, anti-coal, so-called Clean Power Plan.
• Secured record $700 billion dollars in military funding; $716 billion next year.
• NATO allies are spending $69 billion dollars more on defense since 2016.
• Process has begun to make the Space Force the 6th branch of the armed forces.
• Confirmed more circuit court judges than any other new administration.
• Confirmed Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch; Nominated Judge Brett Kavanagh.
• Withdrew from the horrible, one-sided Iran Deal.
• Moved U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.
• Protecting Americans from terrorists with the Travel Ban, upheld by Supreme Court.
• Issued executive order to keep open Guantanamo Bay.
• Concluded an historic U.S.-Mexico Trade Deal to replace NAFTA. And negotiations with Canada are underway as we speak.
• Reached a breakthrough agreement with the EU to increase U.S. exports.
• Imposed tariffs on foreign Steel & Aluminum to protect our national security.
• Imposed tariffs on China in response to China’s forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and their chronically abusive trade practices.
• Net exports are on track to increase by $59 billion dollars this year.
• Improved vetting & screening for refugees, and switched focus to overseas resettlement.
• We have begun BUILDING THE WALL. Republicans want STRONG BORDERS and NO CRIME. Democrats want OPEN BORDERS which equals MASSIVE CRIME.

In a 1996 essay for the New York Review of Books, Joan Didion wrote that “measurable cerebral activity is virtually absent” from Woodward’s post-Watergate books, which are notable mainly for “a scrupulous passivity, an agreement to cover the story not as it is occurring but as it is presented, which is to say as it is manufactured.”

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  Bob Woodward, Fear, President Donald Trump, President Trump has a 52-part response to ‘Mortuary Bob’ Woodward’s new book, Trump administration, Trump In The White House, WorldTribune.com