Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Blogging Woodward (1)

State of Denial is many things, but among those things it is something very close to a memoir by former Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan. Bandar has apparently talked at great length and with much seeming candor. But is he a trustworthy witness?

For example, do we believe this story, from pp. 4-5. It purports to describe a conversation between Prince Bandar and then Governor George W. Bush inside Bandar's private plane on the tarmac of Austin Airport in the fall of 1997.

"There are people who are your enemies in this country," Bush said, "who also think my dad is your friend."

"So?" asked Bandar, not asking who , though the reference was obvious to supporters of Israel, among others.

Bush said in so many words that the people who didn't want his dad to win in 1992 would also be against him if he ran. These were the same people who didn't like Bandar.

"Can I give you one advice?" Bandar asked.

"What?"

"Mr. Governor, tellme you really want to be president of the United States.

Bush said yes.

"And if you tell me that, I want to tell you one thing. To hell with Saudi Arabia or who likes Saudi Arabia or who doesn't, who likes Bandar or doesn't. Anyone who you think hates your dad or your friend who can make be important to make a difference in winning, swallow your pride and make friends of them. And I can help you. I can help you out and complain about you, make sure you understand that, and that will make sure they help you."

This incident makes Bandar sound all very generous and statesmanlike, which is perhaps why it was told. And no doubt the paranoid thinking revealed by the anecdote is also distinctively Bandar's. But to have Governor Bush agree that George HW Bush was defeated in 1992 by "the same people who didn't like Bandar"? No doubt Bandar wishes Bush had said that. But did he? I very much doubt it.

Continuing on his merry way, Bandar lets slip this morsel, quoted on p. 2. Perhaps others have heard it before, but I have not. If true, it's pretty shocking. Which raises this question: What's Bandar's motive at this point in besmirching the reputation of Nancy Reagan and Michael Deaver? Uncontrollable boasting? A desire to embarrass his successor as Saudi ambassador to Washington? Or something else?

When Michael Deaver, one of President Reagan's top White House aides, left the White House to become a lobbyist, First Lady Nancy Reagan, another close Bandar friend, called and asked h him to help Deaver. Bandar gave Deaver a $500,000 consulting contract and never saw him again.

$500,000 for no work is not a "consulting contract." It is a gift. And a gift from a foreign government to a senior White House official at the direct request of a first lady - well, that's a very very doubtful kind of gift. Assuming, as I said before, that it ever happened at all.

-MORE TO COME-

10/04 01:23 PM