In the last “At the Library” column, I mentioned having just finished reading “Peril,” Bob Woodward’s and Robert Costa’s portrait of President Donald Trump’s schemes to block the peaceful transition of power following President-elect Joe Biden’s victory last November.
As a teaser, I mentioned the extensive use of profanity Woodward and Costa attributed to numerous people in the Trump administration, particularly President Trump, that the authors included in direct quotations throughout “Peril.”
In addition to page after page containing F-bombs from Trump, many other examples of F-bombs and indecorous expressions were contributed by General Colin Powell, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley.
These glimpses in “Peril” of everyday life in the Trump circle after his election loss made the salty language and stories for which President Lyndon Johnson and Nixon were famous seem tame by comparison.
Among all of President Trump’s cabinet members, attorneys, cowed politicians and business associates highlighted in “Peril,” one stood out as a genuinely decent government official trying his best to please his president while also protecting the constitution. Woodward and Costa never caught Vice President Mike Pence flinging F-bombs, never captured him instinctively engaged in objectionable discourse.
I also promised to provide a short review of “Peril,” Woodward’s second tell-all account of a President’s messy departure from office, the first being the one-two punch of “All the President’s Men” and “The Final Days,” in which forty-five years earlier, he and Carl Bernstein chronicled President Richard Nixon’s path to resignation and a one-way flight to San Clemente, California.
Those two journalistic books, particularly “All the President’s Men,” still define the Watergate scandal and subsequent collapse of Nixon’s presidency. With publication of “Peril,” Woodward and Costa likely have written what will do for our understanding of Trump’s political collapse what he and Bernstein did for public understanding of Nixon’s fall from grace.
“Peril’ was added to the library collection earlier this month.
The World of Haystack Rock Library Lecture Series will sponsor Bobby Hayden and Jazmin Dagostino from the Pew Charitable Trusts speaking about “Oregon’s Blue Carbon Policy: Where We Are and What’s Next?” on Facebook Live @Friends of Haystack Rock, Wednesday, November 10, at 7 p.m.
Oregon recently positioned itself as a national and international leader on blue carbon when the Oregon Global Warming Commission adopted the first Natural and Working Lands Proposal that recommends incorporating blue carbon into the state’s climate goals and strategies.
Groups in Oregon…
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