Pulling Back the Curtain on ‘Crazytown’

New York Times: “Nothing in Bob Woodward’s sober and grainy new book, Fear: Trump in the White House, is especially surprising. This is a White House that has leaked from Day 1. We knew things were bad. Woodward is here, like a state trooper knocking on the door at 3 a.m., to update the sorry details.”

“Fear is a typical Woodward book in that named sources for scenes, memories, thoughts and quotations appear only sometimes. Woodward has never been a graceful writer, but the prose here is unusually hapless. It’s as if he wants to make a statement that, at this historical juncture, simple factual pine-board competence should suffice.”

“The critic Clive James once complained that Woodward ‘checks his facts until they weep with boredom.’ Well, fact-checking and boredom seem sexy again. Even weeping is making a comeback.”

First Read: “How is there any trust left at the White House — after this book, Michael Wolff’s, Omarosa’s and other tell-alls?”