Obama's not that smart....

Walter Russell Mead:

"Bob Woodward is a lot more confident than I am that washing an administration’s dirty linen in the middle of an ongoing war can help us to win or support the troops, but it obviously works for him. I may be old fashioned about this; , but wartime presidents deserve to have their policy advice, and their reactions to it, kept confidential. We should judge President Obama’s policy in Afghanistan by the consequences. The President should have either kept Mr. Woodward out of the White House or gotten him to agree to delay publication until after the 2012 election.

Obviously, the President figured that the long-time liberal Woodward would merely bow to his greatness and deliver a glowing critique. If all the other news outlets kowtow, why wouldn't this one?