Bush, at war, finds it hard to resist Woodward's power. (Commentary).

HERE'S how old I am: I can remember when Republicans hated Bob Wood-ward, the celebrated Washington Post reporter whose new expose on the terror war, "Bush at War," is in bookstores.

It all began with Watergate, of course, when Woodward and Carl Bernstein dragged the martyred Richard Nixon from the White House. Hostilities intensified with his book about the Iran-Contra scandal, "Veil," in which Woodward snagged an exclusive deathbed interview with CIA Director William Casey. Confessing to the scandal, Casey whispered: "I believed." Republicans didn't.

But then came books more to their liking. "The Commanders" showed a masterly George H.W. Bush managing the Gulf War. More improbably, "The Man Who Would Be President" sketched Dan Quayle as a budding Pericles. "The Agenda" and "The Choice" set fire to the Clinton administration.

Many Republicans decided they'd been too hard on old Bob. And they had. Woodward advances no ideological agenda; he just hopes, as he says, to show how Washington really works. And this he does - though not in the way he thinks. As excerpts from "Bush at War" demonstrate again, in every Woodward book the great truth about Washington is found between the lines.

Unparalleled success

What's in the lines themselves can be highly frustrating. No one has ever successfully challenged Woodward's journalistic credibility, and as a reporter - as someone whose job is to get people to tell him stuff - he stands alone, with an unparalleled record of success.

Yet his very stature allows him methods that will madden the average reader. Here is Colin Powell thinking about President Bush in "Bush at War": "Bush might order, Go get the guns! Get my horses! - all the Texas, Alamo macho stuff that made Powell uncomfortable."

How does Woodward know Powell thinks this? In an author's note, Woodward says that "thoughts, conclusions and feelings attributed to participants come from the people themselves, a colleague with direct knowledge of them, or the written record."

So the thought was apparently conveyed to Woodward by Powell himself. What's crucial to Powell's quote, though, lies in the phrasing. If Powell told Woodward that Bush can be hasty, that's not surprising; if he told Woodward that Bush, in his haste, is moved by "Texas, Alamo macho" thinking, that's more than surprising. It's vivid, damaging and probably disloyal. Did Powell say it? We don't know.

Disloyalty is the indispensable foundation upon which Woodward builds his books. In "Shadow' about the post-Watergate presidency, Woodward recounts a stroll Bill Clinton and his private attorney, Robert Bennett, took around the White House grounds during a womanizing scandal.

"Mr. President, I find your explanation about one of these women frankly unbelievable," Woodward quotes Bennett as telling Clinton. "This crap won't fly with anyone." Now, this private conversation took place between two men, one of whom is bound to secrecy by the canons of his profession. Clinton plausibly denies talking to Woodward. That leaves one other source. Come to think of it, Bennett himself may feel betrayed by the author of "Shadow."

Cultivate vulnerabilities

How does Woodward do it? For 20 years he has cultivated official Washington's vulnerabilities, and used his own combination of power and celebrity. Another Clintonite, George Stephanopoulos, once described Woodward's effect on his potential sources: "His first call to me sparked two simultaneous thoughts: 'Oh no!' and 'I have arrived.'"

Stephanopoulos sang like a canary, of course, and the resulting book not only embarrassed Clinton but led directly to the resignation of Stephanopoulos' boss, Thomas F. McLarty.

When you sweep away the superficially interesting details Woodward specializes in, and concentrate instead on how the details were acquired and why they were released, a remarkable picture of Washington emerges - a daisy chain of deceit among people who thrill to the thought, "I have arrived!" The books not only describe the capital's culture of vanity, ambition, and duplicity; they're the product of it.

Even those at the summit can't resist Woodward's lure. There aren't many direct, attributed quotes in the "Bush at War" excerpts, but one comes from the president, who Woodward says granted him a rare one-on-one interview.

Woodward asked Bush about the secretary of state's contribution to the war effort. "Powell is a diplomat, and you've got to have a diplomat," Bush said. "He is a diplomatic person who has got war experience."

Faint praise - dismissive almost - and revealing in the Woodward manner, when you read between the lines. Bush is self-confident enough to slyly denigrate his secretary of state for publication, but not self-confident enough to deny Bob Woodward a two-hour interview. Bush has learned the lesson of the books. This is Woodward's town. The president just lives in it.

Andrew Ferguson is a columnist with Bloomberg News.