The fall of Bob Woodward

Former 'Wash Post' Ombudsman Criticizes Woodward Arrangement
The former Washington Post Ombudsman agrees with my opinion I post on page 1 of this thread.---BBB

Former 'Wash Post' Ombudsman Criticizes Woodward Arrangement
By Joe Strupp
Published: November 23, 2005 10:20 AM ET
NEW YORK

Former Washington Post Ombudsman Geneva Overholser criticized her former newspaper, saying it should either sever its ties with Bob Woodward or require the legendary Watergate scribe to work solely for the paper, not pen his best-selling books on the side.

"It isn't an arrangement that can really work at the Post," said Overholser, who served as ombudsman from 1995 to 1998 and later as a Post columnist for three years. "If I were editor, I would say, 'Bob, you've got to pick.'"

Overholser's comments come one week after Woodward revealed that he had testified before special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald about a confidential conversation he had in 2003 with a White House aide about Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA analyst. He also disclosed that he had kept that conversation from Post editors for more than two years, revealing it to Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr., just last month.

Overholser, who also served as editor of the Des Moines Register from 1988 to 1995, holds an endowed chair at the Washington bureau of the University of Missouri School of Journalism. While she praised Downie as an editor with great strengths, she also said his response to the Woodward situation -- allowing the writer's dual roles to continue, but with a demand for more communication on outside projects -- does not go far enough.

"I don't think he is acknowledging the degree to which this poses a problem for the Post," Overholser said. "To have Woodward operate this way."

Downie, who has been editor since 1991, countered Overholser's comments, saying, "I totally disagree with that. For 30 years, the arrangement has worked." Reminding her how Woodward's involvement with the Post has helped the paper break numerous stories over the years, Downie said such criticisms of the situation might stem from a lack of knowledge about the paper's internal operations. "I think it is hard for people to understand, which is understandable," he said.

The former ombudsman also revealed that Downie's actions did not surprise her, claiming he often protected Woodward in the past. "I didn't find that he had much enthusiasm for any criticism of Bob Woodward," Overholser recalled about her time at the paper. She also cited several instances when she was ombudsman in which she publicly criticized the paper's use of anonymous sourcing, and at least one time when she spoke out against the paper putting a lead story on Page One about a Woodward book excerpt.

"One of the things that distressed me was the proliferation of anonymous sources at the Post," she said. "I wrote about it frequently. I think Woodward had a role in that."

As for Overholser's accusations, Downie said, "I think I'm actually known for listening to criticism, especially about me." Then he added, "I don't remember her ever giving me that advice when she was ombudsman."

Woodward could not be reached for comment. On Larry King's CNN show on Monday night he called Downie "the best newspaperman in America."
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Joe Strupp ([email protected]) is a senior editor at E&P.

Woodward:

Fitzgerold:

source

Endlessly Evoking Watergate Won't Make Us Forget Plamegate
Arianna Huffington
11.22.2005
Memo to Woodward: Endlessly Evoking Watergate Won't Make Us Forget Plamegate

Bob Woodward's patronizing haughtiness was everywhere last night on Larry King. I haven't been talked down to that much since I was introduced to Shaquille O'Neal. I get it now: we all just don't get it. The heroic Woodward wasn't trying to hide anything or maintain his access, he was just too busy doing "incredibly aggressive reporting" on "immense questions" about Iraq to be distracted by "a casual, off-hand remark" that, even on the eve of the Libby indictment, as Plamegate threatened to paralyze the White House, didn't strike the legendary reporter as even "a firecracker" of a story.

Woodward's performance was, to borrow a phrase, "laughable" -- particularly the way he kept tossing in references to Watergate, strapping on those glory days like a protective armor. Over the course of "the full hour," he mentioned Watergate four times, Ben Bradlee three times, Deep Throat twice, Carl Bernstein twice, and Richard Nixon and Katharine Graham once each. Memo to Bob: we get this, too. Your reporting once brought down a president. But that only makes your "journalistic sins" on Plamegate all the more appalling and disappointing.

It was pathetic watching the real life Robert Redford reduced to holding up old headlines to fight off charges that he's just carrying water for the powerful. Color me convinced. At least until I reread Plan of Attack.

I also found it really interesting that King's interview with Woodward, like his recent interview with Judy Miller, was pre-taped -- making it impossible for either of them to have to interact directly with the public and deal with viewer calls and questions. Could it really be a coincidence that these two star reporters both took no viewer calls on a show famous for them?

Since King has a rule about always trying to do his show live -- it's not called Larry King on Tape, after all -- we sent an email to the show asking why the Woodward interview had been taped. Scheduling conflicts, we were told.

Which raised the question: who had the scheduling conflict, Woodward or King? I doubted it was Larry's since I had been at the party at the Mondrian Hotel's Skybar to celebrate the release of his wife Shawn's new CD, "In My Own Backyard". The party was called for 7:00 p.m. and the Mondrian is located at 8440 Sunset Blvd. CNN's Los Angeles studios are just down the road at 6430 Sunset, so King could easily have done the show live and been at the party before the first drink had been poured (I arrived at the party late, by which time Larry had already left to fly to New York for tonight's interview with Jerry Seinfeld).

So I called Larry this morning. "I spoke to Woodward," he told me, "and I told him we could either tape the interview or we could do it live and I'd be a little late for Shawn's party. He said, 'Let's tape it.' But I don't think he was ducking anything."

I beg to differ. On the show, Woodward talked about a reporter's "obligation to get information out to the public." It sounded very noble. But when given the choice between doing the show live with calls for the aforesaid public or taping the show without viewer calls, he chose the latter. Maybe he just really, really didn't want Larry to miss a second of Shawn's big bash (incidentally, I've had the first track of Shawn's new CD on repeat all morning).

As for Miller, King told me her interview had been taped because "she had to go to a dinner." It was actually -- as I was told by people who were there -- a small dinner party thrown by Mitch Rosenthal of Phoenix House in New York. Hmm, let's weigh those options: attend a small dinner party or allow the public you theoretically serve the chance to ask questions? No contest -- if you want to avoid all those tedious questions bloggers representing the public have been raising for weeks.

Thanks for the openness, guys.

It's too bad. Maybe someone would have called in and asked Woodward why, despite all his "incredibly aggressive reporting" and all that has come out about Plamegate, he still claims he hasn't yet "seen evidence" of an "organized effort" to "slime" Joe Wilson and his wife.

So we're supposed to believe that a gaggle of Bush administration officials just happened to decide on their own volition, at about the same time, to mention that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA to Bob Woodward, Judy Miller, Matt Cooper, Robert Novak, Walter Pincus, and lord who knows who else. Sure, Bob, whatever you say.

A quick review:

Matt Cooper was leaked to, realized that Wilson was being slimed, and promptly told his readers about it in an article called "A War on Wilson?."

Bob Novak was leaked to, realized that Wilson was being slimed, and promptly did the leakers' bidding by outing Valerie Plame.

Judy Miller was leaked to, realized that Wilson was being slimed, and promptly chose not to pursue the story, sticking "Valerie Flame" into a forgotten drawer.

And Bob Woodward, Watergate hero and journalistic superstar, was leaked to but, apparently unable to understand what was really going on, promptly did nothing for close to two and a half years... and still doesn't get it.

Don't worry, Bob. We'll always have Watergate, Watergate, Watergate, Watergate, Watergate...

Blowing the Whistle on Bob Woodward
Blowing the Whistle on Bob Woodward
By Larry C. Johnson
t r u t h o u t | Insight
Tuesday 22 November 2005

Among the many op-eds spawned by Bob Woodward's duplicity, this one in the Tampa Tribune struck a nerve. Entitled, Woodward Failed His Readers By Holding Back What He Knew, the piece sparked a reaction by Len Colodny. Len's site, http://www.watergate.com/ has some fascinating background on Bob Woodward and his ties to military intelligence.

Woodward has been the consummate insider while cultivating the image of the hard charging investigative reporter. He is anything but, and it is time to blow the whistle on his incestuous relationship with certain government officials. The fact that the Washington Post is still covering for this joker says volumes about the decline of the Post.

When he appears on Larry King Live Tonight maybe he will answer a longstanding question, "When did he resign from Naval Intelligence?"

Take a look at Len Colodny's letter to the editor of the Tampa Trib and his website.

Dear Ms. Goudreau,

There is a lot wrong with Journalism, but Woodward goes way beyond that. Ask him why he lies about his Navy career or his lying about briefing Al Haig in 1969? You can read and see for yourself the sources are there and on tape at www.watergate.com there are more pages of material on the real "Woodward" than anywhere else on the net. Including an exclusive 90 minute interview I conducted with him in 1989. You can read and judge for yourself.

I only wish he was a journalist, not a front for the right wing military for the past 35 years. Your editorial lumps him in with a lot of good journalists that actually work at the job, and are very ethical. When Woodward actually tried to work as an editor at the Post, one of his reporters had to admit she made up a false story and return a Pulitzer Prize. Another Woodward edited story caused the Post to be sued by the President of Mobil oil and they lost at trial. Judy Belushi sued him after he wrote the book wired, he settled. Woodward also forced one of his young reporters to write a false story in order to force a sources hand, and release material the source had refused to release on his own. Finally the Post sent him off to a safe place where he could write books (Although everyone knows he does not even know how to write, he needs a caddy for that.).

I guess I am shocked that you at the Tribune seem so upset with Woodward, for those of us that know him well, this was something that was consistent with what he has done over the last three decades. Just Woodward being Woodward. Should you find the time to check the site above you will note all my sources are named. That is the right way to conduct investigative reporting.

I have pride in what we do, so I hope you understand my passion for the truth.

Thanks for at least taking Woodward to task, even if we do not see it exactly the same way.

Sincerely,
Len Colodny

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Larry C. Johnson is CEO and co-founder of BERG Associates, LLC, an international business-consulting firm that helps corporations and governments manage threats posed by terrorism and money laundering. Mr. Johnson, who worked previously with the Central Intelligence Agency and US State Department's Office of Counter Terrorism (as a Deputy Director), is a recognized expert in the fields of terrorism, aviation security, crisis and risk management. Mr. Johnson has analyzed terrorist incidents for a variety of media including the Jim Lehrer News Hour, National Public Radio, ABC's Nightline, NBC's Today Show, the New York Times, CNN, Fox News, and the BBC. Mr. Johnson has authored several articles for publications, including Security Management Magazine, the New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times. He has lectured on terrorism and aviation security around the world.

Investigative Vet, Les Whitten, Defends Bob Woodward
Investigative Vet, Les Whitten, Defends Bob Woodward
By E&P Staff
Published: November 26, 2005 11:00 AM ET
NEW YORK

In the latest round of letters to the editor at The Washington, mainly condemning the paper or its star reporter Bob Woodward or both in the aftermath of the latest twist in the Plame case, came this comment today from the famed Jack Anderson associate Les Whitten, now living in Silve Springs, Md.

As a former investigative reporter for The Post and co-byliner with investigative columnist Jack Anderson, I am appalled by your coverage of the plight of Bob Woodward and the sorry failure of other reporters to defend him.

In the front-page story about Woodward on Nov. 17, Howard Kurtz, who worked for Jack Anderson and me at one time, found several supposed experts criticizing Woodward, but not one applauding him for tenaciously defending his promise to protect his source. Your paper's Nov. 19 editorial was pusillanimous in its defense of Woodward, and the letters vilifying him, I fear, seem to reflect how the public feels.

I have known Bob Woodward for decades and defended his brilliant reporting all the way back to his early days with a Montgomery County paper, where he revealed educational system skullduggery. Anderson and I competed determinedly with Woodward on Watergate and other stories, and we know his reporting well. His integrity and ironclad devotion to the First Amendment shines in the face of the general gutlessness of many in the press -- reporters and editors alike. This toughness has been inspiring for a generation of young reporters similarly in love with the Constitution.

The Post's handling of the Woodward case is a far cry from the paper I worked for 45 years ago, when I once refused to give even my editor information. I had repeatedly sworn to a source that I would keep it secret. The Post was not happy with it, but there was no retribution.

Jack Anderson and I seldom told each other the names of our sources as one means of keeping the courts off our backs. We depended on our Constitution-minded lawyers to save us.

Did 'Wash Post' Ombud Go Too Easy on Woodward?
Did 'Wash Post' Ombud Go Too Easy on Woodward?
By E&P Staff
Published: November 27, 2005 9:30 PM ET
NEW YORK

In a Sunday column, Deborah Howell, the recently-appointed ombudsman at The Washington Post, admitted that most of the hundreds of letters she has received about her column on Bob Woodward's actions and inactions in the Plame case accused her of being "way too soft on him and on The Post."

She responded to that criticism by printing some of the charges, then answering some of them or printing comments by Woodward. In most case, she backed Woodward's view.

One reader wrote: "You and your colleagues are not yet grasping the full extent of the damage done. The sad fact is that Bob Woodward, and by extension The Washington Post, has an enormous vested interest in maintaining cozy relationships with the White House. Has that vested interest now compromised his integrity? More foxes guarding the henhouse does nothing for us hens."

Howell quoted Woodward: "Do the readers get information that they didn't have before? I believe that I have added to what was known, and this is valuable."

Some asked why he was afraid of being subpoenaed, since he found out about Plame many months before the leak investigation began. Woodward told Howell he was not concerned until after Plame's name was published and the investigation began.

In a statement about his deposition, Woodward said that he submitted an 18-page list of questions to Vice President Cheney before he interviewed him for "Plan of Attack." Howell reveals, "Many readers were surprised that Woodward would tell a source what he intended to ask and said they thought he was going easy on a source." But again she came to his defense, explaining, "It is not uncommon in journalism, especially in highly complex stories, to let sources know what questions or issues will be asked. That doesn't mean that a reporter won't ask questions not on the list."

Broder, Others on 'Meet the Press' Wonder About Woodward
Broder, Others on 'Meet the Press' Wonder About Woodward
By E&P Staff
Published: November 27, 2005 5:30 PM ET
NEW YORK

The final section of NBC's "Meet the Press" today briefly took up the fallout from Bob Woodward's sudden involvement in the Plame scandal.

Here is the transcript from that part, featuring the Washington Post's David Broder and Eugene Robinson, and Judy Woodruff.

TIM RUSSERT: Let me turn to the CIA leak investigation. Time magazine reports that Viveca Novak of Time magazine has now been subpoenaed to testify. David Broder, Bob Woodward of The Washington Post, as you know, has testified before Patrick Fitzgerald, the special counsel. What's going on at The Post, in light of that?

MR. BRODER: Consternation, to be honest with you. I think none of us can really understand Bob's silence for two years about his own role in the case. He's explained it by saying he did not want to become involved and did not want to face a subpoena, but he left his editor, our editor, blindsided for two years and he went out and talked disparagingly about the significance of the investigation without disclosing his role in it. Those are hard things to reconcile.

MR. RUSSERT: Gene Robinson?

MR. ROBINSON: I agree with David. Consternation, a certain amount of embarrassment. And, you know, the fact that we can't understand why Bob did what he did. You know, I think that's a very interesting question in this whole incident about confidential sources, about access, about the tradeoffs that we all make for access in granting anonymity for sources. And, you know, I think that's going to continue. I think people are looking at us skeptically.

MR. RUSSERT: And every source I believe is going to want complete assurance that if I give you this information, will you refuse to testify even if it means going to prison.

MR. ROBINSON: But are we going to have to give sources a form to...

MR. RUSSERT: Well...

MR. ROBINSON: ...you know, is there going to be a form? Well, check off yes for, you know, grand jury testimony, no for public disclosure, yes...

MR. RUSSERT: We've only got a few seconds left. David Gregory, the White House thought that perhaps this thing was coming to closure. Now, there's a new grand jury. More reporters being brought in. What's the attitude, what's the mood about Karl Rove and the...

MR. GREGORY: Just a sense of malaise. The president can't get out from under it. He can't make a public statement about whether any top officials acted inappropriately until this is resolved.

MS. WOODRUFF: And, Tim, the blogs are suggesting that maybe Scooter Libby confused you and Bob Woodward. I've known you both for a quarter of a century. I don't know of anybody who could possibly make that mistake unless they just think all middle-aged white guys look alike.

MR. RUSSERT: Judy, you're a good friend of mine, but I'm no Bob Woodward.

We'll leave it there. We'll be right back.

Russert Watch: "I'm No Bob Woodward"
Russert Watch: "I'm No Bob Woodward"
Arianna Huffington
11.27.2005

During the roundtable segment in today's Meet the Press, Tim Russert turned to David Broder and Eugene Robinson, both with the Washington Post, and asked them what's going on at the Post in light of the Bob Woodward revelation.

To my delight and surprise, Broder and Robinson did not respond like good company men, but spoke of "consternation":

BRODER: Consternation, to be honest with you. I think none of us can really understand Bob's silence for two years about his own role in the case. He's explained it by saying he did not want to become involved and did not want to face a subpoena, but he left his editor, our editor, blindsided for two years and he went out and talked disparagingly about the significance of the investigation without disclosing his role in it. Those are hard things to reconcile.

ROBINSON: I agree with David. Consternation, a certain amount of embarrassment. And, you know, the fact that we can't understand why Bob did what he did. You know, I think that's a very interesting question in this whole incident about confidential sources, about access, about the tradeoffs that we all make for access in granting anonymity for sources. And, you know, I think that's going to continue. I think people are looking at us skeptically.

So it was refreshing and encouraging that even two of his colleagues were honest enough to acknowledge the Woodward problem. It was a great opportunity for Tim to look at the broken conventions regarding confidential sources and the broken trust between the public and the press.

But instead, Tim went right back to the old playbook and the old problem: "Every source I believe is going to want complete assurance that if I give you this information, will you refuse to testify even if it means going to prison." Stunning though it may seem, Russert really believes that the main problem raised by Judy Miller's and Bob Woodward's roles in Plamegate is: how does the press repair the damage done between journalists and anonymous sources?

Talk about missing the forest for the trees. But it's not surprising since Russert's, like Woodward's, first loyalty flows upward to the unnamed "senior administration sources." Which is why Russert immediately pivoted to the question of how the press can go back to guaranteeing anonymity rather than to the new critical question: under what conditions should the press guarantee anonymity?

Marty Kaplan had a must-read blog on the subject on HuffPost last week, aptly titled "A Piss is not a Leak":

When government officials or campaign operatives go off the record to a reporter in order to smear someone, spread disinformation, lie about an opponent, stab someone in the back while wearing the cloak of anonymity, kindle a propanganda brush fire, slander critics, psych out enemies, and throw red herrings in an investigator's path, they are engaging in the dark arts of psy ops.... They're so good at it that a Bob Woodward can think a lie is a casually tossed-off piece of gossip, rather than an Oscar-worthy performance in a government-wide defamation campaign.... These officials aren't leaking to reporters. They're pissing on the public.

What happened with Woodward provides us with a great opportunity to discuss what's happened to investigative journalism. Here are some questions for a future roundtable: When are journalists acting like journalists, and when are they acting as enablers? When are they using their sources, and when are they being used by them? Who is being served by the granting of anonymity -- the public or the powers that be?

Woodward is simply the purest distillation of what journalism has been reduced to in Washington: the thirst for access -- not to better serve the public, but to better serve the journalist. Access as an end, not a means, access resulting in little details ("dressed casually in a handsome green wool shirt") that make the reader feel part of history and, even more important, make the journalist sound like part of history, with all the perks that flow from that -- book contracts and TV appearances and speaking engagements. This is the access that validates the journalist as player rather than the journalist as truth-seeker.

In a brilliant indictment of Woodward in the New York Review of Books in 1996, Joan Didion describes his "disinclination" to "exert cognitive energy on what he is told." How great would it have been to have that discussed at the roundtable today? After all, could there be a better description of the role the media played in getting us into the war, then failing to "exert cognitive energy" on what they were told?

When asked in more innocent times why he thought people talk to him, Woodward replied: "They know that I am going to reflect their point of view." When asked whether he was planning on writing a book on Whitewater, he unwittingly copped to the fundamental problem of the journalism he's been practicing: "I am waiting -- if I can say this -- for the call from somebody on the inside saying 'I want to talk.'"

David Gregory, also at the roundtable, criticized the administration for responding to criticism by using "an old playbook that doesn't work the same way that it used to." Well, the same can be said of the media. Endlessly discussing their obligation to their sources is using a very old playbook indeed.

So it's no wonder that bloggers are stepping into the vacuum. Josh Marshall, at Talking Points Memo, announced he's hiring two reporters. I'm guessing they won't have Bob Woodward's vaunted insider access. So we'll get less picturesque detail from them, but a lot more "cognitive energy" and a lot less genuflection toward sources.

At the end of the show, Judy Woodruff brought up Tim's role in Plamegate -- someone has to, and it's certainly not going to be Tim. Here is the exchange:

WOODRUFF: And, Tim, the blogs are suggesting that maybe Scooter Libby confused you and Bob Woodward. I've known you both for a quarter of a century. I don't know of anybody who could possibly make that mistake unless they just think all middle-aged white guys look alike.

RUSSERT: Judy, you're a good friend of mine, but I'm no Bob Woodward.

Only in the ways that don't matter.

Bob Woodward, the Dumb Blonde of American Journalism
Bob Woodward, the Dumb Blonde of American Journalism
Arianna Huffington
11.28.2005

"I've spent my life," Bob Woodward told Larry King last week, "trying to find out what's really hidden, what's in the bottom of the barrel."

I found myself thinking about Woodward and his barrel-searching as I read Frank Rich's latest takedown of the administration's cover up of "wrongdoing in the executive branch between 9/11 and shock and awe":

Each day brings slam-dunk evidence that the doomsday threats marshaled by the administration to sell the war weren't, in Cheney-speak, just dishonest and reprehensible but also corrupt and shameless... The web of half-truths and falsehoods used to sell the war did not happen by accident; it was woven by design and then foisted on the public by a P.R. operation built expressly for that purpose in the White House.
During this time, Woodward was writing two books on the administration -- Bush at War and Plan of Attack -- and enjoyed unparalleled access to many of those guiding the aforementioned P.R. operation, including head shills Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, and Andy Card.

So how come Woodward, supposedly the preeminent investigative reporter of our time, missed the biggest story of our time -- a story that was taking place right under his nose?

Some would say it's because he's carrying water for the Bushies. I disagree. I think it's because he's the dumb blonde of American journalism, so awed by his proximity to power that he buys whatever he's being sold.

In her scathing 1996 essay in the New York Review of Books, Joan Didion criticized Woodward's reporting as marked by "a scrupulous passivity, an agreement to cover the story not as it is occurring but as it is presented, which is to say as it is manufactured."

And far from shying away from his reputation as a stenographer to the political stars, Woodward has embraced his inner bimbo and wears his "scrupulous passivity" as a badge of honor, proudly telling Larry King that his "method" means that "everyone in the end... pretty much gets their point of view out."

Woodward also told King: "I am strictly in the middle." The problem is, the truth isn't always in the middle; it's often located on the sidelines, or hiding in the shadows amidst the endless rush of detail Woodward so loves to fill his books with.

What Woodward fails to do again and again is connect the dots. He prefers to gather as many dots as he can, jam-pack his pages with them, and then let the little buggers hang out by themselves. Critical thinking that draws conclusions can be such a messy thing.

For a taste of how the Woodward Method plays itself out, let's look at one of the big headline-grabbing moments from "Plan of Attack" -- the scene where George Tenet, at a meeting in December 2002, assures the president that the intel on WMD is a "slam dunk." After Tenet goes Dick Vitale, Woodward writes:

Card was worried that there might be no 'there there,' but Tenet's double reassurance on the slam dunk was both memorable and comforting. Cheney could think of no reason to question Tenet's assertion. He was, after all, the head of the CIA and would know the most.
It's hard to believe that Woodward was able to type this last bit without breaking into hysterics. "Cheney could think of no reason to question Tenet's assertion"? Is this the same Cheney who has been at odds with the CIA for more than a decade, frequently challenged CIA findings in the run up to the war, and once wrote on an intel report prepared by DoD's Doug Feith "This is very good indeed...Not like the crap we are all so used to getting out of the CIA"?

But does Woodward say any of that? No. He doesn't even present those Cheney-CIA dots here -- let alone connect them. He just gives us Cheney's POV. As for the president, in this scene, Woodward paints him as a scrupulous, meticulous, and honest leader who "told Tenet several times, 'Make sure no one stretches to make our case.'"

For those keeping score: Tenet twice said the intel was a slam dunk, while Bush warned against stretching to make the case "several times."

Again, did Woodward have to stifle his outrage when he wrote this? Or just his memory? Remember, this key meeting took place in December 2002 -- by which time the president and his team had been stretching to make their case for months. And not just a little -- their elasticity with the facts would put Mr. Fantastic to shame.

Here's just a little of what they'd been saying:

Bush: "The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons...And according to the British government, the Iraqi regime could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes." (9/26/02)
Bush: "You can't distinguish between al-Qaeda and Saddam." (9/25/02)

Cheney: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." (8/26/02)

Condi: "We do know that [Saddam] is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon." (9/10/02)

Rummy: "[Saddam has] amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of biological weapons, including Anthrax, botulism, toxins and possibly smallpox. He's amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX, Sarin and mustard gas." (9/19/02)


Any reporter worth his salt would have used these publicly available quotes to -- yes, connect the dots -- and show Bush's "make sure no one stretches" comment to be the PR pap it so obviously was. But Woodward just swallowed it.

Nor did he stop at failing to connect the dots in his book. He went on the air and repeatedly presented a presidential portrait belied by endless facts available on LexisNexis without any special access. Here he was on Jim Lehrer in the spring of 2004, gushing about the president's "moral determination, which we've not seen in the White House maybe in 100 years." This in the wake of Abu Ghraib. "Moral determination" indeed.

In a conversation with Carl Bernstein on Monday, I mentioned what Woodward had said on Lehrer. Bernstein continued to defend his former partner but did draw my attention to an op-ed he had written for USA Today which ran a month after Woodward's appearance on The NewsHour. It was filled with dot-connecting and bristled with outrage:

"At a juncture in history," Bernstein wrote, "when the United States needed a president to intelligently and forcefully lead a real international campaign against terrorism and its causes, Bush decided instead to unilaterally declare war on a totalitarian state that never represented a terrorist threat; to claim exemption from international law regarding the treatment of prisoners... Instead of using America's moral authority to lead a great global cause, Bush squandered it."

It is indeed a tale of two reporting styles, one that makes you wonder what All the President's Men would have been like if Woodward had written it alone.

What makes matters worse is that a whole year before "Plan of Attack" was released Woodward had helped Walter Pincus put together a story challenging the White House's claims on WMD. "I blame myself mightily for not pushing harder," he told Howard Kurtz in August 2004 (four months after his book came out). "We should have warned readers we had information that the basis for this was shakier [than widely believed]."

The question is: why didn't he warn the readers of his book? He repeatedly boasted on Larry King about his "aggressive reporting mode." So why not aggressively report the WMD story and connect those dots in his book?

Woodward is a master of offering readers minute details that give them a sense of being a behind-the-scenes observer of history in the making, but which, in fact, mask the real story of what is going on.

Check out this tidbit from "Plan of Attack" in which Woodward recounts a meeting the Bush team had with outgoing secretary of defense William Cohen and the Joint Chiefs of Staff just before taking office.

The JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff] staff had placed a peppermint at each place. Bush unwrapped his and popped it in his mouth. Later he eyed Cohen's mint and flashed a pantomime query. Do you want that? Cohen signaled no, so Bush reached over and took it. Near the end of the hour-and-a-quarter briefing, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Army General Henry "Hugh" Sheldon, noticed Bush eyeing his mint so he passed it over.
Feel like a fly on the wall? Perhaps, but wouldn't you rather hear more about the fact that, according to Woodward, Cheney had told Cohen that 'Topic A should be Iraq.' Iraq as Topic A -- months before 9/11, indeed even before Bush was inaugurated. But instead of connecting those dots we get not a vice president ravenous for Saddam's head but a president ravenous for mints.

Thanks to reporting like this, the sum total of the abundant facts Woodward always gives us is actually less than its parts. Instead of the truth, we get these shiny baubles of information. Shiny baubles that distract us, diminish our understanding of what is really going on, and -- as the lies that led us into war are revealed -- ultimately delay our discovery of what's really hidden in the bottom of the barrel.

No more Watergates
No more Watergates

Bob Woodward brought down Nixon, but failed to exhibit the same scepticism about Bush

Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday December 1, 2005
The Guardian

In the beginning, seasoned political reporters at the Washington Post disdained the Watergate story as insignificant, implausible and unserious. But two young journalists doggedly pursued every lead, helping bring about Richard Nixon's resignation. Three decades later, Bob Woodward had come to embody the ultimate Washington insider. Over the past month, however, he has personified the stonewalling and covering up he once shattered to launch his brilliant career. His unravelling is as surprising and symptomatic a story of Bush's Washington as his making was of Nixon's.

On October 27, the night before Vice-President Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was indicted on five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice, Woodward appeared on CNN. Asked about the case, he said: "I'm quite confident we're going to find out that it started as a kind of gossip ... There's a lot of innocent actions in all of this ... I don't know how this is about the build-up to the war." He expressed his sympathy for those who might be indicted: " ... what distresses me is, you know, so and so might be indicted and so and so is facing ... And it is not yet proven." He concluded with invective against Patrick Fitzgerald, "a junkyard dog prosecutor".

On November 16 Woodward admitted he had been called to testify on November 3 before the prosecutor, having been given up by a source after Libby's indictment. Woodward, it turned out, was the first journalist to learn Plame's identity. "I hunkered down," he told his own newspaper. "I'm in the habit of keeping secrets. I didn't want anything out there that was going to get me subpoenaed." Woodward claimed he heard about Plame in an interview he conducted in June 2003 for his book Plan of Attack, which failed to contain this startling information. While two Post reporters testified before the prosecutor, Woodward hid his role as material witness. With the disclosure, the storyteller lost the plot.

Woodward advocates no ideas and is indifferent to the fate of government. His fabled access has been in the service of his technique of accumulating mountains of facts whose scale fosters an image of omniscience. As his bestsellers and wealth piled up, he lost a sense of journalism as provisional and inherently imperfect, seeing it instead as something engraved in stone. But his method made him particularly vulnerable to manipulation by cunning sources.

Woodward's 2002 book Bush At War, based partly on selected National Security Council documents leaked to him at White House instruction, was invaluable to the administration for its portrait of Bush as strong and decisive. Its omissions are as striking as its fragmentary facts, such as the absence of analysis of the disastrous operation at Tora Bora that allowed Bin Laden to escape. Plan of Attack includes intriguing shards of information about the twisting of intelligence to justify the war, but he fails to develop the material and theme.

By the publication of Plan of Attack, Woodward was "hunkered down," hiding his "secrets" from his newspaper, its readers and the prosecutor. He cryptically told one of the subpoenaed Post reporters to "keep him out of the reporting". He said there were "reasonable grounds to discredit" Joseph Wilson, the whistleblower. He asserted that a CIA assessment had determined that Plame's outing had done no damage, but the CIA said no damage assessment report had been done. But when a source outed Woodward to the prosecutor, his cover-up was revealed. Above all, the extent of his credulity is exposed. It is more than paradoxical that the reporter who investigated Nixon and worked closely with professionals in government alarmed by the abuses should exhibit so little scepticism about Bush.
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Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is the author of The Clinton Wars

Kinda disturbing how MSM Woodward got.

Anonymous Sources And a Known Quantity
Anonymous Sources And a Known Quantity
By Tina Brown
Thursday, December 1, 2005; Page C01

Media life seems to have turned into one long cannibal feast, a fratricidal Thanksgiving dinner minus the giving of thanks. No sooner have we finished dining out on roast Judith Miller with stuffing than we are ready for a nice, big slice of Bob Woodward pie.

Now that everyone's a moralist, all mistakes are outrages. It's born of the desperation of Big Journalism's realization that it has lost control. Mainstream Media are trapped in the pincer assaults of the fact-free ethical anarchy of the blogosphere and the cynicism of quarterly profit-driven conglomerates enslaved to entertainment values. No one wants to be caught without a chair when the music stops.

Remember Dan Rather, the ghost of journalism past? He got it in the neck for the National Guard blunder from all ends -- the blogs, the administration, the media and then his own CBS colleagues. The old elephant culled by the herd.

Contrary to some of the postings from the grassy knoll, I believe Woodward when he says he didn't think the leak he heard about Valerie Plame's job was important at the time. He probably did see it as gossip, somewhere between macho knowingness and just another routine drive-by shooting from the Bush crowd. The problem is that when Woodward hears political gossip it's not a couple of lowly hacks at the office water cooler -- it's a transaction between one Big Beast at the heart of the power jungle and another. He hoarded the info for some larger reportorial purpose because that's what Big Beasts do. They don't waste time fiddling around with the quotidian crumbs from the dish of the day when they're aiming to haul in the big, fat story we'll all be chewing on for months.

True, going on TV to make oracular pronouncements declaring Patrick Fitzgerald a "junkyard dog" was unfortunate. But navigating the porous demands of living as a Human Brand instead of a human being gets more complex every day. The Bush administration's negative halo is so toxic now it extends to everyone who gets within five feet of it.

All the ranting about Woodward's journalistic ethics, however, is a displacement of anger against the real sources, so to speak, of the public's misery. Unable to get rid of the real origin of abusive power, the media set fire to yet another messenger.

Woodward works from home! Sometimes Woodward's editors don't hear from him for months! Woodward gets to write books without taking a leave! Woodward knows everybody! Everybody knows Woodward! Time to send Woodward to the woodpile! It must be the crowning irritation to smaller woodland animals that once again the Big Beast knew the name of a prime leaker before anyone else -- and that, once again, he wasn't talking till he was good and ready.

Fitzgerald is understandably focused on official sources -- in his narrative, they're the perps -- but the obsession with sources is a distraction in the conversation about journalism. "Sources" often reveal useful things, but the revelations mostly come after it's too late to avoid the disasters they retrospectively illuminate: the secret deal at Suez in 1956, the phony evidence for the supposed Tonkin Gulf attacks, who was to blame for the Bloody Sunday shootings in Northern Ireland -- and the absence of any significant WMD in Iraq or any meaningful Saddam-Osama connection. Finding the truth about complex matters has to be set in motion by competent reporters (usually plural) who must find independent validation, as the best of them do. It was a revealing assumption voiced by Miller when she explained her fallacious WMD stories in the New York Times with "If your sources are wrong, you are wrong."

On a deeper level, many serious journalists and dutiful Democrats find it painful to contemplate the inadequacies of their own performances leading up to the ill-prepared invasion of Iraq. George Packer's compelling new book "The Assassins' Gate" is a fresh reminder of how recklessly the Pentagon rejected out of hand the military's advice on troop level, and the State Department's detailed post-invasion plans.

It's not just tragic; it's embarrassing. Erstwhile war advocates feel bamboozled, bullied, led by the nose -- as much by hype and mood as by phony facts. They're right to deplore the alleged manipulation of prewar intelligence, but they know it's also a handy cover story for what they worry now was, in part, their own lack of rigor, their own political cowardice, their own blinkered ideology.

The amazing thing is the lack of any matching angst or humble reassessment inside the Bush administration. Aren't there any dark nights of the soul in that crumbling fortress of moral clarity? No teeny little McNamara moments from the current president of the World Bank about the administration whose arrogance and incompetence jeopardized any noble chance there was of the Iraq experiment working without too much bloodshed? One senses it's the public's unrealistic longing for a burst of regretful truth-telling that fuels the distemper of the polls. In his speech at Annapolis yesterday, the president probably succeeded in damping down withdrawal fever for now, but he offered no whiff of cleansing self-criticism to make Staying the Course not seem as just more of the same.

For that, perhaps, we have to wait for the lethal tape recorder of Bob Woodward. What's the betting that he will soon open the lockbox of secrets and bring them all down in the end? It's fashionable these days to call America's most famous investigative journalist a stenographer to power, but stenography can be useful when you're taking down confessions.

"Bob Woodward's allegiance is to celebrity," said an executive at another major publishing house. "In the old days, reporters were like Seymour Hersh, out in the trenches, digging around someone's garbage. I think of Woodward with his cufflinks on in the cloth dining rooms in Washington. Or in the President's office. Like he's one of them."

Did the White House "Authorize" Leaks to Woodward?
Did the White House "Authorize" Leaks to Woodward?
Murray Waas
02.24.2006

Did the Bush administration "authorize" the leak of classified information to Bob Woodward? And did those leaks damage national security?

The vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) made exactly that charge tonight in a letter to John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence. What prompted Rockefeller to write Negroponte was a recent op-ed in the New York Times by CIA director Porter Goss complaining that leaks of classified information were the fault of "misguided whistleblowers."

Rockefeller charged in his letter that the most "damaging revelations of intelligence sources and methods are generated primarily by Executive Branch officials pushing a particular policy, and not by the rank-and-file employees of intelligence agencies."

Later in the same letter, Rockefeller said: "Given the Administration's continuing abuse of intelligence information for political purposes, its criticism of leaks is extraordinarily hypocritical. Preventing damage to intelligence sources and methods from media leaks will not be possible until the highest level of the Administration cease to disclose classified information on a classified basis for political purposes."

Exhibit A for Rockefeller: Woodward's book, Bush at War.

Here is what Rockefeller had to say:

In his 2002 book Bush at War, Bob Woodward described almost unfettered access to classified material of the most sensitive nature. According to his account, he was provided information related to sources and methods, extremely sensitive covert actions, and foreign intelligence liaison relationships. It is no wonder, as Director Goss wrote, "because of the number of recent news reports discussing our relationships with other intelligence services, some of these partners have even informed the C.I.A. that they are reconsidering their participation of some of our most important antiterrorism ventures."

I wrote both former Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) George Tenet and Acting DCI John McLaughlin seeking to determine what steps were being taken to address the appalling disclosures contained in Bush at War. The only response I received was to indicate that the leaks had been authorized by the Administration. The CIA has still not responded to a follow-up letter I sent a year and half ago on September 1, 2004, trying to pin down which officials were authorized to meet with Mr. Woodward and by whom, and what intelligence information was conveyed during these authorized exchanges.

Were leaks of classified information "authorized" to Woodward? Rockefeller's letter says exactly that. And among other things, it is well known and has been reported long ago that one of Woodward's sources for both of his books about the Bush presidency was then-VicePresidential chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, who is portrayed in quite a flattering manner in both.

Rockefeller said in his letter that the President's directing of administration officials to co-operate with the administration-friendly Woodward was only one example of such "authorized leaks".

Rockefeller said elsewhere in his letter:

On February 9th, the National Journal reported that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby told a grand jury that he was 'authorized' by Vice President Cheney and other White House superiors to disclose classified information from a National Intelligence Estimate to the press to defend the Administration's use of pre-war intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq...
This blatant abuse of intelligence information for political purposes is inexcusable, but all to common. Throughout this period leading up to the Iraq war the Administration selectively declassified or leaked information related to Iraq's acquisition of aluminum tubes, the alleged purchase of uranium, the non-existent operational connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and numerous other issues.

The White House is declining tonight to comment on Rockefeller's letter, as is Woodward. (If either of them does at some point have something to say, either to me, or elsewhere, I will update this post accordingly.)

Did the leaks to Woodward damage national security? Michael Scheuer, the CIA's former head of the CIA's Bin Laden Unit, wrote in his book Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror:

After reading Mr. Woodward's Bush at War, it seems to me that the U.S. officials who either approved or participated in passing the information--in documents and via interviews--that is the heart of Mr. Woodward's book gave an untold measure of aid and comfort to the enemy.
What was not known by Scheuer at the time was that officials on the "Seventh Floor" of the CIA were literally ordered by then-CIA director George Tenet to co-operate with Woodward's project because President Bush personally asked that it be done. More than one CIA official co-operated with Woodward against their best judgment, and only because they thought it was something the President had wanted done or ordered.

One former senior administration official explained to me: "This was something that the White House wanted done because they considered it good public relations. If there was real damage to national security--if there were leaks that possibly exposed sources and methods, it was not done in this instance for the public good or to expose Watergate type wrongdoing. This was done for presidential image-making and a commercial enterprise--Woodward's book."

Woodward himself perhaps lends credence to that possibility.

On page 243 of his book Plan of Attack, Woodward wrote:

When we reached the front of the line, the president remarked that my book Bush at War was selling well. "Top of the charts," he said, and asked, "Are you planning to do another book?" He then stretched out his arms and indicated with his body language that there might be a story there, that it should be done.

[O]n December 18, my wife, Elsa Walsh, and I attended a huge White House Christmas party for the media hosted by the president and his wife. The Bushes stood for hours in a receiving line as a photographer snapped pictures with the first couple.

Without any irony, Woodward didn't seem to understand how far he had come from meeting Mark Felt in the middle of the night in a parking garage.

Did Woodward disappoint Bush with his next book? I like to speak no opinions. My saying is: I blog, you decide.

One can skip a read of the book, and go simply to the index, in making their own judgments:

Here are some entries:

Bush, George W.: absence of doubt in, 139-40, 420
Bipartisan solidarity of, 189, 200.
Importance of showing resolve and, 81, 116, 152, 320-21, 406, 418-19, 437
legacy of, 90, 165
morality of, 86-132, 272, 313-14
on freedom, 88-89, 93, 152, 258, 276, 405, 424, 428
optimism of, 91, 93, 313-14
patience of, 162-63, 165, 271
as a strong leader, 91, 430