Conason: Woodward's Disgrace

[kskiska]

He was once a great journalist, but his obsession with "access" turned him into a palace courtier and shill for the GOP.
Forced to reveal his strange secret about the Valerie Plame case, Bob Woodward has humiliated his trusting bosses at the Washington Post and exposed something rotten at the center of journalism's national elite. By withholding critical information from the Post's editors and pretending to be a neutral observer, Woodward badly compromised the values that he and his newspaper once embodied. A living symbol of the great constitutional role of a free press -- to hold government accountable -- has evidently degenerated into another obedient appendage of rogue officialdom.

With his relentless pursuit of "access," the literary formula that has brought him so much money and fame, Woodward placed book sales above journalism. Boasting of his friendly relationship with the president who facilitated his interviews with administration officials, he now behaves like the journalistic courtiers of the Nixon era.

To those who have observed Woodward's career since the glory of Watergate, including readers of his many bestselling books, the change in his role and outlook have long been obvious. For him, the cultivation of high-ranking sources is the very essence of journalism. And while there is no question that reporters owe a duty of confidentiality to their sources, it is also true that they owe candor to their colleagues and transparency to their readers.

Sadly, Woodward not only served as a silent accomplice of the Bush White House in its attack on Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson, but went much further by publicly criticizing special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of that attack -- and suggested repeatedly, up to the eve of the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, that the investigation should be curtailed. Now, instead, his own admission of involvement may have figured in Fitzgerald's indication Friday that he plans to call a new grand jury in the case.

more…
http://salon.com/opinion/conason/2005/11/19/woodward/

[kenny blankenship]

1. What did he ever do after Wgate?

excuse me, after Watergate (Wgate is now).
Smoked Chimpy's pole- I heard he did that job well, but that's about it. Anything else? Anything at all?

[indepat]

2. The constitutional role of a free press holding government accountable

has largely been scrapped by those in the MSM who have shilled for and been a propaganda arm of this administration and thereby figuratively pissing on their constitutional role and we the people in the process.

[Cha]

4. Yeah, coming to the game late..

I didn't even know that the "press" was suppose to hold the goverment accountable.

There was some silly thinking on my part after the 2000 selection that now that bush was in the press would investigate him like they did Clinton..that thought didn't last long.

[indepat]

6. If the energy meetings, tax cuts, 9-11, and pre-emptive war had had the

MSM scrutiny given WJC's zipper, much of the worst of the disasters of the past five years could have been stopped in its tracks IMHO.

[Cha]

7. So Sadly True. n/t

[Cha]

3. Read it and Weep, traitorbob.

Oh, how the mighty shills have fallen. Lusting for fame and money has its drawbacks.

[Cha]

5. What I don't get and I wish

someone could explain it to me..is how did bob ever think he could get away with dissing Fitzgerald and calling the investigation "ludicrous" when there was a chance he could be outted as a reporter who this info was leaked to?

[Paranoid Pessimist]

8. Woodward has always been a Secret Government disinformation conduit

I think the whole Deep Throat story was bullshit. I don't know if Bernstein even knew the truth. The whole idea of some concerned citizen insider whistleblower acting on his own conscience is unlikely to the point of being preposterous.

How else could he gain the kind of access he has had to write all those books. Especially Veil. Is the CIA going to let someone in to talk to Casey on his deathbed or whatever the hell that was without an agenda?

[sofa king]

9. I dissent.

I don't often disagree with Mr. Conason, but this time I do.

Perhaps it's a matter of focus. Maybe Conason is viewing Woodward's move solely in the context of Plamegate. From that perspective, it looks like Woodward is shilling for the White House.

But look at it another way. Woodward knows its only a short matter of time before the mysterious unnamed source is exposed. Early indications are that the source is Mr. Stephen Hadley.

Hadley is the person we know is most responsible for the insertion of the Niger uranium claim into the President's State of the Union address. You may recall that George Tenet was forced to fall on his sword--again--for that mistake, but then on July 22, 2003 Hadley owned up to it himself.

What has also emerged is that Hadley was responsible for the meetings between Michael Ledeen and Italian intelligence people. George Tenet told Hadley to call those meetings off. They continued, and eventually Hadley met with Italian officials himself (according to some sources, Condoleeza Rice was at that meeting as well). Shortly thereafter, the forged documents appeared. And yet Hadley still insisted on the false statement being inserted into the SOTU.

Rather than being rebuked or forced to resign, the President promoted Hadley to the post of National Security Advisor. Promoting someone who has committed unethical and illegal acts is the sort of behavior a criminal co-conspirator engages in--or a very stupid person. You decide.

Now the press all abuzz about the "unnamed source," who will be exposed as Hadley next week. Woodward has given the press a virtual connect-the-dots trail of criminal conspiracy which will lead straight to the President himself.

For that, we should be thankful, and we should admire the clever way in which Mr. Woodward has advanced the impeachment of George W. Bush while apparently ingratiating himself with the most criminal Presidential administration in modern history.

[IndianaGreen]

10. Bob Woodward and Judy Miller have seriously harmed the reputation

of the newspapers they worked for. In Judy's case, the NY Times continued defense of her by the publisher has forever tarnished the Times reputation as the "newspaper of record."

Woodward has done the same to the WaPo, but at least he got a reamer from the ombudsman:

Tough Week for The Post and a Star

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/19/AR2005111900964.html