Arianna Huffington: Woodward woes

[PhilipShore]

Arianna Huffington
The Huffington Post

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=20029

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.

[speedoo]

1. Arianna Rox!!!

I think she's right about Woodward. He's kinda stupid, actually.

[unblock]

5. i always had the impression that bernstein was the brains

i figured woodward was the guy with the contacts and bernstein was the guy who actually figured it all out.

both are essential, which is why they made a good team.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

2. In a rather strange way, should this view of Woodward be adopted....

...it would allow him to escape his current situation relatively unscathed. After all, Americans have a tendency to excuse someone's actions if they believe the person in question is just not very smart.

IMHO, you can't play the roll that Woodward has played for the last 30+ years by being "the dumb blonde of American journalism".

Think about it...he has been involved in one way or another with just about every major story since Watergate.

[asjr]

3. Woodward outed himself when he referred

to Fitzgerald as a "junk-yard" dog. He is as partisan as they come.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

6. Did my post infer in any way that he isn't partisan?

[asjr]

8. No, your post didn't infer that. I thought I was

merely adding to your post. Why would you think I was?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. I never understood all the praise he gets.

When hearing him answer questions, I was always struck by how trite and unresponsive his answers were. And seeing his writing, well, I have seen few signs of talent.

With Watergate, he was selected by an insider, because he was young, inexperienced and unknown. Without deep throat, he would have been a washed-up, talentless hack. With deep throat he still is a wash-up talentless hack.

Did he ever break any story on his own, ever?

[chat_noir]

7. Sorry, Arianna, I say he was carrying water for the Bushies

Increasingly, though, Chatterbox gets the feeling that Woodward often flubs the analysis in his books not because he doesn't get it, but because he's deliberately playing dumb. This is especially true of Woodward's two books about George W. Bush, which differ from his previous books about presidents in that they incorporate lengthy interviews—be careful what you wish for!—with the president himself. In both Bush at War and Plan of Attack, the narrative grinds to a halt whenever Woodward quotes Bush mouthing platitudes about the business of governing this great nation. One can't really blame Bush for this. All presidents describe their Oval Office experiences in a particular dialect characterized by tedious and self-serving generality. That explains why readers can never finish their memoirs. They do buy them, though. And Bush is the president. What's more, Bush has taken such a liking to Woodward that he now orders reluctant underlings to grant interviews, too. So, if Bush gives Woodward a lot of useless interview material that would be tossed out if it came from anyone else, no matter. It goes in, along with a lot of power-porn boilerplate about the awesome burdens shouldered by the commander in chief. Gotta keep that man happy.

http://www.slate.com/id/2099307/

[PhilipShore]

9. Is Bob Woodward a CIA operative?

I am not an Investigative Reporter, or a lawyer, but I think that it could be possible that Woodward could be implicated in the Watergate cover-up.

Why? I filed a civil lawsuit against some powerful Republican thieves in Miami Florida, and so far I discovered-- that during the period of the time of Watergate powerful Real Estate institutions, persons, law firms in Miami, were creating fraudulent court papers to gain an advantage over me, and my interests in some Real Estate and other interests in Florida and other states.

I think it is quite possible, that Woodward was used by the CIA, or whomever, to manufacture Watergate, maybe even the break in itself, and the whole resignation of Nixon well in advance-- to gain an advantage in something bigger then Watergate. Money, like Nazi gold, or some other reasons.

I know like with my civil suit-- some parties that I am still doing research into, actually manufactured a fraudulent lawsuit, and created fraudulent court papers, etc., which I was not able to discover until years later because they even picked someone to represent me, whom did not represent me at all, and simply received check for doing nothing, and not doing his job at all.

The same could be the case with Woodward they could have manufactured the Super reporter—specifically because he was not one, so that they could gain an unfair advantage over something bigger then even Watergate, and by using Woodward knowing that no one would want to review Woodward—because he was the super-hero.

________________________________________-

http://www.bostonphoenix.com/medialog/2005/06/notes-on-deep-throat.asp

NOTES ON DEEP THROAT.

After three Miami television stations projected the results of the September, 1970 primary elections in Florida's Dade County "down to the last digit" as soon as the polls closed, Henry Petersen, who headed the U.S. Justice Department's Criminal Division, was instructed to begin an investigation.

One of the three TV stations implicated in the 1970 fraud case was WPLG-TV of Miami, an affiliate of the Washington Post and Newsweek, and the property of Post owner Katharine Graham, who is Bob Graham's brother-in-law. The call letters WPLG were a tribute to her late husband, Philip L. Graham.

As soon as FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover died on May 2, 1972, a 27-year-old Justice Department employee named Craig C. Donsanto signed Petersen's name to a "courtesy" letter telling Democratic Congressman Claude Pepper of Miami that all hell was about to break loose. Pepper learned that Democratic National Committee offices based at the Watergate ostensibly were in cahoots with a California computing firm anxious to corner the market on the new computer voting industry and that Dade County had been a guinea pig.

Promising him assistance in his career, Pepper prevailed on Donsanto to stamp a "National Security" embargo on the FBI file. That file is still classified. But two Miami reporters, Kenneth and James Collier, managed to obtain copies of it - at about the time Bob Graham was elected Governor of Florida in 1978.

[Al-CIAda]

10. Secret Agent Bob cannot even pronounce his alleged vocation correctly.

Its reporter, Bob, not 'raporter'.