Hard Target

by digby

Woodward, who has had lengthy interviews with President Bush for his last two books, dismissed criticism that he has grown too close to White House officials. He said he prods them into providing a fuller picture of the administration’s workings because of the time he devotes to the books.

“The net to readers,” Woodward said, “is a voluminous amount of quality, balanced information that explains the hardest target in Washington,” the Bush administration.

Here’s some of that quality, balanced information from “Plan of Attack”:

Rove said he wanted the president to start that February or March and begin raising the money, probably $200 million. He had a schedule. In February, March and April 2003, there would be between 12 and 16 fundraisers.

“We got a war coming,” the president told Rove flatly, “and you’re just going to have to wait.” He had decided. “The moment is coming.” The president did not give a date, but he left the impression with Rove that it would be January or February or March at the latest.

“Remember the problem with your dad’s campaign,” Rove replied. “A lot of people said he got started too late.”

“I understand,” Bush said. “I’ll tell you when I’m comfortable with you starting.”

And then his codpiece exploded all over the living room.

I’ve been hearing all the television gasbags try to explain what impact this “bombshell” is going to have on Fitzgerald’s case. Victoria Toensing is on CNN pushing the Libby line that Fitzgerald is inept because he didn’t know about this Woodward conversation. (She’s making very little sense because she doiesn’t know what to make of this revelation and can’t figure out quite how to play it.)
But one thing seems obvious to me that nobody is mentioning. We know Libby leaked about Plame to reporters. We know Rove leaked about Plame to reporters. We now know that some other administration figure leaked to Woodward and another one (perhaps the same one) leaked to Novak. What is it going to take for the media to start calling this what it was — a conspiracy?

I don’t know if Fitz can prove such a thing. But common sense says that if a bunch of different White House sources are talking to the most powerful journalists in Washington about the same subject, it isn’t just idle gossip. Woodward knew that. So did every other top reporter in town. They just preferred to pretend otherwise.

At the next blogger ethics panel we should call upon some of these great sages of journalism and ask them why it took a special prosecutor to back up Wilson’s story that that the White House had engaged in a coordinated smear campaign. What other kinds of sleazy behavior are they covering up for their masters … er, sources?

I do not buy the fact that Woodward didn’t have an obligation to come forward publicly. He’s a reporter. His job is to tell the public what he knows. With all of his great sources, you’d think that he of all people could have done some actual reporting and gotten to the bottom of the story two years ago.

It’s my fervent belief that when the government is spinning the press, whether it’s Ken Starr selectively leaking like a sieve or Scooter and his grubby little friends smearing Joe Wilson, it is the duty of journalists to report what they are doing. If their ever so valuable sources dry up because of that, then all the better. The sources are using them for a political agenda, not to get important information out to the public. These are not whistleblowers — they are flaks and what they are doing is fundamentally dishonest.

If all the administration wanted to do was shed light on Wilson’s alleged lack of credibility they could have called a fucking press conference and offered their evidence. It’s not like they can’t get anybody’s attention. The very fact that they were dropping this into the ether like it was idle gossip is the reason that Bob Woodward, Judy Miller and all the rest should have written front page stories about it. It’s not difficult. They could do what Matt Cooper did. He wrote that the White House was engaging in an underground war on Wilson. That is and was the story.

This crap about protecting anonymous sources is simply cover for the fact that these people are protecting their access to official lies. It’s bullshit and it’s why they are in trouble today.

Update: I just watched Wolf Blitzer try to pin Len Downie down on the fact that Woodward never bothered to write that he knew of another source. Blitzer asked him why, after Woodward revealed his information to Downie on October 28th that the paper didn’t write about it then — without revealing the source. Downie dance around, saying that the prosecutor got involved and then they couldn’t talk. Blitzer pressed and said that they had several days before this “source” inexplicably (and we are apparently supposed to believe coincidentally) went to the prosecutor with the news that he had spoken to Woodward. Downie had no good answer for that and just hemmed and hawed his way through it, ending with his story that they must protect their sources.

Protecting sources in Washington apparently means not only protecting their identities, it’s also means not revealing information they impart. I have to ask then — what’s the fucking point? Apparently the reporter’s privilege is like a priest’s or a shrink’s. It’s not the identity that’s sacrosanct, which is what I always assumed. It’s the information. And there is evidently no obligation to do more investigation so that you can get the story out.

At least until you get a big fat seven figure advance — at which time it’s ok to let the world know what you know, even as you protect your sources.

Deep Throat was misnamed. It’s Bob himself who specializes in that particular act.

Woodward said today:

“I hunkered down. I’m in the habit of keeping secrets.”

Funny, here I thought that reporters were supposed to be in the habit of revealing secrets.

Update II: Atrios has the transcript of the Blitzer Downie exchange. WTF.

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