More than 30 years after making history as half of the Washington Post duo that broke open the Watergate scandal, Bob Woodward is in a fight to save his reputation as a trustworthy journalist. Judging from his recent appearance on CNN’s “Larry King Live,” it may be a losing battle.
The Woodward saga is a story of a reporter who challenged powerful insiders -- and then, as years went by, became one of them. He used confidential sources to expose wrongdoing at the top levels of the U.S. government -- and then, gradually, became accustomed to using high-placed sources who effectively used him.
Now, Woodward is reeling from an outcry because of new information.
For more than two years, the famed journalist kept quiet about a key fact: A government official told him that Valerie Plame, the wife of Bush war-policy critic and former ambassador Joe Wilson, was an undercover CIA employee.
Even after the Plame leaks turned into a big scandal rocking the Bush administration, Woodward failed to tell any Washington Post editor about his own involvement. And, in media appearances, he publicly disparaged the investigation by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald without so much as hinting at his own stake in disparaging it.
Interviewed several months ago on NPR’s “Fresh Air” program, Woodward portrayed the investigation as little more than a tempest in a teapot. “The issues don’t really involve national security or people’s lives or jeopardy,” he commented, adding that “I think in the end, we will find there’s not really corruption here.”
Woodward also told the national radio audience: “The woman who was the CIA undercover operative was working in CIA headquarters. There was no national security threat, there was no jeopardy to her life, there was no nothing. When I think all of the facts come out in this case, it’s going to be laughable because the consequences are not that great.”
But there was never anything laughable about Fitzgerald’s investigation into the Plame scandal. And Woodward learned to take it a lot more seriously by the time he appeared on Larry King’s show the night of Nov. 21.
After days of bad publicity, Woodward was in a spinning mood. He seemed eager to run out the clock as he filled time with digressions and minor details. When in a corner, he often brought up the Watergate story, as though his days of indisputable glory could draw light away from his recent indefensible behavior.
Larry King is rarely a vigorous interviewer; his customary mode of questioning is much closer to Oprah than “60 Minutes.” But King, who has featured Woodward on his show many times over the years, seemed agitated during the latest interview. And that’s understandable.
After all, Woodward had previously gone on “Larry King Live” and dismissed the importance of the Plamegate scandal while withholding relevant firsthand information.
Woodward has written many best-selling books heavily reliant on interviews granted by top administration officials. During the Nov. 21 interview, the unusually engaged King zeroed in on a dynamic that often pollutes the work of big-name journalists in Washington: They get and retain access to the powerful because they don’t go out of bounds.
Noting that Woodward was able to avail himself of lengthy interviews with President Bush for a recent book, King said: “He’s given you three hours. He’ll help you with the next book. Doesn’t that give him an edge with you?” And, King pointed out, the benefits of such arrangements run in both directions, for author and president alike: “He’s not going to come out looking terrible because you want him for your next book and you’d like to have that in.”
Bob Woodward wasn’t grilled by Larry King. But the questions were vigorous enough to make America’s most renowned reporter seem evasive and self-absorbed.
During the long interview, Woodward gave various explanations for his careful silence that misled Post editors and the public. He did not want to get dragged into the Plame-leak investigation with a subpoena, and anyway he was preoccupied with gathering information that would be revealed in a book.
Overall, Bob Woodward’s priorities seemed to center on Bob Woodward.
Yet near the end of the interview, he offered this platitude with a straight face and without a hint of self-reproach: “I think the biggest mistake you can make in this sort of situation as a reporter is to worry about yourself.”
Norman Solomon is the author of the recent book War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death
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