Baghdad Bob takes dictation
Well he did say he was a Repugnant one in the movie didn't he.
Back in 1996, Joan Didion wrote a tour de force for the New York Review of Books analyzing Bob Woodward's methods. After reading six of Woodward's books, she highlighted the "disinclination of Mr. Woodward to exert cognitive energy on what he is told." Her observations about Woodward's reliability as a water carrier for his sources came to mind when I saw this quote (via Atrios) from a July 2005 interview that Woodward gave to Wolf Blitzer: "This [Fitzgerald] investigation that's been going on for two years is just running like a chain saw right through the lifeline that reporters have to sources who will tell you the truth, what's really going on." The truth. What's really going on.
Nov 16, 2005 -- 02:14:16 PM EST
Here's how Didion concluded her piece (it's a long excerpt but explains a lot about the predicament Woodward finds himself in this morning):
Washington, as rendered by Mr. Woodward, is by definition basically solid, a diorama of decent intentions in which wise if misunderstood and occasionally misled stewards will reliably prevail. Its military chiefs will be pictured, as Colin Powell was in The Commanders, thinking on the eve of war exclusively of their troops, the "kids," the "teenagers": a human story. The clerks of its Supreme Court will be pictured, as the clerks of the Burger court were in The Brethren, offering astute guidance as their justices negotiate the shoals of ideological error: a human story. The more available members of its foreign diplomatic corps will be pictured, as Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan was in The Commanders and in Veil, gaining access to the councils of power not just because they have the oil but because of their "backslapping irreverence," their "directness," their exemplification of "the new breed of ambassador--activist, charming, profane": yet another human story. Its opposing leaders will be pictured, as President Clinton and Senator Dole are in The Choice, finding common ground on the importance of mothers: the ultimate human story.
That this crude personalization works to narrow the focus, to circumscribe the range of possible discussion or speculation, is, for the people who find it useful to talk to Mr. Woodward, its point. What they have in Mr. Woodward is a widely trusted reporter, even an American icon, who can be relied upon to present a Washington in which problematic or questionable matters will be definitively resolved by the discovery, or by the demonstration that there has been no discovery, of "the smoking gun," "the evidence." Should such narrowly-defined "evidence" be found, he can then be relied upon to demonstrate, "fairly," that the only fingerprints on the smoking gun are those of the one bad apple in the barrel, the single rogue agent in the tapestry of decent intentions.
"I kept coming back to the question of personal responsibility, Casey's responsibility," Mr. Woodward reports having mused (apparently for once ready, at the moment when he is about to visit a source on his deathbed, to question the veracity of what he has been told) before his last visit to Room C6316 at Georgetown Hospital. "For a moment, I hoped he would take himself off the hook. The only way was an admission of some kind or an apology to his colleagues or an expression of new understanding. Under the last question on 'Key unanswered questions for Casey,' I wrote: 'Do you see now that it was wrong?"' To commit such Rosebud moments to paper is what it means to tell "the human story" at "the core," and it is also what it means to write political pornography.
Woodward's peerless solicitousness toward his sources has made him rich and famous. But now that his deceit in attacking the Fitzgerald investigation without revealing his own role in the story has been unveiled, how can the Washington Post continue to assure its readers that they can trust him?
http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/16/141416/18
Comments. Baghdad Bob is toast. I hope he does hard time for obstruction of justice...after all he volunteered to go to jail. Give the public what they want.
Back in 1996, Joan Didion wrote a tour de force for the New York Review of Books analyzing Bob Woodward's methods. After reading six of Woodward's books, she highlighted the "disinclination of Mr. Woodward to exert cognitive energy on what he is told." Her observations about Woodward's reliability as a water carrier for his sources came to mind when I saw this quote (via Atrios) from a July 2005 interview that Woodward gave to Wolf Blitzer: "This [Fitzgerald] investigation that's been going on for two years is just running like a chain saw right through the lifeline that reporters have to sources who will tell you the truth, what's really going on." The truth. What's really going on.
Nov 16, 2005 -- 02:14:16 PM EST
Here's how Didion concluded her piece (it's a long excerpt but explains a lot about the predicament Woodward finds himself in this morning):
Washington, as rendered by Mr. Woodward, is by definition basically solid, a diorama of decent intentions in which wise if misunderstood and occasionally misled stewards will reliably prevail. Its military chiefs will be pictured, as Colin Powell was in The Commanders, thinking on the eve of war exclusively of their troops, the "kids," the "teenagers": a human story. The clerks of its Supreme Court will be pictured, as the clerks of the Burger court were in The Brethren, offering astute guidance as their justices negotiate the shoals of ideological error: a human story. The more available members of its foreign diplomatic corps will be pictured, as Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan was in The Commanders and in Veil, gaining access to the councils of power not just because they have the oil but because of their "backslapping irreverence," their "directness," their exemplification of "the new breed of ambassador--activist, charming, profane": yet another human story. Its opposing leaders will be pictured, as President Clinton and Senator Dole are in The Choice, finding common ground on the importance of mothers: the ultimate human story.
That this crude personalization works to narrow the focus, to circumscribe the range of possible discussion or speculation, is, for the people who find it useful to talk to Mr. Woodward, its point. What they have in Mr. Woodward is a widely trusted reporter, even an American icon, who can be relied upon to present a Washington in which problematic or questionable matters will be definitively resolved by the discovery, or by the demonstration that there has been no discovery, of "the smoking gun," "the evidence." Should such narrowly-defined "evidence" be found, he can then be relied upon to demonstrate, "fairly," that the only fingerprints on the smoking gun are those of the one bad apple in the barrel, the single rogue agent in the tapestry of decent intentions.
"I kept coming back to the question of personal responsibility, Casey's responsibility," Mr. Woodward reports having mused (apparently for once ready, at the moment when he is about to visit a source on his deathbed, to question the veracity of what he has been told) before his last visit to Room C6316 at Georgetown Hospital. "For a moment, I hoped he would take himself off the hook. The only way was an admission of some kind or an apology to his colleagues or an expression of new understanding. Under the last question on 'Key unanswered questions for Casey,' I wrote: 'Do you see now that it was wrong?"' To commit such Rosebud moments to paper is what it means to tell "the human story" at "the core," and it is also what it means to write political pornography.
Woodward's peerless solicitousness toward his sources has made him rich and famous. But now that his deceit in attacking the Fitzgerald investigation without revealing his own role in the story has been unveiled, how can the Washington Post continue to assure its readers that they can trust him?
http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/16/141416/18
Comments. Baghdad Bob is toast. I hope he does hard time for obstruction of justice...after all he volunteered to go to jail. Give the public what they want.
posted by professor rat at 3:48 PM
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