Monday, October 31, 2005

Woodward

I'm not really enough of a Bob Woodward scholar to evaluate these rumblings, but I have to say that the recent uh-huh throat clearing about Woodward and his ties to the system he reports resonate with concerns that have bugged me for years. Yeah, yeah, we've all seen All The President's Men, and this was the guy who helped take down the president. But whenever I hear or read about his miles of anonymous sources--miles and miles of them--it feels a little strange. That said, I wish this compare and contrast post by Larry Johnson at TMPCafe was a little less snide and ad hominem and a little more spelled out. Johnson is basically saying that the reason Woodward is going around (by appearing on shows like Larry King Live, for example), and dismissing the damage of outing Valerie Plame is because Scooter Libby was probably one of his sources. It does make me want to go back and read Woodward's recent books to see if there's more quotes along the lines of the ones Johnson cites. It would be sad if it were true. But I always like Dustin Hoffman better anyway.