Althouse: Woodward's gone rogue!

February 27, 2013

Woodward's gone rogue!

"A 'Very Senior' White House Person Warned Me I'd 'Regret' What I'm Doing."

48 comments:

KCFleming said...: I have some questions about his uterus.; 2/27/13, 9:56 PM
Anonymous said...: I think even Woodward miscalculated how deeply the true-believers have invested in Obama. I don't have much hope the faithful will turn away from their leader as they seem willing to go over any cliff for him with a smile on their face. However, If people do start to come out of their trance, the stampede and ramifications could be quite ugly.; 2/27/13, 10:01 PM
Nonapod said...: Dissent will not be tolerated.; 2/27/13, 10:01 PM
David said...: Woodward's next book should be about the press.; 2/27/13, 10:03 PM
chickelit said...: Woodward needs another "Deep Throat." To bad that every Journolist in sight has already auditioned on the WH casting couch. Poseurs, the lot of them.; 2/27/13, 10:04 PM
Rob said...: Nice journalism career ya got here, be a shame if something was to happen to it.; 2/27/13, 10:06 PM
Anonymous said...: I think most of the people who voted against President Obama have a good idea of what sort of con man he is and the danger his ideas present for our country. Unfortunately, those who voted for him seem to be ingesting the Koolaid via direct IV, or maybe they're aliens with the real humans stored in pods somewhere.; 2/27/13, 10:07 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Is making a big issue of the sequester a media machination? They need news to sell ads, so they push the sequester?

It's hardly any money as a percentage of the budget. How can it possibly be a big deal? I don't think it is. I'm ignoring it. I see headlines about things they supposedly can't afford if it goes into effect, and the headlines read like so much nonsense. Nonsense! That's what I say. I'm not going to keep up with a bunch of nonsense.; 2/27/13, 10:08 PM
pm317 said...: I am wondering what has made him so mad. He said unflattering things about Obama before the election but that never got reported much. He went on Hannity to sell his Obama book because no lefty would give him camera time..; 2/27/13, 10:10 PM
madAsHell said...: Going Rouge!!; 2/27/13, 10:12 PM
madAsHell said...: What about his mongoloid son??; 2/27/13, 10:12 PM
Anonymous said...: Democrats expected the masses to survive with a 2% tax increase, but don't think the fed govt can survive a 2% spending cut!; 2/27/13, 10:14 PM
Astro said...: Wow. I bet he's never faced intimidation like that in his life, ever.

Coincidentally I recently watched "The Life of Emile Zola". I am reminded of that, since similarly the French government tried to intimidate Zola during the Dreyfuss Affair.; 2/27/13, 10:23 PM
edutcher said...: As Michael Barone called it, the Obama Thugocracy.

And that was in the summer of '08.

bpm4532 said...

I think even Woodward miscalculated how deeply the true-believers have invested in Obama. I don't have much hope the faithful will turn away from their leader as they seem willing to go over any cliff for him with a smile on their face. However, If people do start to come out of their trance, the stampede and ramifications could be quite ugly.

I've been saying it will have to get worse before it gets any better, but, yeah, I think it's coming.

We're fast approaching the same point on the Dow where everything began imploding in '07.

And Roubini says we've got the same conditions all over again.; 2/27/13, 10:26 PM
dreams said...: His liberal colleagues will bring him back in line, liberals have a strong herd instinct and he is a bona fide liberal. I see him eventually apologizing or at least redeeming himself with some suck up reporting.; 2/27/13, 10:30 PM
Original Mike said...: "I am wondering what has made him so mad."

Maybe watching the President utter a bald faced lie in the debates ("the sequester was not my idea") pissed him off. It sure pissed me off. Most politicians lie in a weaselly, sliver of truth kind of way. This guy has no compunctions about flat out lying.; 2/27/13, 10:31 PM
traditionalguy said...: One voice of truth that is too well known for too long to be slandered with ridicule can be like water thrown on the witch of the Obama Propaganda Ministry.

Courage happens. He is being a hero taking fire like John Paul Jones who had not begun to fight.

Traditional Americans have to resist a natural envy tendency to disparage what Woodward is doing because we did not do it.; 2/27/13, 10:33 PM
traditionalguy said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/27/13, 10:34 PM
JPS said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/27/13, 10:59 PM
Lydia said...: Unfortunately, that phrase he used about Obama, "a kind of madness I haven't seen in a long time," will be easy to turn back on Woodward himself.

Did you notice how whackadoodle he looks in the photo that accompanies that article Althouse linked to?

Just a start.; 2/27/13, 11:13 PM
Bob Loblaw said...: Is making a big issue of the sequester a media machination?

Yeah, pretty much. As you point out, it doesn't really matter that much in the big picture, but the administration has been pulling stunts (like letting a bunch of criminal illegals free) and getting all the favorable press it could possibly wish for.

NPR, in particular, is running sequester scare stories around the clock. Today I heard because of the evil Republicans I won't get my tax return for a long, long time.; 2/27/13, 11:17 PM
sakredkow said...: Wow. I bet he's never faced intimidation like that in his life, ever.

That.; 2/27/13, 11:41 PM
Levi Starks said...: I'm afraid Woodward is suffering under the delusion that truth still matters.
He couldn't be more wrong.
For some strange reason he believes he's earned some special exemption just because he brought down Nixon all those years ago. To see him treated this way by his own almost makes me feel sorry for him.; 2/28/13, 12:38 AM
Bob_R said...: Welcome back, 1973. You need an Obama=Nixon tag. Just don't go overboard and wear wide bells in earth tones.; 2/28/13, 3:44 AM
rhhardin said...: "If only Stalin knew" is the name of Woodward's thought.

He thinks Obama isn't behind it and would stop it if he knew about it.; 2/28/13, 6:30 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Woodward said something that should get him killed by the left wing machine.

“They have to be willing to live in the world where they’re challenged.”

no way!; 2/28/13, 6:46 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Plutocrat Jack Lew Is Confirmed, But Sessions Embarrasses Democrats; 2/28/13, 6:49 AM
Brennan said...: Poor Bob. He really doesn't stand a chance up against President Capone.; 2/28/13, 6:55 AM
George M. Spencer said...: Somewhere Nixon is smiling.

Benghazi might have been Obama's Watergate, but no.

Do we yet know what Obama was doing that night or who he was with?; 2/28/13, 6:58 AM
Rusty said...: rhhardin said...
"If only Stalin knew" is the name of Woodward's thought.

He thinks Obama isn't behind it and would stop it if he knew about it.

Wasn't there a movie about that?
"The Projectionist" with Tom Hulce?; 2/28/13, 6:59 AM
George M. Spencer said...: That line about "If only Stalin knew" is the classic way in which followers of a charismatic leader react when the Great Man is accused of enacting a hurtful policy.

True believers will follow the charismatic leader to the bitter end. By comparison, recall how Nixon's supporters, by the end, all fell away. Except his daughters.; 2/28/13, 7:12 AM
Jason said...: He won't reveal who it was. So he's still being a whore for access.; 2/28/13, 7:32 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: I love Ace's headline:

Enemy of the State: Juicebox Mafia Brands Bob Woodward a Rightwing Turncoat

Heh; 2/28/13, 7:48 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Josh Marshall - eat shit.

All because he reported the truth about the sequester -- a truth even Politico concedes to be true, that Obama hatched the scheme and the White House has been lying about it since -- and because he doesn't like being threatened.

Woodward's complaint is a bit more nuanced than claiming a "threat," though. He does see it as a "veiled threat." But the main thrust of his complaint is that while he, Bob Woodward, is immune to such threats, what about young reporters? When young reporters get yelled at by the White House for a half hour and told "you'll regret this," what do they do?

His suggestion is that more often than not they "tremble, tremble" and accede to the Chicago Thugs' wishes.

And for saying so, the guy who brought down Nixon is now being called senile, a rightwinger, a new David Mamet, etc.

Anyone who opposes this gangster administration must be destroyed.

The Gramsciite Left is too close to their goals now. They feel the creaking in America's beam, they can feel the ship about to burst in two. They want this so badly.

This.; 2/28/13, 7:50 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: A random Tweet from CB

"Morning Joe was covering WH like a backhoe covering a septic tank."; 2/28/13, 8:13 AM
machine said...: wow...Ann Coulter was right for once...; 2/28/13, 8:14 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Lanny Davis is being threatened, too.

Lanny Davis, who served under President Bill Clinton as special counsel to the White House, told Washington, D.C.'s WMAL this morning that the Obama White House had threatened the Washington Times over his column, warning that the Times would suffer limited access to White House officials and might have its White House credentials revoked. Davis, a centrist Democrat, is sometimes critical of the Obama administration's policies.

Don't you dare question the thin- skinned Capone president.
You must carry Obama'a water, or else.
You must give up your honesty, integrity, and your principles, or else.; 2/28/13, 8:26 AM
Joe Schmoe said...: Quick! Get Soledad O'Brien to counterattack!

What? She's no longer on CNN?

Well, get some other whitebread bitch from NBC to do it then!; 2/28/13, 8:31 AM
sinz52 said...: POLITICO.com, citing anonymous White House sources, has now corroborated most of Woodward's account.

Obama should have taken the hint from Chuck Todd (NBC), and not made the claim that the GOP invented the sequester into a talking point.

Because Todd knew it would turn out to be false.; 2/28/13, 8:34 AM
Chef Mojo said...: Davis, a centrist Democrat,

Ok. Now, that's funny!

Anybody on either side of the aisle who knows anything about Lanny Davis is getting a good chuckle from that. Including Davis himself.

Davis is about as far left as they come, and he'd be the first to say that's a point of pride for him.; 2/28/13, 8:35 AM
chickelit said...: Nixon speaks out in a long lost chirbit regarding Obama: link; 2/28/13, 8:36 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: You let Obama get away with his lies, or else.; 2/28/13, 8:53 AM
Saint Croix said...: E-mails are here. Personally they seem rather innocent to me. You could easily read that e-mail to mean that Woodward is getting the story wrong. You'll regret it in the sense of the hurt it will do to your reputation.

What the press is doing--and the press loves to do this--is using the quote out of context. So all of a sudden there is an implicit threat.

I think Gene Sperling and Woodward are friends (or at least are not adversaries). So this is a far cry from "tit in the wringer."

For instance, Woodward did not want to name the guy. That suggests friendship.

And yet Woodward clearly was offended by the exchange. And we didn't hear the half hour of yelling, so we don't know what was said before the emails.

What strikes me about this is that Woodward is a liberal guy, who is reporting the truth as he sees it. So, for instance, the sequester idea came out of the White House. This is inconvenient to the White House, who wants to blame the Republicans for the budget failure. But now you have a prominent reporter saying the White House is responsible for the sequester, and we have a White House that wants to shut him up.

Woodward did this reporting back in 2012. So no story here at all, really. What makes it a story is a) Obama's lying about the sequester and b) trying to control the narrative in the media.

Would have been smarter just to ignore Woodward and his story. Instead they blew it up to front page news.; 2/28/13, 9:10 AM
ErnieG said...: Astro said...

Coincidentally I recently watched "The Life of Emile Zola". I am reminded of that, since similarly the French government tried to intimidate Zola during the Dreyfuss Affair.

As Mark Twain said, "To my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English. It is un-American; it is French."; 2/28/13, 9:21 AM
ErnieG said...: Saint Croix said...

... Would have been smarter just to ignore Woodward and his story. Instead they blew it up to front page news.

A perfect example of the Streisand Effect.; 2/28/13, 9:31 AM
Tibore said...: "A 'Very Senior' White House Person Warned Me I'd 'Regret' What I'm Doing."

And yet, there's still a liberal love affair with this President.; 2/28/13, 9:36 AM
Ernst Stavro Blofeld said...: He thinks Obama isn't behind it

He knows Obama is behind it. It's just a rhetorical ploy to give the presidency a graceful way out. You don't back someone into a corner unless you're prepared to finish them, and Obama, being president, can't be finished for another four years.; 2/28/13, 10:12 AM
Ernst Stavro Blofeld said...: He thinks Obama isn't behind it

He knows Obama is behind it. It's just a rhetorical ploy to give the presidency a graceful way out. You don't back someone into a corner unless you're prepared to finish them, and Obama, being president, can't be finished for another four years.; 2/28/13, 10:12 AM