Woodward under fire after giving evidence to CIA leak inquiry

[DaveColorado]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1646247,00.html

Woodward under fire after giving evidence to CIA leak inquiry

Jamie Wilson in Washington
Saturday November 19, 2005
The Guardian

Bob Woodward, the journalist usually treated in America with a reverence reserved for elder statesmen, found himself under siege inside his own newspaper yesterday over his role in the CIA leak inquiry.

Mr Woodward, who was able to keep secret the identity of his most famous source - Deep Throat - for more than 30 years, was forced to give evidence to the special prosecutor investigating who leaked the identity of a CIA operative. It emerged that the man whose reporting on the Watergate scandal helped bring down President Richard Nixon was the first journalist to learn from an administration official that Valerie Plame, the wife of former US ambassador and Bush critic Joseph Wilson, worked for the CIA.


Woodward was then forced to apologise to the editor of the Washington Post for keeping his bosses in the dark for more than two years over his role in the story, even as it grew into a scandal in which Lewis "Scooter" Libby, vice-president Dick Cheney's chief of staff, has been indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice.

Yesterday a Washington Post internal critique, leaked to the website mediabistro, highlighted the friction the Woodward disclosures have caused within the newspaper. "I feel like we're ignoring the 800lb elephant on our front page," wrote Charles Babington, one of the Post's political writers. Columnist Jonathan Yardley was even more damning: "This is the logical and perhaps inevitable outcome when an institution permits an individual to become larger than the institution itself."

-more

[truthisfreedom]

1. "Woodward Becomes Own Worst Enemy"

let the thugs beware. they've gone and screwed the pooch.

[rodeodance]

2. let the flames go higher!

[tularetom]

3. I still wonder if Woodward

didn't make this whole thing up. It must have galled him that all this talk of leaking to reporters was going on and nobody was even speculating that the great BOB WOODWARD had been leaked to. How could he claim to be the insider's insider if Miller, Cooper, Novak, Russert, and a whole shitload of other lesser lights were getting information that he wasn't privy to? How could he face the tough questions of Larry King ever again? So he invents a fictitious WH source who he conveniently cannot identify and claims he was informed about the CIA agents status way before anybody else> Sure sounds plausible to me.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

5. Why would Woodward make up something that ....

...could potentially be fatal to the journalistic career that he has so carefully cultivated since Watergate? Why would a guy who has been so careful at every step of his career fabricate a story that has clearly placed that career in jeopardy?

Additionally, why was he so critical of Fitzgerald and the Plame investigation on the TV talk shows? If you'll recall, his comments appeared to be directly in line with the talking points coming out of the NeoCon Junta. It is also believed that the CIA is behind the constant stream of leaks coming out of the NeoCon Junta. If you examine Woodward's writings over the years, you'll begin to see a pattern of commentary critical of the CIA.

Think about this for a second...if Woodward has been a valued asset for the last thirty-plus years of the same folks that are currently in power, don't you think they would have done anything and everything to keep his name out of the media? Woodward's background practically screams out that he was, or continues to be, an intelligence asset in a role similar to that described in the CIA's Operation Mockingbird.

Look closely at his background as a Yalie, a member of a secret society, a member of Naval ROTC at Yale, and his fast-track military career that culminated as a briefing officer in the Pentagon. Look also at his transition into journalism with his apparent role in some of the major stories of the last thirty years, and you'll see a deep-cover intelligence operative, most probably the Office of Naval Intelligence.

[lovuian]

4. A world renown Journalist is making comments about junkyard

Fitzgerald when he is involved in the investigation!!!

Conflict of Interests He should have KNOWN better!!!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

6. IMHO, he was repeating the NeoCon Junta talking points, just as he....

...was instructed to do. If I understand his masters like I think I do, those are people who do not react well to people refusing to do their bidding.