Bob Woodward's Sin

The AP reported yesterday about a statement by the Washington Post's ombudman, Deborah Howell. Howell said that Bob Woodward, the Watergate reporter hero, committed a "deeply serious sin" by not telling his editor at The Washington Post that a top Bush administration official had told him the name of a CIA officer.

Let me get this straight. The Washington Post considers it a "deeply serious sin" when a reporter doesn't tell his editor that he has key information in a Grand Jury investigation. And they consider it a "mistake" that Woodward talked about the Plame investigation on Larry King and NPR without disclosing that he already knew about the CIA leak.

But where's the outrage from the WaPo about Woodward's having withheld his knowledge from the grand jury and the special prosecutor? Where's the outrage at Woodward's silence likely having led to the indictment and resignation of a member of the administration? The crickets are chirping while we wait for the WaPo to be upset at the misdirection of justice.

And what was so important that Bob Woodward needed to keep his mouth shut so tightly for so long? He said he had been working on a book about the administration's decision to go to war in Iraq, and he did not want to be subpoenaed by a special prosecutor investigating the leak of Plame's name.

Oh, of course. Keeping your book a secret trumps justice. He didn't want to be subpoenaed, because then parts of his book might have been leaked to the press. Oh, that's OK, then. I'm sure Scooter Libby understands completely. I'm sure Vice President Cheney doesn't mind losing Libby as his aide at all. I'm sure special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald doesn't think it would have made any difference in his investigation.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald portrayed Libby as the first government official to have shared Plame's name and her work at the CIA. But the Post reported that Woodward, who achieved fame for his reporting on the Watergate scandal during the Nixon administration, may have been the first reporter to learn about Plame in mid-June of 2003, before the Novak column ran.

The mainstream media is disgusting in its self-centered, ego-centric self-absorption. The Washington Post should fire Woodward, and Patrick Fitzgerald should throw him in the slammer. It would give Woodward more time to work on his book.