WP: Woodward Apologizes to Post for Withholding Knowledge of Plame

Woodward Apologizes to Post for Withholding Knowledge of Plame
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 16, 2005; 1:18 PM


Bob Woodward apologized today to The Washington Post's executive editor for failing to tell him for more than two years that a senior Bush administration official had told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame, even as an investigation of those leaks mushroomed into a national scandal.

Woodward, an assistant managing editor and best-selling author, said he told Leonard Downie Jr. that he held back the information because he was worried about being subpoenaed by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the case.

"I apologized because I should have told him about this much sooner," Woodward said in an interview. "I explained in detail that I was trying to protect my sources. That's Job No. 1 in a case like this. . . .

"I hunkered down. I'm in the habit of keeping secrets. I didn't want anything out there that was going to get me subpoenaed."

Downie, who was informed by Woodward late last month, said in a separate interview that his most famous employee had "made a mistake." Despite Woodward's concerns about his confidential sources, Downie said, "he still should have come forward, which he now admits. We should have had that conversation . . . I'm concerned that people will get a misimpression about Bob's value to the newspaper and our readers because of this one instance in which he should have told us sooner."...


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/16/AR2005111601286.html

he has mocked justice and the entire system - he may not have told his boss, but he told the world on the bitty screen that everything that Fitzgerald is/was doing was a sham and laughable.

Well, Bob - the shoe fits - you are a sham and laughable - now leave and don't come back.

Will the real Bob Woodward please stand up

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5373313&mesg_id=5373313

He should go back and re-read his own book and maybe even watch the movie. I spit on you, Mr. Woodward. I can never watch All The Presidents Men again without thinking about what an ass you are.

And woke up covered in dogshit.

a long time

is questionable now and he looks pathetic and what kind of a American is he withholding this information... This man is SCUM!!!

and I truly believe this reveals George Bush( poopy) is Deep Throat and that was a set up saying that the other guy was Deep Throat... Woodward the now liar is suspect!!!

I have always believed that Poppy was deep throat.

Now, for me, the missing pieces of the puzzle are being discovered.

Christ, there is a federal investigation going on. Who has acted more disgracefully...Miller, Novak, or Woodward?

Which begs the question. How many other limp-dicked "journalists" in the loop still loom?

Let's hope Mr. Fitzgerald can cut this Gordian Knot.

from Bob Woodward. Do we know that yet? Otherwise, why would Bobbie squeal on himself?

Who called him, anyway?

God I hope that jerk lied to Fitz, so he can pen his next fawning Bush book from inside club fed....

and to get his big fat mug in the news as a newsmaker again.

because it changes the timeline of the leak, making whoever leaked to Woodward the first leaker ... something like that.

Oh puhleeze. Trying to protect your own sorry ass is more like it, Saint Bob.

:eyes: :grr:

Woodward, you have lost all honor, sir.

Get a hammer and go out to the sandbox and pound all that sand up your ass, Woodward. Asshole. A pox on his house.

Dude--you don't own the WP. When were you going to let the eds. in on the fact that you might need one of those high-priced lawyers? In fact--did you interview with Fitz. in the presence of your atty.? That wuld be rather telling.

you could tell the guy was not a happy camper.

John Dean, who knows about these things, noted that his apology was typed in COURIER, which, per him is mostly only used nowadays by lawyers (he didn't mention flag and general officers in the Pentagon, but they use it too). He indicated that it could well be that ole Bobbie typed the thing up in his lawyer's office, and had it vetted six ways to Sunday!

Wonder if he can be charged with a crime now... withholding evidence maybe. He didn't care about his source, he cared more about not having to go to jail. Probably is coming clean now because Fritz-mas is getting info about him. That chicken shit. I used to admire him, but he is toast now.

If an officer of the court never asked him about it, then he wasn't obstructing anything.

Impeding a case, maybe?

:: sakabatou doesn't know about law, so forgive him ::

"Bad boy Bob Woodward...straight to bed, no desert.

You're grounded too...no sleep overs and you can't use the car."

a brain knows outing a CIA op is wrong, treasonous, and illegal. He should have RUN to Fitz to give the information.

Seems Woodie got the unparalled gov. access as long as he kept quiet about illegal activities he was privy to.

<snip>
"The abrupt revelation that Woodward has been sitting on information about the Plame controversy has reignited questions about his unique relationship with The Post while writing books with unparalleled access to high-level officials, and about why Woodward minimized the importance of the Fitzgerald probe in television and radio interviews while hiding his own involvement in the matter."

This is the Larry King transcript from Oct. 27, 2005 (Day before indictment released)

Micheal Isikoff:"I talked to a source at the White House late this afternoon who told me that Bob is going to have a bombshell in tomorrow's paper identifying the Mr. X source who is behind the whole thing. So, I don't know, maybe this is Bob's opportunity.

"KING: Come clean.

"WOODWARD: I wish I did have a bombshell. I don't even have a firecracker. I'm sorry. In fact, I mean this tells you something about the atmosphere here. I got a call from somebody in the CIA saying he got a call from the best 'New York Times' reporter on this saying exactly that I supposedly had a bombshell. . . .
"Finally, this went around that I was going to do it tonight or in the paper. Finally, Len Downie, who is the editor of the 'Washington Post' called me and said, 'I hear you have a bombshell. Would you let me in on it.'

"KING: So now the rumors are about you.

"WOODWARD: And I said I'm sorry to disappoint you but I don't."

But he did have a bombshell, the whole time, and he blatently lied to Larry King, the viewing public, and apparantly even his own editor. This goes beyond "not mentioning" something; this is deliberately misleading people.

of war... How irresponsible!!! He truly goes down in history as
a man in love with himself!!!

Operation Chaos and Operation Mockingbird both using domestic ops were shown to be outrageous examples of abuse of intelligence agencies.

If Woodward is a part of a current intelligence media-influence project, then Fitzgerald -- if he dares to investigate this-- will be able to reach into the White House, especially the Cheney Energy Task Force FOIA fiasco, and uncover greater threats to democracy than merely conspiracy to provide pretext for war.


see:

Domestic Surveillance:
The History of Operation CHAOS
by Verne Lyon
from Covert Action Information Bulletin, Summer 1990
(Verne Lyon is a former CIA undercover operative
who is now a director of the Des Moines Hispanic Ministry)

http://www.serendipity.li/cia/lyon.html

REALLY?! That wouldn't be my first priority, but that's just me. I guess for those who've sold their soul to the devil, values get really screwed up.

"Woodward, who has had lengthy interviews with President Bush for his last two books, dismissed criticism that he has grown too close to White House officials. He said he prods them into providing a fuller picture of the administration's workings because of the time he devotes to the books.

"The net to readers," Woodward said, "is a voluminous amount of quality, balanced information that explains the hardest target in Washington," the Bush administration."

Think much of yourself, Bob? My advice to you is to 'get over yourself', everyone else has.

Scooters lawyer said this vindicates Libby because it shows Libby was not the 1st to out Plame.

I don't see how this effects Scooter though. He is charged with perjury and obstruction is he not? I don't see how this works out for him.

Sounds like a ploy to me to show Plame was a known agent all along, or thats how it trying to be spun.

*edit to clarify

And what IF your sources are "just" a few War Criminals who not only conspired to commit a crime of TREASON, but also would be responsible for the unnecessary death of tens of thousands human beings who never did anything wrong to deserve being sent to their deaths because Big Oil executives never can't get enough BILLIONS to HIDE away from the IRS??

Would that make YOU an... ACCOMPLICE?? :grr:

Troubles "finding" some sleep at night, huh? :banghead:

So, now we have Andy Card named, and it still looks like Woodward's other source is most likely Cheney/*, with Bolton/Hadley still lurking about.

It's getting mighty interesting now.

vengeance... retribution..grudges. He's ALWAYS done this, only now he has henchmen to do the actual dirty work. This was all cooked up well in advance of the actual leaking.. They probably all met in Crawford or CD to plan the attack on Wilson after he dared to challenge their war plans.. there were "Brazillions" of bucks at stake with this war.. they could not have it delayed..No matter what!

I was livid when I first heard about Novak's outing of Plame but I guess Woodie didn't catch it.
<snip>
'Woodward said the unnamed official told him about Plame "in an offhand, casual manner . . . almost gossip" and that "I didn't attach any great significance to it." '

get Kerry elected if you did. Your actions speak louder than your words.

Go find a rock and crawl under it...and take Judy Miller with you.

NYTimes + WaPost = Operation Mockingbird

When he involved himself in the story by dismissing the Valerie Wilson story as no big deal, he made his stand. Now the world knows that he was hiding something very big, something even his bosses didn't know.

Woodward should be asked if he'd like some salt and pepper with that giant serving of CROW he was just handed.

that "protecting the source is job 1)..:puke:

Issues of national security SHOULD take precedence..

Up until recently I considered Woodward a top journalist. He is now in the same category as Judy Miller.

he's worthless to me now. what a piece of work.

bob worthless CHEATED US out of an election... we could have had KERRY but we got bushco again, and we are so screwed... bob made the news today, not by reporting it, but by BEING IT. he's a FUCKING TRAITOR.

Forever having his good name associated with this scumbag.

Bernstein had a couple of big, BAD things to live down--first, his horrific marriage to Nora Ephron. He treated her like absolute SHIT. He WAS a shit. Jack Nicholson played HIM in the movie "HEARTBURN." Rent it if you have not seen it. That's Bernstein, names changed to protect the guilty. Meryl Streep is Nora. Everyone who knew them as a couple says it is all too sickeningly true. And then, there's his slovenly, greedy nature--he is a cadger of sorts.

Now, what will happen with Carl, is that he will not be remembered as the guy who was the ugly sidekick on the Watergate story, who was a shit to his wife and kids, the guy who eats ALL THE DONUTS in the green room at a morning show, or all the sammiches at an evening show...he'll end up being the guy WHO HAD THE MOST JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY of the two of them.

He has got to be THRILLED. His peccadillos were purely personal. He has always followed the straight and narrow in his journalistic life! He must be doing the happy dance right about now....

just keeps getting lower and lower.

all along. Watergate was a long time ago. Ever since then Woodward has been sucking up to the RWing in power. Maybe he has been part of the ultra RW faction of the CIA ever since he got out of the Navy Intell job he had?

Bob Woodward, like Judith Miller, was a very outspoken supporter of the Bush White House during the year-long build up to the War in Iraq. His televised commentaries were derisive of then candidate Howard Dean and all who dared question the march to war.

Bob Woodward should be put under the microscope now just as Miller was. Why? Because he was personally invested in making Bush's war, helped spread the lies that the White House fed him, and worst of all, he misled his own publisher the very same way that Judy Miller did!

He is now exposed for the whore he has long been, isn't he?

And don't forget that Woodward helped give Bush the pass with the now-challenged assertation that Tenet told Bush that the WMD intelligence was a "slam dunk".

The blood of the dead Iraqi children is on Bob Woodward's hands and will stain his sould forever.