What a disappointment

I refer, of course, to Bob Woodward. Arianna Huffington expresses my sentiments perfectly in an article entitled, "Bob Woodward: From Watergate hero to Plamegate goat":

Bob Woodward. What a career arc. From exposing a presidential cover-up in Watergate to covering up his role in Plamegate. And being forced to apologize to his own paper.

And asking a colleague, Walter Pincus, not to mention Woodward's role in the story. And failing to tell his editor that he had vital information about a major story.And, to bottom it out, doing the TV and radio rounds, minimizing the scandal as "laughable," "an accident", "nothing to it" and denigrating Fitzgerald as "disgraceful" and "a
junkyard dog" without ever once divulging that he was not just an observer of the CIA leak case but a recipient -- perhaps the first -- of the leak.

Hear that hissing noise? That's the sound of the air being let out of Woodward's reputation. Especially now that he's decided to challenge Pincus to a round of credibility one-on-one. My money's on Pincus, who was appropriately skeptical
about the administration's WMD claims while Woodward was writing hagiography about the brave president and his fearless aides.
...
I called Carl Bernstein to ask what he thought of his old partner's behavior. He was loyal as ever but he did say something very revealing -- and unintentionally damning. "This investigation," he told me, "has cast a constant searchlight that the White House can't turn off the way it has succeeded in turning off the press. So their methodology and their dishonesty and their disingenuousness -- particularly about how we went to war -- as well as their willingness to attack and rough up people who don't agree with them are now there for all to see. They can't turn off this searchlight, which is shining on a White House that runs a media apparatus so sophisticated in discrediting its critics it makes the Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Ziegler press shop look like a small-time operation." And these are the very thugs that Woodward was protecting while attacking the guy operating the searchlight.

What we need is a courageous reporter like the young Bob Woodward. Sad what has happened to the Bob Woodward we have.