Woodward's Agitprop

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are, for good reason, considered among the most important investigative reporters in history. How many people get to take down a president? And legally? While Bernstein has settled into later life by moving further from the Washington spotlight (he lives with his third wife in New York), Woodward has made a conscious effort he stays in the headlines. He writes at least a book or two about each administration, covers major events like the war in detail and shows up on TV with some regularity. However, some have begun to question the integrity of a reporter who always seems to let his conservative bias leak into his articles and books. His latest, Obama's Wars, was critiqued by many for being clearly biased against Obama and inaccurate throughout (New Republic). 

Now Woodward is in the news again, based on his assertion that Obama has "moved the goalposts" on the sequestration debate by arguing for both budget cuts and increased revenue. Administration officials have answered back that this is an absurd claim. Last night it came out that Gene Sperling had sent an email to Woodward airing his disagreement with the Post Reporter and ending with the observation that in Sperling's view Woodward would come to regret clinging so tenaciously to an untenable position. Woodward claims to take this as a direct threat and is now spreading this absurd perspective around town.

So he will be on Sean Hannity, the voice of reason on the right (which obviously thus has no reason at all), tonight to make his case. Of course, we are one day away from sequestration leading to the passage of a number of troubling cuts that could very well send our economy back into recession. But a reporter who took down a president close to 40 years ago feeling slighted or aggrieved or, are we to believe scared, by an email from the National Director of the Economic Council is obviously more important than the future of the other 299,999,999 Americans. I mean, you would have to be a fool to not see that this is real, fair and balanced, news. 

While one could argue that it is just the latest example of the spectacle, clinging on to any story that might spark interest from a public that probably doesn't understand or care about sequestration (is that, like, a new water filter?), it seems much more likely that it is merely the latest lame attempt by the GOP to distract us from their complicity in sending the economy into a spiral merely to protect the interests of the few. The American public clearly wants a deal and they want those at the top of the economic ladder to pay more in taxes. But we have a Republican run Congress that cares less and less about the people, betting that they can keep their majority no matter what they do. And that doesn't sound much like democracy to me ...