By now, most people know the
story of Woodward and how he's been two-timing the Washington Post and his own credibility to get inside scoops for his books. He protects the crimes of the administration in the process. Writers at the WP complain but Downie still thinks he's still doing a heck of a job. Was it worth it?
Somewhere between Watergate and now, Woodward convinced himself that shoe-leather journalism doesn't exist. That a reporter is nothing but his sources. That good journalism is nothing but being the closest microhphone to the speaker. In that sense he's nothing different than James Guckert.
Consider the scoops he got from his "Plan of Attack" subservience:
The book made headlines with reports that Rumsfeld had given the Saudi ambassador a heads-up on the coming war, that then-CIA Director George Tenet had called the weapons intelligence a "slam dunk," and that then-Secretary of State Powell had warned Bush on Iraq that "you break it, you own it." Campaign aides to both Bush and John Kerry embraced the book, seizing on different aspects.
At the time, these seemed like shocking revelations, but now seem trivial. He could have spent his time better filing FOIA requests.
Right now I wouldn't doubt if BushCo intentionally told Woodward about Plame, not as a scoop or a leak, but as a way of keeping him in line. The kiss of death to make sure he's now one of them. Just like they did for Lieberman.
Let this be a warning: any journalist who surrenders their objectivity for a scoop is making a devil's bargain.