Nora Ephron,ex-wife of Carl Bernstein, provided perhaps the best insights in helping us understand what is motivating Bob Woodard to be satisfied with being stenographer instead of an investigative reporter. I find it persuasive but she does not clearly indicate how cagy and conniving someone would have to be to know so much dirt and still weave it into a copacetic quilt. His lack of analysis is his greatest weakness and is seems to be the price of access.
Woodward is the new Teddy White, recalling the journalist who chronicled presidential campaigns and became so much of an insider he completely missed Watergate in 1972. The reporters who did expose Watergate, of course, were Woodward and Bernstein, she reminds us: "They were outsiders, and their lack of top-level access was probably their greatest asset."
Truth #1: He is not a liar.
But truth #2: "Bob has always had trouble seeing the forest for the trees. That's why people love to talk to him; he almost never puts the pieces together in a way that hurts his sources."
Truth #3: Bob is not like other reporters, and it's not surprising he did not tell his editor Leonard Downie about his Plame role: "Woodward spends most of his life reporting. He knows everything. What's more, he has no idea what it adds up to. How could he possibly keep anyone, much less his editor, in the loop? It would take hours and hours of debriefing every week, hours that would undoubtedly be better spent reporting on the after-the-fact thoughts of people in power who are trying to justify the mistakes they've made."
Truth #4: "If you don't talk to Woodward, you'll be sorry. I mention this not because it's precisely true (look at me), but because it's an operating truth in official Washington. What's more, it's the only explanation I can come up with for why Woodward was foolish enough to trash Fitzgerald's investigation; I suspect that Fitzgerald is the only powerful figure in Washington who does not pour his heart out to Woodward on a weekly basis, and Woodward was telling him that he'd better get on the train."
If #4 is true then Woodward bet very badly that Fitzgerald would play by the Washington playbook and ruined his own reputation.