[Mb-civic] MUST READ: The fall of Bob Woodward - James Carroll - Boston Globe Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

The fall of Bob Woodward

By James Carroll  |  November 21, 2005

AT WHAT point does naiveté become something to be ashamed of? The 
revelation last week that Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward abetted 
the Bush administration's program of lies and character assassination 
left you feeling as if you, too, have been a coconspirator in the 
sleaze. Not that you were under any illusion about the turn Woodward's 
career took when he became a justifying megaphone for ''Washington 
insiders." Nor is it a surprise to find the dean of investigative 
journalism acting like every other self-protecting member of the 
establishment, since journalism itself has become a pillar of the 
governing power structure. But Woodward represented something more than 
all of this, and his quite American fall from grace (''The bigger they 
come") presents a challenge to your conscience.

''Watergate" is the most familiar word in the political lexicon. It 
means two things at once, referring first to the American low point, 
when the White House became a den of law breakers. You remember that the 
crimes of the Nixon cabal were meant to shore up the walls of deceit 
behind which the war in Vietnam was being fought. Lies and unjustified 
violence defined the nation's soul. But Watergate also became code for 
the most dramatic reiteration of national redemption, when diligent 
truth-seekers brought to light the methods and purposes of Nixon's band. 
The myth of American goodness depends on the conviction that, when the 
truth is finally apparent, the nation will act upon it. Watergate was 
the morality tale that made it so, and Bob Woodward, with his partner 
Carl Bernstein, was the moral hero. It is not too much to say that 
Woodward rescued your ability to believe in your country again.

The free press is an absolute value not only because the unfettered flow 
of information is essential to the republican system, nor only because 
the fourth estate serves as a check on the power of the other three, but 
because public expression is necessary for the communal self-awareness 
that keeps the body politic alive. You routinely turn to the newspaper 
each morning not only to learn what happened, but to stroke the 
otherwise intangible bond you share with the neighbors and strangers in 
whose company you will spend the day. Reading the morning paper is like 
tagging up, a literal ''touching wood," a dispelling of the darkness of 
night, all done in the knowledge that everyone else is doing the same 
thing, which gives you not only a place to start the day from, but a 
reassurance that you are not alone in your concern for the common good. 
The news media do for democracy what liturgy does for religion; what 
poetry does for experience; what gesture does for feeling. With words 
out of silence, the press tells you who you are.

And why shouldn't you be disturbed by Woodward's fall? As Watergate was 
about the war in Vietnam, so the Valerie Plame affair is about the war 
in Iraq. Woodward turns out to have been just another embedded reporter, 
doing the war-work of the Bush administration while pretending to be 
independent of it. But, speaking generally, the press has not been 
independent since the traumas of the autumn of 2001. Newsrooms were 
themselves targeted by the anthrax killer, and the fear that paralyzed 
the nation was felt as much by reporters as by anyone.

So also that season's grief. Like frightened and heart-sick scribes 
looking to Marines to protect them on the battlefield, and therefore 
unable to write critically about their protectors, the news media, with 
rare exceptions, simply embraced and passed along Bush's purposes and 
justifications, not matter how palpably dishonest. Judith Miller was the 
public captain of this enterprise, but Woodward was her secret 
co-captain. This time, he was his own Deep Throat.

Your naiveté consisted in the belief that, after Vietnam, your nation 
would never again embark on a criminal and unnecessary war. After a 
popular movement, inspired by tribunes of the free press, stopped the 
Vietnam War, you believed that the government would be responsive to the 
will of the people, forgetting that the people can surrender that will.

The finger-pointing in Washington now -- who voted for what, when and 
why -- is truly pointless. The merest glance back at the prewar debates 
shows that the justifications for war were all made of tissue. If the 
press treated them as substantial, that is because the nation itself, 
which still includes you, needed the tissue to cover its shame. The 
tissue of lies is yours.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/11/21/the_fall_of_bob_woodward/
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