Wow. . . Woodward? And, another journalist joins the fray. Bob Woodward revealed his role in the special prosecutor’s grand jury hearing today, telling the public what he said, why he decided to speak up and why he kept his information secret for all this time. But, he remained loyal to his source and withheld (from the public anyway) the one most important morsel of information he testified to: the person who first mentioned the name “Valerie Plame†and her role as a CIA analyst.
A Washington Post ran an AP artile today by Toni Locy and Pete Yost titled “Woodward Claim on CIA Leak Disputes Charge.†It begins:
WASHINGTON -- Bob Woodward's version of when and where he learned the identity of a CIA operative contradicts a special prosecutor's contention that Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide was the first to make the disclosure to reporters.
Who was it? He doesn’t tell us, but he did tell them.
He apologized today for withholding the information for so long, and here’s his explanation:
When Woodward learned Plame's name, he told The Associated Press Wednesday, he was in the middle of finishing a book about the administration's decision to go to war in Iraq, and didn't want to be subpoenaed to testify.
"The grand jury was going and reporters were being jailed, and I hunkered down more than I usually do," Woodward said, explaining why he waited so long to tell Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. what he knew about the Plame matter.
I don’t agree that Woodward should have been made to testify, but if he was going to testify anyway, he should have done it earlier. The fact that spending some time in court would have been inconvenient shouldn’t have made him shirk his moral responsibility.
It will be interesting to see what happens now. Woodward apologized to the executive editor of the Post for not mentioning his involvement sooner, but can even Bob Woodward get away with a simple apology? Who knows?
willemmarx @ November 20, 2005 - 1:34pm
That seems another extraordinary example of Woodward showing hisunwillingness to stand in solidarity with fellow journalists, especially Walter Pincus of the Post. The fact that he was, "in the middle of finishing a book," seems rather selfish, given that it was pressure from a publisher that had presumably given him another large advance, which took precedent over his relationship with his executive editor.
Following on from Courtney's blog the other day, it does rather seem as if Woodward believes he can operate outside of the normal rules governing a journalist employed by a particular publication, due to concerns over his own career as a writer of White House-centred non-fiction.
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