Disclosure: close family members have been employed by the SCLM in the capacity of reporters and columnists.

That said, it’s true I have no sense of humor. So it took me a few minutes to appreciate this piece from Atrios, on the “new Woodward:”

Nice to see some Murray Waas get some kudos, but it's long overdue. Waas, Lyons, Conason, and Lars-Erik Nelson (deceased, sadly) were about the only people who bothered to really look into what was going on in the 90s. Tasty treats from Starr's OIC and punditry by Ann Coulter were all the rage then.

Not much has changed.

Indeed, “not much” at all. I’m coming to understand that more and more, hoss. Still, the dream was nice while it lasted.

Anyway, the 90s are behind us by several agonizing years, and I didn’t have very many warm fuzzies while reading the piece to which he links. Until the end. I guess I’m too hateful, angry, or something to fully appreciate the tone and language of Rosen’s tome. Help me out here, perhaps I’m overreacting. Rosen writes:

By Woodward Now I mean the reporter who is actually doing what Woodward has a reputation for doing: finding, tracking, breaking into reportable parts--and then publishing--the biggest story in town. He's also putting those parts together for us.

What do you think “the biggest” story in town is? My boring, overly rational mind starts droning on about definitions and terms and applicable parties, but I don’t think it’s unfair to point out the uselessness of such reductive or didactic language.

I honestly can’t make up my mind about what motivates, depresses, angers or provokes me more these days. There’s just so much from which I can choose! The war, treason in the WH, the destruction of representative democracy and fair elections...the list goes on and on. Perhaps Mr. Rosen is trying to teach me: the “biggest” story in “town” for many of today’s top writers will always be about reporters.

Rosen clarifies his argument in the next paragraph:

The Biggest Story in Town (almost a term of art in political Washington) is the one that would cause the biggest earthquake if the facts sealed inside it started coming out now. Today the biggest story in town is what really went down as the Bush team drove deceptively to war, and later tried to conceal how bad the deception--and decision-making--had been.

“If the facts started coming out now?” Going Zen: isn’t all time past, present and future “now?” If so, I can understand Rosen’s claim. But I don’t think most people have a fully Zen consciousness, and believe that there’s an important difference between today and June 8, 2003. Around that time, I was reading the work of many, mostly on the internet and many for no pay or publication privileges, who made most of the claims that the SCLM is finally getting around to today. I can’t even remember for how long I’ve known about Plame, or that Bush &co have been lying about their involvement in the matter, or that there were no WMDs and the whole of the war was based on false assumptions and was being “planned” towards catastrophe. Or that Halliburton et al have been draining the treasury, or that huge quantities of tax dollars have been flushed through the gullets of Republican cronies everywhere. Etc.

What took the Beltway crowd so long to catch up? I mean, weren’t they sort of right there watching it happen?

Rosen continues:

We are still "in" that story today, as is the press, and so a lot rides on what comes out. (See my post, What if Bush Changed the Game on You?)
Not only is Woodward not in the hunt, but he is slowly turning into the hunted.

Excuse my vulgarity: no, you stupid motherfucker “we” aren’t “in the story today.” Our troops in Iraq are “in” the story today. Children in Iraq with no mothers or fathers thanks to American bombing are “in” the story today. Prisoners rotting without recourse in jails and torture centers around the world at the behest of our government are “in” the story today. If the fucking press corps would do its job, more Americans than just Internet readers would know what “the story” really is. Not only would they know, but they’d have known for a long time, possibly in time to have prevented say, a second Bush term. But they don’t. All the DC press corps bears a crushing responsibility for this, down to the lowliest mail boy, if such a thing still exists.

The time when the “news” was rife with good cocktail party topics like sex and earth tone sweaters is long, long past. Yet somehow, I feel like far too many DC journalists fail, utterly, to understand that.

And frankly, people talking about how Woodward is the story make me throw up in my mouth a little. After the hagiography that was his first Bush book, I totally wrote him off. Rosen is right to quote Waas: “access” journalism sucks a Big Blue Egg, and thinking people can see how little value much of that product really has.

I bitch all the time about how we’re wasting our efforts watching TV, talking about what fresh outrage Bobo and Tweety have wroth today, or reviewing the latest fellation exercise by syndicated pseudofascists in the major papers. I also froth at the mouth as I talk about why the Internet has forever changed the process by which people become informed, and of how the major outlets are dinosaurs munching away at swamp kelp while the comet falls. So you’re not surprised to hear that I get really, really angry reading about reporters reporting on reporters who aren’t really reporting while actual fucking news that affects us all is happening and not being covered.

Short version: Woodward’s a whore, has been for years, and people (especially other reporters!!!) should be able to perceive that easily.
Rosen cites Froomkin, who saves his ass:

Froomkin says the rest of the Washington press corps should wake up to what Waas is uncovering. "Waas's fellow reporters at major news operations should either acknowledge and try to follow up his stories -- or debunk them. It's not okay to just leave them hanging out there. They're too important." (See also eriposte at the Left Coaster on Waas putting the pieces together.)

Heeeelllloooo? Is this thing on? Yup, I’d call impending economic collapse, a never ending conflict in the Middle East, treason in the highest office “too important.” In fact, they’re important enough that I think it’s perfectly OK to be a little shrill. You know, like angry or something. Maybe I’m just not getting enough, but lately, parties and clubbing and whatnot can’t completely wipe away the sense of impending doom I feel as an American. I guess I should drink more, or try talking about shoes.

The final paragraphs in Rosen’s piece are everything you need to know about why this piece made me a little crazy:

And to close the circle, in Waas's latest ("Libby Says Bush Authorized Leaks") there is a juicy part about Woodward. It tells how badly Bush wanted his people to talk to the greatest reporter of his generation:

Other former senior government officials said that Bush directed people to assist Woodward in the book's preparation: "There were people on the Seventh Floor [of the CIA] who were told by Tenet to cooperate because the President wanted it done. There were calls to people to by [White House communication director] Dan Bartlett that the President wanted it done, if you were not co-operating. And sometimes the President himself told people that they should co-operate," said one former government official.

Why, exactly? We don't know. But we're going to know from Murray Waas much sooner than from Woodward, who was there but somehow missed it.

Bush wants some Wood, Rosen wants some Wood, we all want Wood! Or something. I’d really like to see a discussion, a thorough and well referenced discussion about why Bush wanted Woodward to know. I will, in time, and while I’m waiting for the “experts” to chime in, I’ve got plenty of pretty good writing here on the Internet. The Little People aren’t so stupid after all, and despite no invites to chi-chi restaurant backrooms or weekend jaunts in the Aspens, they can actually figure out for themselves what’s going on in the fair halls of power.

Simply: a lot of our money is changing hands, and not a little of it (or power, or ‘access’) is crossing the palms of today’s “most important” news manufacturers, to ensure their support in the criminal’s aims.

I use those words very deliberately, of course.

Anyway, Rosen in one of the good guys and he’s doing his part to tear down a myth that’s aided the criminals for too long. I’m disappointed that Sy Hersh (or Redd and Jane!) didn’t come up in this piece, but whatever- Rosen is being “critical” and that’s to be encouraged.

But I’m angry that a professor of journalism would be so enamored of celebrity, and so blinded by it that he’s not more angry than I am. His entire profession has been essentially discredited in the last decade or so, not only because of Woodward’s fall, but because too many people like Rosen sat on their hands and ignored the multitude of Waases that have been cranking away since Bush first came to power. I’m glad he’s giving Waas creds now, but still- horse, barn door, nuclear war in Iran and all that.

But then, I’m an angry radical with no sense of humor, so what do I know? Plus, I throw great parties and I don’t feel bad that I’ll never be invited to one of theirs. At least people talk about things that are interesting at my gigs.