Washington Post-er Child for Hypocrisy

The Post has been lauded for decades, for its' expose on the Nixon administration, by the venerable Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.



What a difference a few decades can make. Now the same paper is discovered by others, selling access to another American presidential administration, through it's own staff.
It does not matter that they retracted the offer in light of criticism. What matters is, they did it in the first place, without even noticing how wrong it was.

The Post, Woodward and Bernstein spent those decades, until 2005, protecting the identity of their source, Deep Throat. Now, the paper is warmly embracing an administration, which is openly punishing and firing whistle blowers for exposing government corruption. This shameful pirouette, reversing any credible stand on ethics in journalism, is just another new outrage, in a string of new outrages.

We are all watching in horror, as the media re-shapes itself, through its staffing, into an Orwellian Ministry of Truth, serving this new celebrity dictator president. I have no idea what Woodward and Bernstein's feelings on the president and the Post are. All I know, is during these first horrendous first few months, their employer from the Nixon years, is becoming just another unctuous media adulation pariah.

This whole trend is turning the collective stomach of America. Let's look at some harvested quotes from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

Certain political figures think when you call them and ask them for a comment; that you are somehow doing something that you shouldn't be doing.
- Bob Woodward

Now we feel that way about the media too.

The lowest form of popular culture -- lack of information, misinformation, disinformation, and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people's lives -- has overrun real journalism. Today, ordinary Americans are being stuffed with garbage.
- Carl Bernstein, ""Guardian" (London)", June 3, 1992

I certainly agree with Carl on that one. I wonder if the Guardian is just another one of those big smelly garbage trucks, now delivering American garbage to Europe?

I believe Watergate shows that the system did work. Particularly the Judiciary and the Congress, and ultimately an independent prosecutor working in the Executive Branch.
- Bob Woodward

Now that the 'system' knows what worked in the Watergate scandal, it is making every possible effort, in heaven and on earth, to make damn sure that is not allowed to happen to the Obama administration.

We are in the process of creating what deserves to be called the idiot culture. Not an idiot sub-culture, which every society has bubbling beneath the surface and which can provide harmless fun; but the culture itself. For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norm, even our cultural ideal.
- Carl Bernstein

This presidency is proving that that process is near completion, with a nauseating success record.

I don't think there will ever be a permanent truce, but I believe the media needs to be more careful and be willing to count to 10 before rushing on the air or into print.
- Bob Woodward

The greatest felony in the news business today is to be behind, or to miss a big story. So speed and quantity substitute for thoroughness and quality, for accuracy and context.
- Carl Bernstein, In "Guardian," (London), June 3, 1992

Unfortunately Bob and Carl, this has proven to be unprofitable. Rushing to the air and print, ensures that damaging, unpopular junk science and junk economics can be squeezed into our sausage casing, before anybody has a chance to complain about that funky smell.

I suspect there have been a number of conspiracies that never were described or leaked out. But I suspect none of the magnitude and sweep of Watergate.
- Bob Woodward

How many conspiracies, exceeding all Watergate dreams, have been either stifled by choice, or leaked and ignored by this current race baiting executive, his media counterparts and his activists in the judiciary? Acorn, AIG, census taking, voter fraud, Wall Street, et cetera, cetera, cetera....

Increasingly, the picture of our society as rendered in our media is illusionary and delusionary: disfigured, unreal, out of touch with reality, disconnected from the true context of our life. It is disfigured by celebrity, by celebrity worship, by gossip, by sensationalism, by denial of our societies real condition and a political and social discourse that we the press, the media, the politician and the people are turning into a sewer.
- Carl Bernstein

Spoken like a true conservative, Carl. Maybe you should guest host on the Limbaugh radio show?

I'm not going to name some of my colleagues who are very well-known for their television presentation, but they wouldn't know new information or how to report a story if it came up and bit them.
- Bob Woodward

I can name a few: Keith Olbermann, Chris Mathews, Katie Couric, Anderson Cooper, Bill Moyers, John Stewart.......

If information is true, if it can be verified, and if it's really important, the newspaper needs to be willing to take the risk associated with using unidentified sources.
- Bob Woodward

Unfortunately Bob, the papers have been way too willing to use unidentified sources, provided by the likes of the Huffington Post and daily Chaos. The data is untrue and thus, cannot be verified. But what does that matter, nowadays?

Lawyers didn't seriously get involved in the Watergate stories until quite late, when we realized we were on to something.
- Bob Woodward

Now we have the opposite and more dire situation. Lawyers are getting seriously involved, very early in the process. Of course these lawyers are working for the administration and his party. Of course, these lawyers are engaged in the process of destroying rivals, like the former VP candidate, Sarah Palin.

Many people have their reputations as reporters and analysts because they are on television, batting around conventional wisdom. A lot of these people have never reported a story.
Bob Woodward

I swear to never call myself a reporter or analyst. I am a blogger who analyzes what I see, for the sake of my own civics education. However, if I were an insufferable left wing ideologue, people on TV and in the government would rush to call me a reporter and an analyst.

Newspapers that are truly independent, like The Washington Post, can still aggressively investigate anyone or anything with no holds barred.
Bob Woodward

How do you feel about the Post's independence today, Bob? Yes, today, as of this writing, knowing what we all know?

Nixon's attempts to order subversion of various departments was bound to come out in some form.

- Bob Woodward

Almost ALL of Barack Obama's orders subverting departments have come out in some form. The problem is, nobody in the media is willing to pick up the ball and run with it.

Nixon's grand mistake was his failure to understand that Americans are forgiving, and if he had admitted error early and apologized to the country, he would have escaped.
- Bob Woodward

Looking at today's situation, I would say Nixon's big mistake was in actually admitting any wrongdoing whatsoever. He should have boldly lied about, denied it outright and found some way to have his political minions destroy the both of you. That's the right way. The Chicago civil activist way.

Not a season passes without new disclosures showing Nixon's numerous attempts at criminal use of his presidential powers and in fact the scorn he held for the rule of law.
Bob Woodward

Now, nary an hour passes, during a normal business day, where Obama is not writing some criminally unconstitutional executive order, or appointing a mentally deranged sycophant or toady to a critical position, holding authority over the rest of us.

I hope to God that Bob and Carl are happy with Washington and all the comissars serving them in the Obama administration.

Meanwhile, the rest of us will plan on adding the word hypocrisy to the same list of tired, overused words and phrases occupied by like, excellent, cool and yuh-know.