Echoing a common sentiment, Senator John Kerry recently called Bob Woodward a "reputable writer":

"Here we have a book by a reputable writer," Mr. Kerry told several thousand students at the afternoon campus rally.

What does Kerry mean by "reputable"? Might he really mean "reliable"? Woodward is consistently reliable where it comes to serving up perfectly timed meals for the Democratic machine to eat. But is his journalism reliable?

Here's Neal Boortz's reaction:

The problem is that, with the exception of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, none of those quotes are attributed. In other words ... you make a choice on whether to believe Bob Woodward, or not to believe him.

Boortz is right that you have to make a choice whether to believe Woodward or not. What follows might assist readers in making that choice.

There's been a great deal of speculation -- including some fascinating chatter in the blogosphere -- about whether Bob Woodward worked for the CIA before Watergate. I recently read a remarkable indictment of Woodward in a book called "Deep Truth". The author -- a reputable and prodigious investigator -- concludes that he probably did work for the CIA.

OK. I know that "probably" isn't enough to prove anything.

But if you even allow for the possibility that it might be true, then all Watergate roads lead to the same place. The mere possibility of Watergate as a CIA coup would do much to explain the obstinate refusal of anyone in power to even think of taking another look at it. Bear in mind that I am not asserting Watergate was a CIA coup, first because I cannot know for certain, and second because I think it's more likely to have been something more along the lines a "coup" by omission rather than commission. A cover-your-ass-and-let-the-chips-fall sort of thing.

Because, to make this as simple as possible, if burglars loyal to the CIA (but now working for Nixon) stumbled onto a CIA "sexpionage" connected operation, there'd be conflicting loyalties. And if John Dean was trapped in such a ring, to save his own skin from prison he'd have a vested interest in keeping it secret any way he could. The CIA, being unhappy with Nixon in the first place, would only have needed to remain silent about the "sexpionage." Note that even after the CIA refused to tell the FBI to cover things up, DCI Richard Helms said in a memo that "we still adhere to the request that they [the FBI] confine themselves to the personalities already arrested or directly under suspicion and that they desist from expanding this investigation into other areas which may well, eventually, run afoul of our operations." (Powers, at 263.) Might the FBI, by suppressing the key to Ida Wells' desk and other evidence, have done just that?

By the way, I have no moral or ethical problems with the use of "sexpionage" to obtain information about one's enemies in war. But sexual morality was a much bigger deal when Nixon was president, and the CIA would have done anything to guard the secrecy of such operations.

Of course, whether Woodward was (or is) working for the CIA is something I certainly can't settle in a blog post. (Others can speculate about precisely why Woodward might be acting like a PR man for CIA Director Tenet.)

But it is fair in a blog post to look at his journalism, which strikes me as highly questionable.

A good place to start is with Woodward's own Jayson Blair affair, because that happened in 1981, before blogging existed. And Woodward, Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor at the time, was to Janet Cooke as Howell Raines was to Blair.

Janet Cooke was hired based on a phony resume (never checked by Woodward or anyone else), which recited that she'd graduated from Vassar magna cum laude, held a master's degree from the University of Toledo, and had worked for the Washington Blade for more than two years. (All false.)

In 1980, Cooke wrote "Jimmy's World" -- a fictitious story about an 8-year old heroin addict, which was run on the front page of the Post. Entered by Woodward for a Pulitzer Prize, it was rammed through by the head of the Pulitzer board despite objections that the feature committee (which had spent weeks reviewing 160 stories) had not even reviewed it. Moreover (according to committee chair Judith Crist) the judging process wanted to avoid "anything dealing with anonymous people, composite characters." (Havill, at 146.)

Another Pulitizer judge, Oakland Tribune editor Bob Maynard, stated:

I find it frustrating and dismaying that five very busy editors spent three days reviewing one hundred and sixty four submissions only to have the feature-story award given to a submission the jury never reviewed. (Havill, 148.)

Because of the heavy hand of board chair (and former Post editor -- some "coincidence") Roger Wilkens, Cooke got the prize she'd never have gotten even had her report been legitimate, and then things began to unravel. The Washington DC City government was in an uproar; people wanted to find and help the child. Detailed questions were finally asked. There was no child; she'd made it all up. (Id.)

Woodward was asked about this recently, and his answer doesn't speak well for his standards of journalistic integrity, nor for ordinary human standards of kindness and compassion:

Campbell brought up the recent Jayson Blair scandal at the New York Times and noted that something similar happened to Janet Cooke, who filed a fictitious story at the Washington Post in 1981. Both writers blamed their fabrications on editors who pushed them to produce news, and Woodward was one of Cooke’s editors at the time.

Woodward admitted that there was, of course, pressure on Cooke to get a story, but he confessed his feeling that the entire incident was more of a moral failure on both of their parts.

“I was only concerned about the story, and not about the boy,” Woodward said of Cooke’s article, which portrayed an eight-year-old boy who was turned into a heroin addict by his mother and her boyfriend.

“I should have asked, ‘Where is this kid? We’ll get the police and a doctor over there, we’ll save him, and then we’ll write the story.’ But I didn’t observe my responsibility as a human being, which would have taken care of the journalistic problem,” said Woodward.

It’s good to be stung every now and then.

His final remark:

"They get the power, then they think they’re unassailable,” Woodward speculated. “They feel they’re not subject to outside scrutiny. But everyone is, and so the best policy is to get out the truth.” Again, he referenced the “disease of denial,” stating that the refusal to accept reality creates a cover-up that is worse than that which is being concealed.

Linda Pease asks similar questions and many more (including questions about Woodward's imaginary conversations with the dying William Casey):

Given his role in the Watergate cover-up, and the misrepresentations in his own work, it remains to us a huge mystery why this man is treated with the reverence he is. Considering his behavior, his background, his credibility, and his connections, we now feel compelled to join Adrian Havill in asking who is Bob Woodward? Whom does he serve? Is his career sustained for the purposes of those with a "secret agenda"?

Because of Havill's persistence and the previous reporting of other Woodstein debunkers -- especially Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin in Silent Coup and Jim Hougan in Secret Agenda (see CJR, November/December, 1991) -- I'm prepared to judge Woodward and Bernstein guilty on some counts until proven innocent. They have played the anonymous sourcing game too long, with consequences for history too serious to tolerate.

Speaking of his own, usually unsourced, revelations, Woodward has said that readers take his word because they can distinguish "between chicken salad and chicken shit." So now that Havill has served up chicken salad, and pretty well-sourced at that, what is Woodward's response?

For some historical perspective, of course, there's always the very late Walter Duranty, another Pulitzer Prize winner who (for obvious reasons) is worse than Janet Cooke or Jayson Blair.

Speaking of the dead, Woodward's interview with the dying CIA director William Casey goes down as an all-time journalistic triumph. Why, it even made the cynically left-wing Christopher Hitchens jealous:

Had I come into Kaiser's office and claimed to have conducted a deathbed interview with William Casey, in which the old brute implicitly confirmed everything I had written by uttering the cryptic words, "I believed," I would have been brusquely (and deservedly) told to take my custom elsewhere. But that's the thing about being a gatekeeper. You are Janus, and just as you can kill a story that meets the ordinary test of "objectivity," so you can also print one that flagrantly flouts that standard. Did I say I wasn't jealous or resentful? Perhaps I lied a little. Who would not wish to have such freedom?

Well, in Woodward's defense it should be noted that at least Deep Throat was not in a coma; he was (at least according to Edward Jay Epstein) IMAGINARY.

And also in Woodward's defense, maybe I should concede that his questionable journalism really doesn't rise to the Duranty level, because nobody was killed.

Hmmmmmmm.................

(Nobody, that is, unless you count Cambodia, Vietnam, and American promises broken after Watergate.)

UPDATE: YET ANOTHER REPORTING SCANDAL, this one involving USA Today:

USA TODAY Editor Karen Jurgensen resigned Tuesday, one month after former USA TODAY reporter Jack Kelley was found to have fabricated numerous stories and lifted material from other publications over many years.

In a six-paragraph memo to staffers, Publisher Craig Moon said Jurgensen's "retirement opens the door to move the USA TODAY brand forward under new leadership. A search for a new editor is underway. We will fill the position as soon as possible."

A panel of USA TODAY reporters investigating Kelley's work over the years reported on March 19 that Kelley, a foreign correspondent, fabricated substantial portions of at least eight major stories, lifted nearly two dozen quotes or other material from competing publications and conspired to mislead those investigating his work. Kelley, 43, resigned in January. (Related item: Story on Kelley fabrications)

The memo included a statement from Jurgensen. "Like all of us who worked with Jack Kelley, I wish we had caught him far sooner than we did," said Jurgensen, 55, who has been USA TODAY's editor since 1999.

"The sad lessons learned by all in this dreadful situation will make USA TODAY a stronger, better newspaper," she said.

Sooner or later I hope it will become known that Watergate was truly the worst of all modern journalism scandals. I say "worst" because the foundations of modern investigative journalism are built upon a "story" that in reality is an ongoing coverup.

The saddest lessons are the ones that can't be learned.

UPDATE: Daniel Drezner (via Glenn Reynolds) reflects on why he hasn't reviewed Woodward's new book: he hasn't had the time, and books are expensive. This, I am sure, at least partially explains why it hasn't received as much attention as it might from the Blogosphere. Fisking a book is a tall order, especially a book cranked out by such a noted teller of tall tales as Woodward. And of course, it's based on his usual unsourced sources.

This gets back to what Neal Boortz said about unverifiable sources: "you make a choice on whether to believe Bob Woodward, or not to believe him." I suspect that many of the people who are familiar with Woodward are not inclined to believe him -- and therefore disinclined to read him. (Or pay him.)

And just what is this book to be called, anyway? Journalism? History? These things are normally thought of as verifiable, checkable, citable. By being asked to take Woodward at his word, we are presented with more of an argument to authority, formally called Argumentum ad verecundiam. (More here.)

At the risk of sounding old-fashioned, I think that authority has to be earned.

EVEN MORE: The USA Today scandal claims two more victims:

A second top editor stepped down from USA Today on Thursday as the fallout from a fraud scandal involving a former star reporter spread. A third told staffers he would be departing soon.

Hal Ritter, the newspaper's managing editor of news, submitted his resignation to publisher Craig Moon on Thursday. He had been in his current role since 1995 and had worked at the paper since it was founded in 1982.

Ritter's departure came on the same day that the newspaper revealed the final conclusions of a wide-ranging investigation into the work of former star reporter Jack Kelley. The newspaper's top editor, Karen Jurgensen, retired abruptly in the wake of the scandal on Tuesday.

.....The review found that Kelley committed many acts of fraudulent reporting for more than a decade, including fabricating parts of at least 20 stories and stealing at least 100 passages from other news organizations. (via Drudge.)

Time for another yawn, I guess.

MORE, ON "PLAN OF ATTACK": Cliff May reviews Bob Woodward's book here, and argues that those who are using the book as an argument against Bush are only seeing what they want to see: For example, regarding the WMD debate, the book shows a very different George W. Bush than the one commonly portrayed:

Bush was deeply skeptical about the CIA's conclusions regarding Iraqi WMD - even after he was presented with a "Top Secret" document starkly warning: "Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons."

What changed the president's mind? Woodward vividly describes a meeting in the Oval Office in which George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, responded to Bush's doubts by rising up from his seat and throwing his arms in the air. "It's a slam-dunk case!" he said.

Even that didn't quite persuade Bush. He pressed further, asking Tenet: "George, how confident are you?" At which point, the nation's top spy - a nonideological nonpartisan who held the same job in the Clinton administration - "threw his arms up again. 'Don't worry, it's a slam dunk!' he repeated."

Imagine if - instead of heeding this warning - Bush had ignored it, put on his sweat suit and gone for a jog around the White House. Imagine if a terrorist attack, utilizing WMD supplied by Saddam Hussein, had followed. Bush would have faced impeachment - and deservedly so.

But the president didn't do that. Instead - according to Woodward's reporting - he instructed his CIA chief to assemble the evidence on WMD, adding cautiously: "Make sure no one stretches to make our case."

Because of Bob Woodward's history of making stuff up, I'd rather not be forced to take this new book any more seriously than I'd take a work of fiction. And while it's interesting to read that "Plan of Attack" contains ammo for both sides, I wouldn't want to rely on that ammo for anything more than a misfire.

But I suppose partisans might as well feel free to take they like, and leave the rest.