The Political Chase

Huffington on Woodward

Arianna is in a huff over Bob Woodward’s appearance on Larry King’s show Monday night.

Bob Woodward’s patronizing haughtiness was everywhere last night on Larry King. I haven’t been talked down to that much since I was introduced to Shaquille O’Neal. I get it now: we all just don’t get it. The heroic Woodward wasn’t trying to hide anything or maintain his access, he was just too busy doing “incredibly aggressive reporting” on “immense questions” about Iraq to be distracted by “a casual, off-hand remark” that, even on the eve of the Libby indictment, as Plamegate threatened to paralyze the White House, didn’t strike the legendary reporter as even “a firecracker” of a story.

I agree with Arianna to an extent…It’s rather hard to rip someone up, when you don’t have all the facts. Very few people know the facts. That doesn’t mean we sit around like a lap dog waiting for the facts to come in either.

I think Arianna needs to lighten up a bit on this:

Woodward’s performance was, to borrow a phrase, “laughable” — particularly the way he kept tossing in references to Watergate, strapping on those glory days like a protective armor. Over the course of “the full hour,” he mentioned Watergate four times, Ben Bradlee three times, Deep Throat twice, Carl Bernstein twice, and Richard Nixon and Katharine Graham once each. Memo to Bob: we get this, too. Your reporting once brought down a president. But that only makes your “journalistic sins” on Plamegate all the more appalling and disappointing.

I watched the interview and there is a bit of hyperbole in Arianna’s critique. Second, and more importantly, referring to Watergate is appropriate simply because we really do not have any real precedent to serve as a reference. If we don’t draw on historical experience, then we’re a bit lost. Trying to argue against that is like saying you know everything as a teenager. There have been other scandals, but using them as a gold standard would be pure stupidity.

And, as for this, Arianna has just gone too far.

I also found it really interesting that King’s interview with Woodward, like his recent interview with Judy Miller, was pre-taped — making it impossible for either of them to have to interact directly with the public and deal with viewer calls and questions. Could it really be a coincidence that these two star reporters both took no viewer calls on a show famous for them?

If King is not a strong interviewer, then don’t watch the show. Who is responsible for and will most likely ask the tough questions, the redneck from Norwich, CT or KIng? How many Sunday news magazine shows are taped?

And, this could have been left out completely.

Which raised the question: who had the scheduling conflict, Woodward or King? I doubted it was Larry’s since I had been at the party at the Mondrian Hotel’s Skybar to celebrate the release of his wife Shawn’s new CD, “In My Own Backyard”.

Okay, everyone knows now that Arianna was being a social butterfly; pinky raised appropriately. This is not a salient point.

Arianna does great reporting and is a ball of fire, but a little more objectiveness and little less “see my party invitation” would have been a better approach.