Banter Voices

Bob Woodward: Hack Journalist Extraordinaire

By Ben Cohen · February 28,2013

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Glenn Greenwald caught this brilliant example of power-subservient journalism in Washington – a moment when one the country’s most celebrated reporters defines what it means to be a hack so perfectly that people like Glenn Greenwald only have to lay out the transcript to let it speak for itself. Here’s Woodward speaking on “Morning Joe”, blasting Obama for withholding a second aircraft carrier in the Gulf because the Pentagon is preparing for the sequestration that mandates spending cuts for all agencies, including the military budget:

“Can you imagine Ronald Reagan sitting there and saying ‘Oh, by the way, I can’t do this because of some budget document?’ Or George W Bush saying, ‘You know, I’m not going to invade Iraq because I can’t get the aircraft carriers I need’ or even Bill Clinton saying, ‘You know, I’m not going to attack Saddam Hussein’s intelligence headquarters,’ as he did when Clinton was president, because of some budget document.

“Under the Constitution, the president is commander-in-chief and employs the force. And so we now have the president going out because of this piece of paper and this agreement, I can’t do what I need to do to protect the country. That’s a kind of madness that I haven’t seen in a long time.”

As Greenwald points out, this was actually a law enacted by Congress and signed by Obama (ie. it’s legally binding). But not good enough for Woodward, who believes the President can override laws when it comes to military action and do as he pleases. Writes Greenwald:

How ironic that this comes from the reporter endlessly heralded for having brought down Richard Nixon’s presidency on the ground that Nixon believed himself above the law. Nixon’s hallmark proclamation - “When the President does it, that means it is not illegal” – is also apparently Bob Woodward’s.

The screed against Obama is silly for several reasons – one being the perpetuation of the myth that by only sending one aircraft carrier in the Gulf, the United States becomes vulnerable to attack from the big baddies in the Middle East. Given the US spends more money on its military that every country on the planet combined, claiming the President isn’t doing what he needs to do ‘to protect the country’ is simply laughable. The President could press a button in the White House and blow Iran off the face of the planet. It doesn’t need an aircraft carrier to defend itself.

But that’s not the point. It serves the interests of the Pentagon and the affiliated military industrial complex to continue this myth in order to maintain the status quo: A vastly bloated military and no spending accountability whatsoever. Everyone in Washington makes a lot of money, poor kids get education cuts, and Bob Woodward gets to write books for 50 year old white men who do Civil War enactments in their spare time.

Woodward has been well rewarded for switching off his integrity and serving the interests of power in Washington – he’s made a lot of money peddling books and showing up on TV to offer ‘inside analysis’ of the DC political scene. It’s sad to see someone who is supposed to hold power to account lining up behind it and arguing for its expansion, but that’s what money and fame does to people more concerned with being relevant than telling the truth.

Dennis

DA, here’s a very good example of why I call you a copypasta troll. You know nothing of this subject save for a very superficial knowledge of having read conspiracy theory garbage on liberal blogs about Romney’s finances, of which all those conspiracy theorists have all gone mute since the election. You’re very prolific with the methodology in which you enter a couple key words in the Google machine, then pick and choose an article from the list generated and copy and paste a quote from the article, or in many cases, you copy and paste the entire article. Then you present that as your rebuttal. In this case, you didn’t even go back to Ben’s article, because if you had, you’d realize that the article you just copied and pasted was the one he referenced in order to make the claim, the very definitive claim, in a headline no less, that MItt Romney was in fact ‘worth billions’. He did just what you did, he used that article to do nothing more than ask a question, just not the same one you did. And just like you, there’s been no follow-up, just questions.

Ben presented an argument though, DA, even if his headline wasn’t supported in the body. He didn’t just Google it, copy and paste it, then do nothing more than ask a question, like you did. You have all day and nothing else to do, though. There’s no excuse for what you did.
- The Dark Avenger
  
  I love it when you stamp your little feet, Dennis.
  
  Please, don’t let me stop you from your tee time, but take a few minutes to explain how someone who isn’t a billionaire has an IRA worth 100,000,000$.
  - Dennis
    
    14 minutes it took you to respond to this. 14 minutes. And 4 minutes yesterday morning, at 7:15 am my time, 4:15 am your time. Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re an obsessive/compulsive freak of frightening proportions. You tell me how it proves he’s “worth billions”, since there are limits to how much one can put into an IRA. Interestingly, the Harvard-educated author you just ripped off didn’teven posit that in the first place…for a very good reason, DA.
    
    Or better yet, why don’t you Google, copy and paste one the several perfectly reasonable and legal reasons many financial analysts have offered for how that may have happened. I mean, you could sit here all day and have a copy/paste argument with yourself, and learn something while you’re at it? Actually read more than one side of an argument this time. Comprehend it, DA, not just read, google, copy and paste and then like a name-dropper at a party, pretend you actually have some knowledge of the subject. Give it a try.
    - The Dark Avenger
      
      14 minutes it took you to respond to this. 14 minutes. And 4 minutes yesterday morning, at 7:15 am my time, 4:15 am your time.
      
      Dennis, I’m not sure you know or understand how this Disqus system of comment and responses works, so I’m kind of at a loss as to how to formulate a coherent answer to you without wasting Ben’s bandwidth as you seem to be doing on this thread.
      
      Rule 3, dragging in unrelated stuff into your response. I’m gonna have to flag this one, Dennis. You were able to follow it for a while. What happened, big guy?
      
      You do understand that Ben has rules around here, right?
      
      Have a good day.
      - Dennis
        
        You have nothing to offer on this subject that you tried to act proficient in, DA. I know how Disqus works. You still have to be refreshing my feed on a bizarrely frequent basis in order to respond as quickly as you do no matter when and where I post. 4:15 in the morning, 4 minutes after I posted??? C’mon, that’s psychotherapist’s couch stuff right there, DA.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Dennis, I have to flag this comment as well. Ben has made it clear that he doesn’t want commentators continuing their vendettas against each other here. If you can’t or don’t want to answer my question, I don’t think this discussion will be productive to the issues you raised or the issue of Bob Woodward and his recent conduct.
        
        Therefore I’m going to have to end it here and now.
        
        Have a good day, what’s left of it.
      - Dennis
        
        Run run run run run awaaaaaay.
        
        I think you may have forgotten that Ben told you to stop the kid-stuff flagging. DA. I’d love to carry on a discussion of this subject as long as that’s what it is, not just you simply googling, copying and pasting, because that’s futile and stupid.
Dennis

Ben,

On the subject of Bob Woodward being a hack journalist extraordinaire, can we expect any further follow-up to your headlined claim that Mitt Romney is worth billions? Have there been any more details uncovered or any more unnamed sources making opinions anonymously?

And will you be doing any reporting on why Democrats have given a complete pass to Jack Lew and turned a blind eye to the things he’s done that were strangely similar to the things you had such objections for Mitt Romney having done?
Christopher Foxx

Given the US spends more money on its military that every country on the planet combined

I don’t think that’s exactly true. The US spends more than quite a lot of countries combined, but not the entire rest of the planet.

The President could press a button in the White House and blow Iran off the face of the planet.

Ah, you’re just being hyperbolic a lot in that paragraph. Got it.
- Benthedailybanter
  
  On the first point, yes, US spending takes up anywhere between 40-50% of the planet’s spending on arming themselves. But it still spends far, far more than everyone else. On the second point, that’s not being hyperbolic. There are enough nuclear warheads in existence to destroy all life on the planet, and given the US has most of them, Iran wouldn’t be too much of a problem (for a graphic illustration of this, check ere: http://gizmodo.com/5899569/how-many-nukes-would-it-take-to-blow-up-the-entire-planet)
  - Christopher Foxx
    
    On the first point, absolutely the US spends far more than anyone else, than a lot of anyone else’s combined. My intent was just to point out that it wasn’t more than every one combined. In case someone reads that little fact-let here and propagates it.
    
    On the second, absolutely the US has enough warheads to obliterate life on the planet (well, maybe not cockroaches) several times over. But they don’t launch with merely the push of a button in the White House. So, yes, that was “an extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally” (aka, hyperbole) that you made.
    
    (Unless you were intending it to be taken seriously in which case, don’t we have enough trouble with the wingnuts who have an imaginary image of Obama to object to without adding to it?)
Dennis

Ron Fournier will be the next ‘hack journalist’ since he says he too was threatened by this White House, and Lanny Davis will be called a hack journalist/former senior White House official for saying he was threatened by this White House for writing something critical about this president. Anyone remember when liberal bloggers used to get upset about that sort of thing? Heh.
- http://profiles.google.com/rollotamasi13 Rollo Tamasi
  
  uh huh
  - Dennis
    
    Liberals just trust this president more, Rollo. Funny how that works.
    - http://profiles.google.com/rollotamasi13 Rollo Tamasi
      
      uh huh
    - Christopher Foxx
      
      Gosh, Dennis. Maybe it has something to do with him actually being more trustworthy.
- Christopher Foxx
  
  Anyone remember when liberal bloggers used to get upset about that sort of thing?
  
  Anyone remember when “conservatives” weren’t ridiculous hypocrite crybabies?
  
  Me neither.
trgahan

Mr. Woodward, please explain to these children here why the richest nation on earth needs to pay for another aircraft carrier in a part of the world we already have a huge ongoing military presence while these children go without healthcare, educational opportunities, access to food, etc because our government budgets are “bloated” and “we need to cut spending as to not burden our children”?

Banter Voices

Bob Woodward: Hack Journalist Extraordinaire

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