The Decline and Fall of Bob Woodward

Those of us who remember the seventies came to see Bob Woodward as a hero. The way he together with Carl Bernstein exposed the Watergate scandal has become the epic standard of investigative journalism. To confront any Presidency is daunting to confront the corrupt and abusive Nixon White House can be considered heroic. However, recently Woodward has gotten into a spat with White House Economic Director Gene Sperling over an email exchange in which Sperling wrote "I think you will regret staking out that claim." Woodward is now claiming on tv appearances that the Obama White House is threatening him. He's even gone on Fox tv, whcih is usually a sign of moral degradation. Anyway, reading Sperling's full email shows that there was no threat implied. What's happened is that Woodward has gone from being an insurgent to an insider, because forty years is a long time.