The Man With the Inside Scoop

"I do think that Bob's politics have changed some over the years. He's much more sympathetic to the establishment, especially the Republican establishment," Gergen says. But after "30 years as a trailblazer," he adds, Woodward "doesn't deserve" the level of criticism directed at him.

Each Woodward book has generated its share of controversy -- particularly a hospital bed scene with a dying CIA chief William Casey in "The Veil" -- but nothing like the impassioned debate surrounding the Bush volumes. His books about Bill Clinton's administration, while nowhere near as polarizing as the work on Bush, were also dependent on top-level sources.

"He needs as his window into history the people who talk to him," says former Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry, noting that not everyone in that White House cooperated with Woodward. "That gives you a very flawed and distorted view.

"I certainly was a source on some of his books. I felt like I ended up having a prominent role that really didn't reflect reality. My role was inflated because I talked to him. You become part of the breathless narrative."

Gergen, who worked for Clinton before McCurry joined the White House, says his bosses told him he was expected to talk to Woodward once a week.

During the Bush years, Woodward has enjoyed what seems like unfettered access to the likes of Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Andrew Card and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. His highest-level source is Bush himself, who has granted him several long, on-the-record interviews and ordered Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who initially turned down Woodward, to cooperate with the reporter.

Mary Matalin, a former aide to Cheney, says Woodward does "an extraordinary job" and "works like a dog." But outsiders often wonder: Why does an administration not known for being fond of the press put so much effort into cooperating with Woodward?

"There is a really deep respect for his work, and a deep desire by the president to have a contemporaneous, historically accurate account," Matalin says. "The president rightly believed that Woodward, for good and ill, warts and all, would chronicle what happened. It's in the White House's interest to have a neutral source writing the history of the way Bush makes decisions. That's why the White House gives him access."

The Game of Access

Woodward views himself as conducting the same kind of reporting -- piling fact upon fact from a range of sources -- as he did during Watergate, with the added benefit of access to Bush. He has said Bush is just one voice in a complex narrative and that he includes material that does not necessarily cast the president in a favorable light.

Woodward's 2002 book, "Bush at War," was a largely positive portrayal of the successful military campaign in Afghanistan, and some critics derided it as too soft on the president. But last year's "Plan of Attack" was more of a critical success.

The book made headlines with reports that Rumsfeld had given the Saudi ambassador a heads-up on the coming war, that then-CIA Director George Tenet had called the weapons intelligence a "slam dunk," and that then-Secretary of State Powell had warned Bush on Iraq that "you break it, you own it." Campaign aides to both Bush and John Kerry embraced the book, seizing on different aspects.

Fresh memories of events can also be crucial, academics say. "If you didn't have Woodward at the time or shortly afterward pushing people very hard to get information for his books, much of that stuff would be lost forever," says historian Michael Beschloss.