The Woodward Bombshell

"The belated revelation that Woodward has been sitting on information about the Plame controversy reignited questions about his unique relationship with The Post while he writes books with unparalleled access to high-level officials, and about why Woodward denigrated the Fitzgerald probe in television and radio interviews while not divulging his own involvement in the matter.

" 'It just looks really bad,' said Eric Boehlert, a Rolling Stone contributing editor and author of a forthcoming book on the administration and the press. 'It looks like what people have been saying about Bob Woodward for the past five years, that he's become a stenographer for the Bush White House.'

"Said New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen: 'Bob Woodward has gone wholly into access journalism.'

"Robert Zelnick, chairman of Boston University's journalism department, said: 'It was incumbent upon a journalist, even one of Woodward's stature, to inform his editors. . . . Bob is justifiably an icon of our profession -- he has earned that many times over -- but in this case his judgment was erroneous.'

"Shortly after Woodward's conversation with Downie in late October, a federal grand jury indicted Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in the Plame case. Woodward told Fitzgerald that he met with Libby on June 27, 2003, but that he does not recall discussing Plame or her husband, White House critic and former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.

"Fitzgerald has spent nearly two years investigating whether administration officials illegally leaked Plame's name to the media to discredit Wilson.

"Exactly what triggered Woodward's disclosure to Downie remains unclear. Woodward said yesterday that he was 'quite aggressively reporting' a story related to the Plame case when he told Downie about his involvement as the term of Fitzgerald's grand jury was set to expire on Oct. 28.

"The administration source who originally told Woodward about Plame approached the prosecutor recently to alert him to his 2003 conversation with Woodward. The source had not yet contacted Fitzgerald when Woodward notified Downie about their conversation, Woodward said.

" 'After Libby was indicted, [Woodward] noticed how his conversation with the source preceded the timing in the indictment,' Downie said yesterday. 'He's been working on reporting around that subject ever since the indictment.'

"Once Fitzgerald contacted Woodward on Nov. 3 with a request to testify, the newspaper's lawyers asked that nothing be published until after the deposition, Woodward said.

"The disclosure has prompted critics to compare Woodward to Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter who left the newspaper last week amid questions about her lone-ranger style and why she had not told her editors sooner about her involvement in the Plame matter. An online posting at Reason magazine called Woodward 'Mr. Run Amok,' a play on Miller's nickname at the Times. Neither reporter wrote a story on the subject.

"Rem Rieder, editor of American Journalism Review, called Woodward's disclosure 'stunning' and saidit 'seems awfully reminiscent of what we criticized Judith Miller for.'