The Woodward Bombshell

"Woodward, who had lengthy interviews with President Bush for his two most recent books, dismissed criticism that he has grown too close to White House officials. He said he prods them into providing a fuller picture of the administration's inner workings.

" 'The net to readers is a voluminous amount of quality, balanced information that explains the hardest target in Washington,' Woodward said, referring to the Bush administration."

Here's how the papers are playing it, starting with the New York Times : "The disclosure that a current or former Bush administration official told Bob Woodward of The Washington Post more than two years ago that the wife of a prominent administration critic worked for the C.I.A. threatened Wednesday to prolong a politically damaging leak investigation that the White House had hoped would soon be contained.

"The revelation left the special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, grappling with an unexpected new twist - one that he had not uncovered in an exhaustive inquiry - and gave lawyers for I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff and the only official charged with a crime, fresh evidence to support his defense."

Who's the source? "A senior administration official said that neither Mr. Bush himself, nor his chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., nor his counselor, Dan Bartlett, was Mr. Woodward's source. So did spokesmen for former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, former C.I.A. Director George J. Tenet and his deputy John E. McLaughlin."

Oh yeah? What senior administration official, New York Times?

Los Angeles Times : "Bob Woodward's latest bombshell -- this one about the CIA leak investigation -- touched off a furor in Washington on Wednesday, raising questions about the noted journalist's previous failure to disclose what he knew, the completeness of the government's investigation of the case, and the identity of yet another top Bush administration source. . . .

"Other journalists were more critical of Woodward, whose reporting techniques have come under attack before. He wins access to high-level officials in researching his best-selling books, but draws complaints that there is a conflict between his roles as book writer and reporter. Former New York Times staffer Sydney H. Schanberg, now a writer for the Village Voice, said Woodward might have become too close to his sources, much like the Nixon apologists in the press corps who termed the Watergate break-in -- the scandal that Woodward helped uncover -- 'a third-rate burglary.'"

Wall Street Journal: "This week's testimony by Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward in the CIA-leak investigation raises the prospect of additional Bush-administration officials becoming entangled in the two-year probe.

"At the same time, Mr. Woodward's involvement muddies Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's case against I. Lewis Libby, the vice president's former chief of staff and the only official indicted so far."

Baltimore Sun : "The notion that Woodward appeared to be operating under his own rules echoes complaints about him in the past from fellow Post staff members, some of whom resented the fact that he sometimes withheld exclusive stories for books such as 'Bush at War' and 'Plan of Attack' rather than submit the information for publication in the paper.

"It also brought to mind a common view of Miller, who apparently failed to reveal to her editors the extent of her involvement in the Plame case and who unnerved many of her colleagues at The Times because, by her own admission, she did whatever she wanted for much of her career."