Post Politics Hour

Don't want to miss out on the latest buzz in politics? Start each day at wonk central: The Post Politics Hour. Join in each weekday morning at 11 a.m. as a member of The Washington Post's team of White House and Congressional reporters answers questions about the latest in buzz in Washington and The Post's coverage of political news.

Washington Post national political editor John F. Harris was online Thursday, Nov. 17, at 11 a.m. ET to discuss the latest in political news.

The transcript follows.

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Washington, D.C.: The Post reported today about Bob Woodward's assertion that he was told in almost a "gossipy" way about Plame's operative status from his source. At the same time Mr. Woodward claims that the "gossip" was part of an off-the-record conversation. Isn't it disingenuous to on the one hand claim confidentiality for a conversation with a source, and at the same strip out something as important as Plame as mere gossip? If the conversation involved gossip, then he should reveal who and what was said to the readers. If its confidential, then Bob should have the professionalism to not deem it "gossip." He can't have it both ways, and the fact that he seems to indicates to me that Bob is spinning out of sympathy for the sources that gave him access. Either that or Bob is more naive than I thought.

John F. Harris: I'm sorry, but I don't know about the matter to which you refer.

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Arlington, Va.: So how're things going between Mr. Pincus and Mr. Woodward today?

John F. Harris: I'm not going to dignify this question with a response.

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Boston, Mass.: Mr. Woodward's recent revelations--seen in light of his comments on Rovegate for two years portraying himself as a "neutral observer"--raise serious questions re his journalistic ethics. Is there any direct evidence that Woodward is in fact telling the truth that he knew about Plame in mid-June 2003? Can the Post can fairly examine the question of his (lack of) credibility/integrity in light of his status at the paper?

John F. Harris: I'm going to have to refer you to the State Department on this.

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Washington, D.C.: "Woodward said he realized that his June 2003 conversation with the unnamed official had greater significance after Libby was described in an indictment as having been the first administration official to tell a reporter -- the Times' Miller -- about Plame. Downie said he has told Woodward that he must be more communicative about sensitive matters in the future."

Let's talk timeline here - did Miller get told first or did Woodward? This is crazy - Miller goes to jail AND gets publicly lambasted, Libby gets indicted and has to resign, and Woodward is told that he must be more communicative. As National Political Editor (I would guess Mr. Woodward's boss), what are your thoughts here?

John F. Harris: Asked and answered already. Next question.

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Baltimore, Md.: Do you think that Woodward will have to name his source to Fitzgerald?

John F. Harris: Okay, okay, I've exhausted the repertoire of evasive techniques I learned in six years of covering the White House. Let's talk Woodward....apparently all the questions are on that topic, not surprisingly.

My understanding is that the prosecutor already knew Woodward's source, and Woodward, by agreement with the source, has testified about their spring 2003 conversations with respect to Valerie Plame.

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Chatham, Mass.: The Post reported that Bob Woodward said, "I explained in detail that I was trying to protect my sources. That's job number one in a case like this. . . . I hunkered down. I'm in the habit of keeping secrets. I didn't want anything out there that was going to get me subpoenaed."

My question is: Does protecting your source always trump serving justice and the pubic good?

My comment is: I think Bob Woodward should be fired for serving the wrong boss - neither the truth, the American people, nor The Washington Post, but treasonous officials.

John F. Harris: Just to clarify an earlier question, I am not Bob's boss as national political editor. Bob is himself an assistant managing editor of the Post, but that title is for the most part vestigial--back from the days when he was more actively involved in supervising staff and stories. These days, he mostly works on his own long-term projects, usually in conjunction with books he is working on, and his editor on most important matters--including this one--is Washington Post executive editor Len Downie.

Bob should by no means be fired. He is one of the giants of journalism, and is justifiably an institution at the Post.

He is is in the dog house with Len Downie, and justifiably so, for not sharing his role in this matter. But even if he had been more forthcoming earlier with Len, it's not clear what this would have led to in terms of coverage.

All of us have responsibilities ultimately to readers, but we also have solemn obligations to sources--we don't give them up when we agree to protect their identity. Every day, this leads to tensions--we can't share everything we know with readers--but the practice of protecting anonymous officials is in the cause of learning more about the workings of government and other institutions in which it can be difficult to get candid on-the-record information.

This seems pretty straightforward to me.

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Atlanta, Ga.: I've been asking this question in all the politics chats for the last week. Seems none of you want to touch it!

With the National Enquirer (and now the Globe) reporting that the President is back on the sauce, is anyone from The Post investigating this? Why would you not think that this is an important story?

John F. Harris: Let's take a break from Woodward to post this, since you've been persistent. As the guy that buys the groceries at my house, I've definitely seen these headlines, but to the best of my knowledge no one at the Post is pursuing.

This may come as a shock, but we don't regard the Enquirer and the Globe as all that credible publications.

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Springfield, Va.: Is it common practice for Post reporters to fax over their interview questions before meeting their subject, or is this some special technique employed only by Mr. Woodward?

John F. Harris: That is not common practice in newspaper reporting. I will say as a book author, I do sometimes send an e-mail to sources in advance telling them some of the ground I intend to cover. I do this because it sometimes helps people refresh memories, sharpen their thoughts, and perhaps get documents or other supporting material ready to look at it. Frequently, book interviews involve going back over episodes that take place over a period of time, and are not simply about whatever is immediately in the news. So this practice can be helpful.

Obviously, it depends on good faith. I would not do it if I thought the main result was to give a disingenuous source more time to prepare a cock-and-bull story.

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Buffalo, N.Y.: It seems like reporters like Woodward and Judith Miller put on the kid gloves with this administration in order to get information and access. Is this White House just so disciplined that the media is having a hard time getting information or are journalists just not doing their job?

John F. Harris: Let's leave Miller out of it and focus on Bob. He's definitely eating a turd sandwich on this episode, and he acknowledged that he should have done some things differently regarding his conversations with Post editors, and in public comments about the Fitzgerald investigation. But does anyone really thing that Woodward--with a 33-year record of breaking major stories and reporting fairly and aggressively on how government works in Washington--puts on "kid gloves" with sources? Bob has reported as much about how important decisions in this administration as any reporter, and his work on these subjects has been cited by both administration supporters and critics.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Nice Scott McClellan impersonation!

Seriously, though, what is your professional relationship with Mr. Woodward? It is my understanding that he would be considered at the level of your boss, though you wouldn't be actually reporting to him...or something like that.

John F. Harris: Just for the record, I never covered the Bush White House, so I was not in strict sense doing an impersonation--just reaching for the bag of tricks that all press secretaries use.

Bob is a colleague and casual friend. He's not my boss. As someone who has written historically about the Clinton presidency, I have a keen appreciation for the value of his work. He gets a lot of details about important episodes in more-or-less real time that are very hard to recover and reconstruct after the fact...memory is too perishable.

In doing this reporting, he does make agreements on confidential access that occasionally present issues about his responsibilities to the paper versus his responsibilities to his books. The trade-off is easily

worth it.

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Philadelphia, Pa.: "Bob should by no means be fired. He is one of the giants of journalism, and is justifiably an institution at The Post." Couldn't much of this have been said about Judith Miller and her status at the NY Times before her WMD reporting? While I don't think Bob should be fired, it seems like he made a pretty egregious mistake in keeping The Post in the dark about his role in the Plame affair, while at the same time criticizing the investigation on television.

John F. Harris: I don't want to get in Miller bashing, but Bob's professional reputation is different than hers, and his work has held up over time.

He made a mistake, as he acknowledged. His boss and mine, Len Downie, is right to be aggrieved about the breakdown in communication, but I don't feel we should be preparing Bob for the autodafe.

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San Diego, Calif.: Judging from Woodward's public statement, it looks as if he uses the same typewriter he used in the 70s. Is this true?

John F. Harris: That's funny. We should summon some of those typewriter experts who were called into service during the "60 Minutes" National Guard story to get to the bottom of this.

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Columbia, Md.: Quite frankly, I've read the Woodward apology as well as today's Media Notes on the issue, and saw several segments on the subject on network and cable news last night. Not to be facetious about this, I still come away from all that reporting with the same burning question: What did Bob know, and when did he know it? I suppose the question can be posed to either Bob Woodward or Bob Novak.

John F. Harris: My guess is that if Bob is willing, washingtonpost.com would be glad to give him some time to do an on-line chat.

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Austin, Tex.: Where do people get the idea that Woodward's revelations in any way help Libby's cause?

John F. Harris: You make a good point. We do not know for sure what--if anything--this does for Fitzgerald's case or for Libby's defense.

It does seem that it makes clear that Fitzgerald's assertion that Libby was the first person in the administration to mention Valerie Plame and her marriage to Iraq war critic Joe Wilson was not correct.

One line of speculation is that Libby could claim he heard from Woodward about Plame, thus buttressing his assertion that her name was in circulation in journalistic circles and he was merely passing along hearsay.

But Fitzgerald in his indictment compiled a detailed chronology which he says shows that Libby deliberately told falsehoods to FBI investigators and a federal grand jury.

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Washington, D.C.: The thing that really frustrates me about this Woodward thing is this: it doesn't make sense to say that his conversation with the leaker is protected by the whole anonymous source thing and leave it at that.

For the leaker, telling Woodward about Plame was a crime. Period. I understand that anonymity is extremely important when someone is giving information about unethical activities or exposing a crime. But in this case, the leaker wasn't exposing a crime - he was committing one. Doesn't that make this situation different?

John F. Harris: With respect, you don't know that what Woodward's source did was a crime. Fitzgerald has not alleged any such crime.

Fitzgerald has to weigh different things...did someone who passed on information about Plame in the course of trying to push back against Joe Wilson know her CIA undercover status and intentionally violate that? And did that person answer questions candidly about his or her role once the investigation was underway?

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Pittsburgh, Pa.: OK. This question is NOT about Woodward. I'm sure he's had enough flogging with a wet noodle to last quite a while.

My question concerns Cheney. He has come out with both barrels blazing about, in essence, "you folks got the same information we did, so this talk of misleading us into war is uncalled for." Excuse me?? I thought the problem was that Congress didn't get all of the information it should have, or at the very least, it was inaccurate. It seems that his righteous indignation may backfire on him. Your thoughts?

John F. Harris: The administration is being very aggressive in pushing this line of argument, including with Vice President Cheney's tough statement yesterday.

It is true that Democrats backed the Iraq war based on intelligence they saw. But this intelligence was provided to the Congress by the administration.

And there have been persistent questions about whether the administration took ambiguous or fragmentary evidence about Iraq's WMD capacity and presented it as though the conclusions were clear-cut.

It seems likely these questions will persist despite the "barrels blazing" response.

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Mountain View, Calif.: Congrats on The Survivor, John. Bill Clinton has been as visible as any recent ex-President I can recall. Would you give us your crystal-ball look and what you think he'll be doing in the next five, ten, 15 years -- other than, of course, being First Lady (excuse me, gentleman).

John F. Harris: Thanks for the good words.

Senator Clinton's presidential ambitions and her future will do a lot to determine Bill Clinton's future.

It does seem apparent that he wants to use his ex-presidency to put the spotlight on issues that interest him, especially internationally. He's been doing a lot on the problem AIDS in the developing world, a relatively minor theme of his administration when it was in power, but his efforts to negotiate lower drug prices and spread education and treatment efforts do seem to be producing quite laudable results in many nations.

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Arlington, Va.: Whaddaya mean, the Enquirer and the Globe aren't credible? I mean, they were right on the money with Gennifer Flowers et al. re Clinton, but now they are verboten? I don't get it, have journalists changed their rules (again)?

John F. Harris: Yep, they were right on that steamy episode from the 1992 presidential campaign. But I'm pretty sure I recall they paid her for her on-the-record statement, and she also presented some evidence--her secretly recorded tape conversations which did seem to suggest a close relationship with the then-governor.

The tabloid stories the earlier poster mentioned did not come with any supporting evidence, based on my grocery store reading.

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Raleigh, N.C.: Clinton went out yesterday and called the Iraq war "a big mistake" or something similar to that. Is it common for past presidents to criticize sitting presidents or is it just that President Clinton misses the spotlight?

John F. Harris: I saw that comment, and I was struck by it since he has not gone that far previously in criticizing the Iraq war.

The response from Republicans was pretty quick--taking note of Clinton's own quite hawkish statements as president warning about the danger of Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons and the risk of not confronting the problem, as well as Senator Clinton's votes in favor of the war.

So far, Senator Clinton has not said anything as strong as her husband in calling the war a mistake, nor anything like former Senator Edwards, who described his own pro-war vote in 2002 as a mistake.

If she did say something like that, it would be a very big story.

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Fact Check!: Fitzgerald never, ever, ever said the Libby was the FIRST source for anything. He only said that Libby was a widely known source.

Please get your facts straight.

John F. Harris: I've checked with reporters working on this story just now, but have not gone back to check the indictment myself.

My understanding is that Fitzgerald has asserted that Libby was the first official KNOWN to have spread Plame's name...allowing for the possibility that he did not know everything.

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Dillon Beach, Calif.: It seems that most every news article these days contain an abundance with references to sources who wish to remain unnamed due to various and sundry reasons. Is there really that much paranoia around Washington about possible retaliation for speaking out against the administration or just plain lack of guts about taking a stand.

John F. Harris: I would say that there is quite a lot of fear in Washington about speaking candidly on the record.

We definitely use background sources too frequently, but there is a reason we use them so much: it's very hard to get candid information and comment without them.

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Washington, D.C.: How long before Dana Priest gets dragged into court?

John F. Harris: I devoutly hope she doesn't get dragged there, and her work on overseas detention camps is an example of information that would never be learned without relying on confidential sources.

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Brooklyn, N.Y.: Hi Mr. Harris!

Who is right, Walter Pincus or Bob Woodward?

John F. Harris: Obviously, I don't know...But I would tend to put a little more faith in Walter's memory because this story is something that's been central to what he's been working on for a couple years, whereas until quite recently it was a peripheral matter for Bob. It's a case of jumbled memories, in my view, not an effort to mislead.

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Fairfax County, Va.: Kudos for Bob Woodward for being a stand-up guy. As soon as he realized that what he had done merited an apology, he apologized. If only we all had those basic Midwestern values -- although I guess there would be less to blog about then.

John F. Harris: Here's a dissenting view, since the overwhelming majority of the Woodward questions and comments on this chat have been hostile to him.

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Philadelphia, Pa.: Just one question and an observation: Why isn't it obstruction of justice for Woodward and his source not to come forward during this highly publicized investigation? I believe that journalists like Judy Miller and Bob Woodward have lost their objectivity and have become too close to their sources with whom they need access to maintain their own celebrity status. It's an unholy symbiosis that does NOT benefit the public or your newspapers. I feel very angry about it--especially Woodward going on TV and badmouthing the prosecutor and his objective to get to the truth. After all, that should be Woodward's objective as well.

John F. Harris: Okay, last Woodward question, and last question for today's chat. I got to a very small fraction of what was a record number of questions in my experience doing these chats.

Bob, under a carefully crafted agreement with his source and the prosecutor, testified about his conversation.

As for his public statements, I think it would have been more politic for him not to say anything, given that he was connected to the case. But I believe he has been entirely sincere in asserting his belief that the Plame matter has been blown beyond its proper proportion, and that in general it's a terrible idea to have prosecutors sending subpoenas and taking testimony about how information is exchanged between reporters and government officials.

He thinks the case has been a bad thing from start to finish, and both his statements and his actions (and non-actions) reflected that skepticism and even disdain for it.

Those views that he expressed on Larry King and elsewhere are close to those of a lot of journalists.

Thanks for the questions and comments. Check in tomorrow.

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