Just Another One of the President's Men

It’s been an odd year for Bob Woodward.  First, another paper winds up revealing who Deep Throat was, Mark Felt former assistant director of the FBI.  Second, in the most famous confidential source matter since 1974, Woodward makes a sudden appearance right after Patrick Fitzgerald finished rolling his opening credits.  The Washington Post had come out of the Judith Miller 85 days protecting Scooter Libby looking considerably more serious about its Pentagon Papers/Watergate legacy than the New York Times.  Now Woodward claims that some other senior White House Official mentioned Valerie Plame’s CIA connection to him weeks before Scooter Libby ever uttered the name.  For someone whom the right wing blogosphere insists was just a low level, non covert, analyst, Valerie Plame was an awfully popular topic of conversation at the White House.  

Thirty one years ago, Bob Woodward was lurking around DC parking garages and sending signals by changing the position of flower pots on his front step.  Now, the guy hangs out at the White House with insiders who casually talk about CIA analysts by name while he watches the President and staff make the big decisions about the war.  Never mind that all this is happening before Joe Wilson ever writes his op ed in the New York Times.  I’m trying to see the movie of this one.  Will they call it “Just Another one of the President’s Men”.  Maybe in the closing credits, Nora Ephron can do a blooper scene with Woodward getting hit in the face with a cream pie instead of Carl Bernstein.

I suspect this is what happens to you after you get portrayed in the movies by Robert Redford.  Once that happens, you lose track of the fact that you’re really supposed to be famous for exposing government scandals not hanging out with the guys who are in the midst of carrying one off.  At least he can give “Official X” a decent memorable name symbolic of the era like he did Mark Felt,  maybe this source can be called “Gay Marriage” or “Right to Life”.  

Anyway, I’m hoping my friend Official X, I mean Karl Rove, will let me do the screenplay for “Yet Another One of the President’s Tools.”  I’ve already got a scene written.

W:  “You know we could do that, but it might be wrong.”

BW:  “Wow, Mr. President.  You’re so incredibly thoughtful.  Let me make sure I make a note here that you had a second thought about something.”

RC:  Lewis, you actually finished Yale.  What’s a seven letter word for “fair game”?

LL:  Sir, I think some reporter told me you might try “Valerie.”

RC:  Okay, but does 9 across start with “F” or “P”?

LL:  I could call Judith.  She works for the Times, probably even knows the guy who does the Sunday crossword.

W:  So, okay, I tell everyone that Saddam has been looking to buy uranium somewhere in Africa.  

BW:  Wow, Mr. President you’re so precise and the coffee here is a lot better than it was in that parking garage way back when.

RC:  Just say the words that Karl wrote for you Mr. President.

KR:  I know there’s a Valerie who works at CIA headquarters.

LL:  I know a Valerie whose married to Joe Wilson.

BW:  Boy, I’m glad they’re just joking around and there’s no connection between any of this stuff.

RC:  Another latte Mr. Woodward? You won't have to find it under a rock here.
BW:Yes, yes, no smoking guns here either, not even a match.