“One of the five men arrested early Saturday in the attempt to bug the Democratic National Committee headquarters is the salaried security coordinator for President Nixon’s reelection committee.” — The Washington Post, June 19, 1972. By Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.
So began the storied career of Bob Woodward and the rise of an era of journalism that bowed at the altar of investigative reporting. The press became obsessed with kicking over the rocks that hid government corruption and stonewalling.
And now a mere 40 years later Woodward, the golden boy of the Beltway, has become the center of a D.C. insiders’ dustup. Why? Because he had the temerity to challenge the White House’s story line about the “sequester,” an issue the American public currently seems not to care about.
The entire Woodward vs. The White House contretemps is the ultimate in insider political baseball. Woodward wrote a column stating that Obama did not negotiate in good faith with the Republicans during the 2011 budget negotiations over the debt deal. Cue a giant yawn from 99 percent of the voters.
Getting deeper into the weeds, Woodward asserted that Obama has “moved the goal posts” since the negotiations. In fact it was Obama and Jack Lew, now the Treasury secretary, who proposed the dreaded concept of the sequester. Bet that tidbit got you to perk up your ears. From this seed sprouted the current cause celebre.
Since all Washington political strategy is based on the blame game, it was imperative for the White House to ensure Republicans were on the receiving end of blame for the sequester and potential damage it might cause to American workers and the economy. Hence the Woodward allegation could not go unchallenged.
It fell to Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council, to dissuade Woodward and discredit his assertions regarding the budget negotiations and the rise of the sequester. Sperling chewed Woodward out over the phone and in a follow-up email told Woodward he would “regret” his claim about the White House and Congress wheeling and dealing in 2011.
To paraphrase Bill Clinton, it all comes down to what your definition of “regret” is. Woodward takes this as a warning whereas the White House and liberal media take it as routine semantics. Regardless, the bottom line is this episode epitomizes the Obama strategy for controlling the press.
The Obama White House is the most thin-skinned and toughest since Nixon. They haven’t achieved the pinnacle of illegality that the Halderman boys perfected, but when it comes to dusting off the brass knuckles they are right in the game.
The key difference between now and 1972 is the obsequiousness of the press corps. Despite being treated by the White House with contempt at best, the press corps fawns and flops for Obama. Never a hardball. Rarely even a fastball. Usually a hanging curve ball.
The irony is in the current fight many in the press are siding with Obama rather than their former hero and poster boy Woodward. A plethora of pundits and columnists have unloaded a broadside against Woodward taunting him as out of touch with the reality of the practice of journalism. The courageous reporter has become a punch line to a cadre of liberals in the media.
All of this would be an entertaining sideshow if it weren’t emblematic of the success of the White House strategy of marginalizing the press and dominating the news cycle. Obama has fewer official press conferences than any of his recent predecessors. He avoids impromptu questions from reporters — Friday’s relatively brief encounter in the briefing room being one of those rare exceptions. The White House has upped the Rose Garden strategy by surrounding the Rose Garden with barbed wire.
Obama permits interviews with admiring talk show hosts and news anchors that play lapdog rather than watchdog. The cherry on the media control sundae is the White House has set the gold standard for using new and social media to drive its message and engage supporters.
As for the future relationship between the D.C. press corps and this administration — by attacking the biggest of the media big dogs, the White House has raised the stakes just in case any smaller dog wants to challenge its message.
Tobe Berkovitz is an advertising professor at Boston University.
